Two-Face
Two-Face is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Bob Kane, and first appeared in Detective Comics #66. He has become one of the superhero Batman's most enduring enemies belonging to the collective of adversaries that make up his rogues gallery.
In his comic book appearances, Two-Face is the alter ego of Harvey Dent, Gotham City's former district attorney who becomes a criminal mastermind obsessed with duality and the number two. Half of his face is hideously scarred after mob boss Sal Maroni throws acid at him. The resulting disfigurement drives him insane and causes him to make decisions based on the flip of a coin. The Modern Age of Comic Books portrays the character as having dissociative identity disorder, with Two-Face being an alternate personality that developed as a result of childhood abuse. The modern version is also established as having once been an ally of Batman and Commissioner James Gordon, and a close friend of Batman's secret identity, Bruce Wayne.
The character has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in film by Billy Dee Williams in Batman, Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever, Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight, Harry Lawtey in Joker: Folie à Deux, and Sebastian Stan in The Batman: Part II, in television by Nicholas D'Agosto in the Fox series Gotham, and Misha Collins in The CW series Gotham Knights. Richard Moll, Troy Baker, and others have provided Two-Face's voice in animation and video games.
Publication history
Creation and Golden Age history
Two-Face was created by Batman co-creator Bob Kane, and debuted in Detective Comics #66, written by Batman's other co-creator Bill Finger, in August 1942 as a new Batman villain originally named Harvey "Apollo" Kent, a handsome, law-abiding former Gotham City district attorney close to the Batman. Half of his face was disfigured when a mob boss he was prosecuting, Sal Maroni, splashed Kent with acid, resulting in his loss of sanity and turn to crime, with his crimes centered around chance and the number 2. In creating Two-Face, Kane was inspired by the 1931 adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which Kane described as a "classic story of the good and evil sides of human nature", and was also influenced by the 1925 silent film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. Kane and Finger conceived the idea of Two-Face flipping a coin scarred on one side to determine which side of his personality emerges: evil if the coin flip results in the scarred side, which causes him to "go on a rampage of looting and destruction", or good if it results in the unscarred side, causing him to give his loot to charity or refrain from committing a crime. In Kane's autobiography Batman and Me, Kane suggests that Finger was inspired by the pulp magazine hero Black Bat, with their similarities as both district attorneys disfigured with acid. Two-Face's surname, Kent, was changed to Dent in Batman #50, which Bob Kane clarified was done to distance the character from Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent."The Crimes of Two-Face" also introduced Two-Face's devoted wife Gilda Dent, a long-standing character in Two-Face stories. Later appearances continued featuring the character's criminal life until he was cured through plastic surgery in his third appearance and shown reformed in 1952's "The Double Crimes of Two-Face!", with impostors taking Two-Face's place in later stories. Two-Face made his last appearance in the Golden Age of Comic Books in 1954's "Two-Face Strikes Again", in which Two-Face returns to crime; however, this story is non-canon to the Golden Age version of the character, because only the Two-Face stories from 1942 to 1952 were assigned to DC's setting for their Golden Age characters, Earth-Two.
