Two-Face Tuesday: The Secret Origin of Bronze Age Two-Face!

[thehefner]

Dig that great Aparo Two-Face, eh? I have a deep-rooted fondness for Aparo's turtleneck!Harvey.

While the story I bring you today is sadly not drawn by Jim Aparo, it's a fascinating one nonetheless: Two-Face's canon origin from 1977-1987, as seen in DC All-Stars #14: Secret Origins of the Super-Villains. The key twist to this take is the revelation that Harvey Dent wasn't Maroni's real target when the acid was thrown!





CREDITS: Writer: Jack C. Harris. Artists: Ed Davis and Joe Rubenstein.


It all starts when Harvey, in all his Arkham Asylum finery, gets a visitor:





After a good flip in his favor, Detective Dave BogartDavis knows he has only a limited time to explain:





Lord love comic artists who awkwardly arrange their panels. I appreciate the challenge of trying to tell a good, clear story in a mere ten pages, but if the artist has to include an arrow to tell the reader where to read next, then that artist has failed. That said, I rather like the way the characters look here, as it rather evokes a story out of Creepy.

Also, it's a cute idea that Harvey just assumed that Maroni's "pretty boy!" was naturally directed at him. For those who think that Harvey actually was a vain person, it certainly would say something about the character.

Harvey takes Davis to a police storage warehouse, where they find the confession hidden in a secret compartment in Harvey's old desk. However, they're ambushed by none other than Maroni himself, who shoots Davis in the arm while Harvey attacks.











Because bullets totally ricochet that way.

Since the bullet hit the "evil side," Harvey deems that Moroni was destined to die, and since it landed "good side" up, he agrees to return to Arkham peacefully. Davis' reaction is essentially, "Okay, crazy."

EDIT: As an added bonus, I thought folks might be interested to see that this origin had officially been canon for about a decade, right up to the first volume of Who's Who:





Yeah, I'm mainly including it as an excuse to show off Brian Bolland artwork. As if I need an excuse. But damn, I love how Bolland draws Harvey.








It's an interesting take only because it gives Harvey full cause to see himself (and by extension, everyone else) as pawns in the hands of destiny, and he's cool with that. The "vengeance" mentioned in the teaser image doesn't seem to matter to him either way. He's calm, sometimes even joyous in his madness: a common take on the character, especially in the Bronze Age up to the post-Crisis era, and this story gives it a sensible enough foundation.

However, it's precisely this take which makes Two-Face a character who only works as a supporting figure to make others react. He himself is almost a non-character, because action reveals character, and this Harvey makes no action unless the coin tells him so. One could say this applies Two-Face in general, but smart writers know how to subtly reveal character in other ways, which I'll explore in future posts.

This is why Two-Face was (and to many, still is) an under-loved character: because he was less of a character than a foil. As a result, the Bronze Age which brought Two-Face back into comics is also what kept him from becoming one of the greater presences in DC until the post-Crisis era. Yet even now, some writers go back to this take, which is frustrating. It can make for good stories of other characters, but it doesn't make Harvey himself an interesting character.

Comments

[thanekos]

whatever minor purchases harvey makes, he evidently ends them with two dimes and two pennies.

[icon_uk]

And if you're a smart shopkeeer, you smile and take the loss in good spirits

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

That really is a sweet piece of Bolland art.

[icon_uk]

Is there any other kind?

[karunya]

Not the dress suit and white turtleneck thing! Bruce didn't look good in it, and neither do you!

[thehefner]

I should hate it. But it was in the first two Batman comics I ever read, so I still have such a soft spot for that look. It was so very 70's, even in the 80's.

[ebailey140]

I suspect part of the problem with him recently is, strangely enough, due to his popularity and his status as one of the main villains. They felt the need to include him in all that BotC business even when the story didn't really call for him.

A war with the Penguin for control of Gotham's underworld isn't Harvey's thing. He's not the day to day manage the city's crime business type of guy in the first place. That suits Oswald, who just sees this as a business. It's not about Good and Evil or Order and Chaos for him, just profit. But, that isn't Harvey's motivation, any more than it is the Joker's.

[thehefner]

Y'know, that's a great point. Why the hell does Two-Face actually want gangland power? He has no actual motivation for it.

[psychopathicus_rex]

My initial assumption was that Maroni had had a heart attack from the exertion of the battle, and that the coin stopping the bullet was merely a means of justifying Two-Face giving up quietly after that. Maybe I'm wrong, though.
Interesting take on Harvey's scarring - it looks almost like the skin is being stretched away from the center of his face, like someone has grabbed his cheek and pulled REALLY HARD.

[thehefner]

Yeah, I had to cut out the last page that confirmed that it was a ricocheted bullet. That event comes up in a later story which reveals that Maroni survived, and took his revenge by killing Gilda's new husband (and Harvey's old assistant) Dave Stevens. I'll post that one sometime. Maybe next week, even.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Ah, OK. Maybe it's a really heavy coin?

[thehefner]

Having held an actual peace dollar, I can attest that they are pretty damn large and heavy, so maybe.

[psychopathicus_rex]

'Peace dollar'? Is that what they call a two-headed coin?

[thehefner]

No, no, a Peace Dollar is a specific kind of silver dollar from the 1920's-1930's which is the likeliest real-life coin to be made into a double-headed one for Maroni/Harvey's use:



It's been used in comics several times (although many just essentially go for a Washington quarter image), and in The Dark Knight.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Oh. Yeah, that looks like the one, all right - when you see a close-up of Harvey's coin, it generally looks pretty much like that.