Two-Face in Harleen

[janegray]

I recently finished reading Harleen by Stjepan Šejić, and since it's been a while since I've read a story that gives a prominent role to Harvey, I figured I'd share the love.

Mind you, I'm not exactly happy with his portrayal here. I hate when they have him flip the coin again to try and get the result he wants. I think that completely misses the point of the tragic figure who needs the coin to make his decisions for him. Imo, it's as if a writer had Dr. Quinzel become a criminal not because the Joker manipulated her, but because she had a passion for mallets.

Still. He has a prominent role. That's more than modern comics have given him in a very long time.


It starts with 3 pages from Harleen #1







The astute readers may have noticed that they changed the origins of the coin. I figure it's because the story of child abuse would take some room to properly tell, while making it the memento of the family of a victim can be easily explained with a couple of lines.

I don't mind the change. The story with Harvey's father is much more powerful, but if there is no room, you have to compromise. After all, this is Harley's story, not Harvey's.

Continues in Harleen #2









To make up for the fact that Harvey does not have extensive psychological damage caused by his father in this AU, the acid is now "a curious mix" of chemicals that causes severe brain damage.











Now, I can't post the full conclusion in Harleen #3 because it requires 13 pages, and I can't post 13 pages because the book has already been shared in this Community, so that would bring it over 1/3.

Which is very fair. This book is about Harley's fall into villainy after meeting the Joker, so that should take priority over Harvey's bits.

Still, aside from my aforementioned annoyance with Harvey trying to cheat the coin (ugh), it's a powerful scene.

Harvey, gone full villain, confronts Harley. He reveals that started out with the best of intentions, and genuinely wanted to help people and save Gotham. But, over the years, he grew more and more cynical and resentful.

Criminals like the Joker would kill people, then be arrested, then escape, then kill more people. Wash rinse repeat.

After 20 years of this, as the piles of bodies grew taller and taller, one day he wished the supervillains would inflict such bloodshed over Gotham, that even the most ardent opponent of the death penalty would finally agree that they should be dealt with permanently.

He felt ashamed of such a wish, and repressed it deep down inside.

Until the chemicals brought it out and up to eleven.

So now he plans to release all the inmates of Arkham and let them terrorize the city to force its people to kill them.



Joker interrupts him, and Harvey flips the coin to decide whether to shoot him or not. Coin comes heads, and Harvey actually accepts it this time. Seems like he ended up resenting the good people who "enabled" Joker even more than he hated Joker himself. Which... actually makes sense. Pain from people you see as allies hurts a lot more than pain from people you see as enemies, there is an added feeling of betrayal there.



And so Harvey's story ends. For now? Harleen is supposed to be a trilogy. We'll see if he appears in the next two volumes.

Comments

[shakalooloo]

I'm not sure how I feel about characters in-universe calling out the 'revolving door' nature of Arkham Asylum...

[janegray]

I think it's a terrible idea, but that ship has sailed. They have been calling it out in big stories for at least ten years. At this point it's as frequent as "my parents are dead."

[lordultimus]

I dunno, now I want to see an origin where Harley gives up a promising psychology career for super villainy purely for her passion for mallets.

[janegray]

You know what, I could see Harley from DC Superhero Girls doing that :P

[shadwing]

The other volumes have been put on hold...not due to DC they really wanted the volumes, but due to Stjepan's own health issues. He can't keep working on other peoples stuff when he REALLY wants to get his own work out there. So the other two parts may not see the light of day for awhile.

He currently has "Sunstone", "Death Vigil", "Fine Print" and "The Queen and the Woodborn" available on his Pateron with hopes that he'll finally get to finishing his "Teen Witchblade/SWITCH/TWITCH" finished...that he had to stop BECAUSE of his aforementioned health issues.

[janegray]

I didn't know he had health issues :(

[shadwing]

Yeah, a few years ago he took on ALLLLOT of extra work for a potential family emergency that would have slowed his production down so he was building a nest egg of sorts, he also didn't take care of himself and got back and shoulder problems IIRC, so he had to pump the breaks before it got so bad he couldn't draw at all.

After he got Harleen in the can he decided to take a year off to do his personal stuff (Sunstone and Death Vigil) then earlier this year he made the call to just focus on his stuff. (He then added the other two projects)

I'm hoping that SOMEDAY he MIGHT be able to do the other two volumes but its not going to be any time soon

[superfangirl1]

The art is just amazing.

On one hand, there were some things that I really liked here. There are some good moments with the characters.

[alicemacher]

I'm of mixed feelings about this. The art is indeed superb, and I like Harleen's portrayal. Harvey's portrayal, not so much.

I can buy Dent taking, prior to his scarring, the standard right-wing stance on violent crime: no parole, no attempts at rehabilitation, just lock 'em up until they grow old or die, whichever comes first. It's not a view I myself share, but that's irrelevant; it's plausible a district attorney, whose very job involves arguing the prosecution's side, might feel that way. That would make the difference between Harvey's stance, before and after his trauma, one of degree, and if we factor in the damage to his brain, I can accept that characterization.

What I find hard to accept is that, his ideological views aside, Dent in this story just doesn't come off as at all likeable, even while he's still sane and working within the system. He's a bully, to put it bluntly. He attempts to use his position to intimidate Harleen into throwing away her life's work.

If he'd at least said, "I'd like you to reconsider your position, maybe modify it by insisting on thorough psychological profiling and evaluation of individual convicts before jumping to parole and rehabilitation," he would've remained sympathetic to me. Instead, it's "I'd like you to end your research." Period.

I'm with Harleen here: what gives him the right to say that? This, to me, is not (pre-scarring) Harvey Dent, who in all other portrayals of him I know of is someone who even with his position and influence is a humble man of integrity, who does his best to work with people. The character portrayed here isn't him. Isn't likeable or sympathetic. Not to this reader, anyway.

[cyberghostface]

Same thing happened with the Harley Quinn cartoon, they made him a duplicitous jerk pre-scarring.

[janegray]

Yeah, that sucked :/

[lego_joker]

And before that, Beware the Batman did pretty much the same thing.

Let's face it: with the current political atmosphere it's probably going to get worse. Kamala Harris' hate-base has pretty much made "prosecutor" synonymous with "cop".

[janegray]

But Gordon is a cop, and he's always portrayed sympathetically...