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about_faces) wrote2012-09-01 10:54 am
about_faces) wrote2012-09-01 10:54 am
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DCAU Review: Harvey and Pals, Part 3: "Trial." Plus, a bonus "Story That Never Was!"
Welcome to the final part of our triple-feature review of Harvey taking a supporting role in the show to pal around with his "fellow miscreants" in episodes of Batman: The Animated Series.
In the show's second and third seasons, when it was retitled The Adventures of Batman & Robin, there were a lot of episodes which felt like sequels, follow-ups, or spiritual relations to classic episodes from the first season. For origins like Two-Face and Feat of Clay, and Heart of Ice, you got sequels in the form of Second Chance, Mudslide, and Deep Freeze. In that sense, I've always felt like today's episode, Trial, was akin to Almost Got 'Im, partially because of a couple winks by writer Paul Dini.
And so, hot on the heels of that classic episode, let's see if Dini can recapture the same magic as he examines the fandom-old question of whether or not Batman's mere presence "creates" his own rogues gallery. And while we're at it, let's also examine just why it might not be a smart idea to put all of Gotham's worst insane criminals under one roof.
Wherein the Arkham inmates take over the asylum, put Batman on mock trial, and force the new bat-hating D.A. to defend him. Watch it here!
Returning from her blink-and-you'll-miss-it first appearance in Shadow of the Bat, Pt. I, District Attorney Janet Van Dorn takes center stage in Trial as the voice of law and order, one with good reason to be resentful of Batman. Not only is he a vigilante who gets a free pass by the police, but his involvement in Ivy's arrest is what ends up getting her sent to Arkham rather than prison. Because Arkham is SUCH a cakewalk compared to Stonegate. Does this hold up under any legal scrutiny? You tell me.
So Van Dorn represents a much more strict side of law and order than the likes of Gordon and the former Harvey Dent, who pretty much had a "look the other way" policy. What's more, she actually believes that Batman creates these criminals, which is a theory that I've heard touted by Batman fans before and since this episode aired, so it's raising a somewhat meta issue in that regard.
So while Van Dorn is just a couple steps away from doing something like setting up her own Anti-Bat task force, she doesn't find sympathetic allies in the likes of Jim Gordon or Bruce Wayne, even though the latter still meets up with her at a fancy restaurant for... some reason. The implication is that she's there to not talk about work, thus possibly making this a social dinner, or perhaps even a date. Man, Bruce, what is with you and District Attorneys? And why do these dinner dates always seem to go very, very badly for them? At least Van Dorn was only kidnapped rather than poisoned and left in a coma for the rest of the episode, so I'd say she got off better than Harvey did in Pretty Poison.
Source: ToonZone
Speaking of that episode and Pam in general, she and Harley are the ones who get to take down Batman when he tries and fails to come to Van Dorn's rescue. Considering how this show has inspired a small but devoted following of people who ship Ivy and Two-Face, I have to wonder what Harvey would make of the fact that Ivy got the drop on Batman while dressed up as Lady Justice? Ficcers, to your posts!
And speaking of ships, I wonder if anyone has considered the implications of Van Dorn's possible history with the very inmate who "welcomes" her to Arkham once she wakes up from her kidnapping-induced coma:
Upon seeing Harvey, she immediately gasps, "Two-Face!" which is not the way I'd expect the new D.A. to refer to her (immediate?) predecessor. It's likely that she knew the Harvey Dent who was as a colleague, perhaps as a fellow Assistant District Attorney. In fact, the YA novelization Dual to the Death actually listed Van Dorn as Harvey's opponent during his reelection campaign, and the person who took over the job after his accident, but of course we can't expect a YA novelization to be considered canon by anybody.
I suspect that none of these possibilities occurred to Paul Dini, who seems mainly to be using Harvey here as nothing more than another costumed criminal. Either way, this entire scene is a huge missed opportunity for character study between Harvey and Janet here. No, instead, this scene is just Harvey (along with the Mad Hatter, who was my second favorite villain of B:TAS) filling Janet in on the plot. While the inmates have taken over the asylum with the ultimate plan to escape, Harvey explains that "we got some legal business to settle first."
TWO-FACE: You said it yourself, lady, Batman made every one of us.
HATTER: So, we're facing him before the bar to face our justice.
VAN DORN: And me?
TWO-FACE: Basic fifty-fifty option. You get him off, you both go free. He goes down, you take the fall with him.
HATTER: Amusing idea, what? Kidnapping you to be Batman's attorney?
TWO-FACE: Personally, I suggested a quick slug between the eyes but I lost the coin toss.
Oh Harvey, your methods are so efficiently-minded, if a tad on the boring side. Maybe he just learned from his last mistake: "Okay, no more overly elaborate deathtraps. Just shoot the bastard." And hey, this time, his "fifty-fifty option" actually seems fair! Of course, SPOILER ALERT, it's not, but we'll get to that problematic aspect later.
