Two-Face
|
|
Two-Face is a DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of Batman. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, he first appeared in Detective Comics #66 (1941). He was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Two-Face was once Harvey Dent, the District Attorney of Gotham City, and a close personal ally of Batman. However, after a criminal threw acid in his face, severely disfiguring one half but leaving the other unharmed, he became the insane crime boss Two-Face. Originally, he was one of many gimmicked comic book villains: he plotted crimes around the number two, such as robbing Gotham Second National Bank at 2:00 on February 2. In more recent years, more serious-minded writers have portrayed his obsession as duality and opposites and his behaviour the result of multiple personality disorder.
Although too gruesome for the 1960s television show (Clint Eastwood was proposed to play him at one time) that popularized Batman and much of his rogues gallery, Two-Face has been a prominent Batman foe and was played by Tommy Lee Jones in the 1995 film Batman Forever.</p>
In the comics, Two-Face often formed temporary alliances with Gotham City's other criminals, in particular The Joker and The Penguin.
Full history and analysis
Originally, the character's name was Harvey Kent, but his name was changed to avoid unnecessary association with Clark Kent. Dent, Commissioner James Gordon, and Batman once forged an alliance to rid Gotham City of crime. This alliance ended tragically when a crime boss whom Dent was prosecuting threw acid in his face, horribly scarring one half while leaving the other half the same. The post-Crisis version of these events are recounted in the comic book miniseries, Batman: The Long Halloween. In this book, Mafia chieftain Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni was the criminal who disfigured Dent.
The scarring of half his face brought out his latent multiple personality disorder and transformed him into the villainous Two-Face. Obsessed with duality and opposites, Two-Face's trademark was crimes involving the number two.
Another trademark (how fitting that he should have two of them) was that Two-Face was not consistently evil; every time he contemplated committing a crime, he flipped a two-headed coin, one side of which was scratched. Only if the coin came up scratched-side did Two-Face go ahead and commit the crime, never questioning the result of the toss. Recent interpretations portray this compulsion as a struggle between Dent's evil "Two-Face" personality and his former, law-abiding self.In the 1980s, Frank Miller rewrote Two-Face's origin, making him a victim of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Miller also introduced a much stronger aspect to the dual nature, using Two-Face as a metaphor for the charitable and hostile sides of human nature. Dent was given a back story that included an abusive father and struggling through law school. Miller further expanded on the character by making the pre-accident Dent a major heroic figure in Batman: Year One. Dent's past actions and ties to both Batman and Commissioner Gordon make him an unsettling and personal foe for both men.
Throughout the history of the Batman franchise, attempts have been made to repair his facial scars, but they have not yet cured his insanity; he simply destroys the one side of his face and becomes Two-Face once again.
During the aftermath of the earthquake that left Gotham City in shambles, Harvey Dent put Two-Face on trial--one personality vs. the other--and it is arguably one of the most powerful sequences of the storyline.
In the story line Batman: Hush, it was revealed that Dent's face was repaired once more via plastic surgery. This time around, only the Harvey Dent persona exists.
In the future setting of The Dark Knight Returns, Dent's face was returned to normal through plastic surgery, but at the unforeseen cost of permanently destroying the good-hearted Harvey Dent personality, leaving the monstrous Two-Face in control forever.
Two-Face in other media
Two-Face was not depicted in the 1960s Batman movie or television series. In the 1990s Batman film franchise, Billy Dee Williams appeared as a pre-disfigurement Dent in Batman (1989), and the post-disfigurement Two-Face was played by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995) as a campier character, with no trace of the inner emotional struggle between his good and evil personalities that the post-Miller comics had emphasized
In Batman: The Animated Series, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, voiced by Richard Moll, suffered from deep-seated psychological trauma resulting from years of repressing anger and so developed an alternate personality, known as 'Big Bad Harv', who was as evil as his outer appearance was noble. This alternate would sometimes come out in the form of violent bursts of anger. Eventually, Gotham City crime boss Rupert Thorne got his hands on Dent's psychological records and threatened to blackmail him with it. Dent confronted Thorne and his gang in a chemical plant. During the encounter, Dent lost his temper and went on a violent rampage, which eventually resulted in a massive explosion in the plant. The explosion severely damaged the left side of his body, and the stress of the events left "Big Bad Harv" in control of Dent's personality. Batman, who as Bruce Wayne was Dent's best friend, was tormented by having to apprehend him again and again, gradually losing hope that he could ever be cured.
Ironically, Two-Face once protected Batman's identity after Hugo Strange discovered it. Dent said he knew Wayne personally and found the suggestion absurd.
In later episodes, Dent's personality fragmented a third time, creating a superego personality called "The Judge" that attempted to crush the id that was Two-Face. Dent, looking to eradicate this new threat to him, had no idea that he himself was The Judge.
It is strongly rumoured that Two-Face will soon be returning to the silver screen, in the sequels to the 2005 Batman Begins. What happened in Batman Forever will be of no relevance to these films because they are different series. He will probably appear as pre-accident District Attorney Harvey Dent in the first sequel, and then turn to villainy through his famous accident in the following installment.fr:Double-Face