Dormancy and revitalization
The character was unused throughout the Silver Age of Comic Books, only appearing in the 173rd issue of World's Finest Comics in 1968 which featured Batman transforming into Two-Face. In July 1971, during the Bronze Age of Comic Books, Two-Face was brought back by writer Dennis O'Neil and former DC editor Julius Schwartz in the story "Half an Evil". Written by O'Neil and drawn by Neal Adams, "Half an Evil" is a mystery story which features Two-Face stealing doubloons from a pirate ship; the issue also retold his origin with a recap of previous stories. After his reintroduction, Two-Face was featured in several DC comics, such as The Brave and The Bold, Justice League of America, and Teen Titans, and became one of Batman's most popular enemies.Modern Age
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic event which rebooted the DC Universe, Two-Face was reintroduced in Frank Miller's 1986 revision of Batman's origin, Batman: Year One, as Gotham City's former crusader against crime and former ally of the Batman. Later in 1990, Two-Face was given a revised origin by Andrew Helfer in 1990's "The Eye of the Beholder" which established Harvey Dent as having dissociative identity disorder effected by the psychological trauma from his past of childhood abuse dealt by his father, with Two-Face being a second personality state, and cemented Dent as being formerly part of an alliance with Batman and Commissioner James Gordon against crime in Gotham City. 1995's Batman/Two-Face: Crime and Punishment by writer J. M. DeMatteis and artist Scott McDaniel built on "Eye of the Beholder" and explored Dent's psyche and childhood with his abusive father. Two-Face's origin was later expanded in writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale's 1996 Batman limited series The Long Halloween, which incorporated aspects of "Eye of the Beholder" and explored Batman, Gordon and Dent's struggle to end Gotham's Mob during the rise of costumed supervillains.A reformed Dent rid of Two-Face was featured in the 2002 storyline Batman: Hush, continuing on to 2006 in the 52 limited series and in writer James Robinson's Batman arc "Face the Face", which explored Dent having trained under Batman and taking Batman's place as Gotham's protector during Batman's one-year absence, as well as Two-Face's return. In the 2006 limited series Two-Face: Year One written by Mark Sable, Two-Face was given a revamped origin, focusing on Dent's transformation into Two-Face during Dent's election campaign for district attorney, as well as establishing the relationship between a young Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, Batman's secret identity.
Following DC's New 52 reboot in 2011, Two-Face's origin was changed by writer Peter J. Tomasi in the 2014 Batman and Robin arc The Big Burn, altering the cause of Dent's transformation into Two-Face and introducing Gilda Dent's death into his origin; the story also established Dent's knowledge of Bruce Wayne being Batman, and concluded with Dent dying by suicide. The subsequent DC Rebirth 2016 soft reboot reintroduced Two-Face in Scott Snyder's My Own Worst Enemy arc in All-Star Batman, in which Batman tries to obtain a cure to rid Dent of Two-Face in a road trip. Two-Face was then featured in the 2020 Detective Comics arc Ugly Heart, which showed Dent surviving his suicide attempt in Tomasi's previous story "The Big Burn" then starting a cult named the Church of Two, before being rid of Two-Face through brain surgery conducted by Batman. Dent is shown reformed throughout comics such as Matthew Rosenberg's 2021 limited series Task Force Z and Detective Comics.
As part of the DC All In initiative in 2024, Two-Face received a limited series, penned by Christian Ward with art by Fábio Veras, colors by Ivan Plascencia and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Ward came up with the idea of a story solely focusing on Two-Face after having written the non-canon story Batman: City of Madness that featured the character. DC approved of Ward's pitch of a Two-Face solo series and favored it to take place in the mainline Batman continuity. Ward was inspired by Perry Mason, and explored Harvey Dent back in the courtroom in the Gotham underworld court called The White Church, using his expertise in criminology to resolve the conflicts in Gotham's underground and make it a better place. Ward also explored the tension between Dent and Two-Face.
Characterization
Description
Two-Face is a duality-obsessed criminal. Introduced in 1942 as a criminal mastermind obsessed with the number 2, Two-Face's crimes as well as his hideouts and henchmen surround the number; since the 1980s, Two-Face's duality obsession evolved into an obsession with the duality of man, with the character committing crimes based on his "misguided sense of right and wrong".Two-Face views himself as both good and evil, and relies on flipping his double-headed coin, scarred on one side, in making important decisions and deciding whether his good or evil side will prevail.
Widely considered Batman's most tragic villain, Two-Face was established as a tragic figure in his debut: a former law-abiding district attorney turned criminal whose disfigurement resulted in him being shunned by society, which led to his turn to crime. In his early stories, Two-Face yearns to fix his face and bring back the love of his life whom he mistakenly thinks does not love him because of his disfigurement. 1990's "The Eye of the Beholder" reimagined Two-Face for the Modern Age as having psychological trauma from the childhood abuse he received from his father, and depicted him as being on the verge of a mental breakdown as a result of his repressed trauma and the pressure of fighting crime in Gotham, and driven to a point of desperation by Gotham's corruption. "Eye of the Beholder" also established Two-Face as a second personality state of Harvey Dent's dissociative identity disorder which resulted from his trauma; a psychiatrist in the story describes his condition as having "two personalities", with Dent having managed to "sublimate the second, anti-social one since he was a teenager".