First, let's focus on a whole different problematic aspect: the fact that Harvey is okay with doing this at all! At the trial, Judge Joker (because of course the Joker is going to be the Judge) tells "Mr. Prosecutor" to make his opening statements. After a dramatic pause, during which he seems to be getting back into "courtroom lawyer" mode, the former District Attorney's entire argument goes as follows:
"Look at us. We're all freaks and monsters. And who made us this way?" *dramatic finger point* "BATMAN!" And that's it. That's the whole argument, which is basically just to parrot Van Dorn's own unsubstantiated claim. Not only is Harvey in charge of less-than-half-assedly representing a specious argument in the first place, but what's worse, it's all done within a kangaroo court scenario that mocks everything that Harvey Dent stood for.
Now, the entire scenario makes perfect sense for the Joker, as the way it all unfolds very much fits into the twisted logic of Joker humor, especially since he has a history with this sort of thing. I can see the other villains playing along too, some because they genuinely DO blame Batman, but most because, hey, chance to have fun and kill Batman, sure, let's have a trial/execution, sounds like a blast! But does it work for Harvey? Well, considering what we learn about the lengths that he will go to destroy himself out of his own internal conflict and self-loathing in the next review, I suppose there's a plausible argument for why Two-Face would be playing along with this perversion of Harvey Dent's ideals.
J'accuse!
But that doesn't answer the other big question I'm wondering: does he actually believe his own argument? Would any part of Harvey realistically blame Batman for his downfall/creation? I sincerely doubt it, unless he'd been manipulated into thinking that way. Honestly, I could have bought that premise if Dini cared to try working it into the story, but then, this episode is filled with so many characters that several characters have to get bent (or broken) to fit into the plot. Ultimately, all the villains have to be homogenized into a single crazy Joker-led hive mind to in order to turn Van Dorn's whole "Batman created you!" point against her in an ironic Twilight Zone fashion.
Before we get there, though, we're treated to a sampler platter of great villain spotlights from:
--Killer Croc, who throws in a "THROW A ROCK AT HIM!", thus firmly establishing that as his actual character, for better or worse.
--Harley Quinn, who gets both an adorably unhinged moment as well as a rare moment of rage at how assholish the Joker can be.
--Ventriloquist and Scarface as the bailiff, the latter of whom laughs his ass off when the former gets accidentally walloped by a raging Harley.
--Mad Hatter, whose great moment unfortunately pushes him over the line from "tragic sad lonely romantic" into full-blown "obsessive stalker and date-rapist."
--And Poison Ivy, who makes another reference to her ex:
"He should have let me bump off Harvey Dent. We all would have been better off...
"... wouldn't we, Harv?"
"... whyyourottenrassafrassa *unintelligible grumbling*..."
Gif source: castlewyvern
Okay, I'm clearly spending far too much time on the internet, because now even I'm seeing the tension here. Great, now I can't figure out if I 'ship Two-Face with Ivy, Grace, OR Candice.
Really, these moments are what make this episode worthwhile, since every character gets a fun bit. Well, every character save for Scarecrow and the Riddler, who don't even get speaking lines, presumably due to both time constraints and WB not wanting to pay Henry Polic II and John Glover. That said, even the Scarecrow at least gets to be creepy in an effective sytche-wielding moment, whereas I'm fairly positive that the Riddler doesn't even move the whole episode!
Y'know, considering that Eddie vanishes from the episode after the verdict is delivered, I've always liked to imagine that it's actually a dummy that the Riddler left behind in his place, and that he discreetly escaped when the inmates took over the asylum and brainwashed the staff. While everyone else is having their wacky little trial with Batman, Eddie has all of Gotham to himself! Well, he could still run into heroes like Robin and Batgirl or clash with rival sane villains like the Penguin or Catwoman, so he could be screwed no matter what. Even still, I love the idea that Eddie was smart enough to go, "LOL, bye! Y'all enjoy your inevitable ass-whupping by Batman, now!"
The rest of the episode isn't really worth talking about, since it's pretty much one great big action sequence of Batman escaping from and/or beating up the inmates and saving Van Dorn. So more big character moments, no emotional denouement from the villains themselves, just typical day-saving and an admittedly nice closing exchange between Batman and Van Dorn. Really, I love the episode, but there's little suspense in watching the trial knowing full well that they're just going to try to kill Batman no matter what.
The only twist is that they (or at least, Mad Hatter and Joker) admit that Batman didn't "create" them, and that they "messed up our own rotten lives." Again, I don't know if Harvey would agree with that, since he pretty clearly has someone to blame in the form of Rupert Thorne, but whatever. So yeah, even though Batman was screwed from the start, Van Dorn at least managed to get a "not guilty" verdict from a jury of Batman's anti-peers. I just wish that Harvey would at least have gone, "Hey, that's not fair," but he wasn't there to be his own character, just a villain.
That said, in some other reality, it might not have gone that way. According to Kent S.--a major Two-Face fan-friend of mine who contacted me after my first "The Stories That Never Were" post--Paul Dini once regaled a story at a convention that could have dramatically changed the status of Two-Face as a character.
Kent recalls the moment as such: Paul Dini, at a comic-con in the late 90's / maybe 2000 was speaking at a panel on writing and someone was talking about why studios copy each other (at the time Ants and Bug's Life were a big deal) and Dini said occasionally good ideas really are in the air, if something is good it's entirely possible mutiple people could come up with it.
In a rare, rare rare moment where I've EVER heard of an industry writer admitting to reading an outside submission (apparently this one came from an agent and was legally covered otherwise I doubt he would have mentioned it) they received a script at Warner Brothers for a Batman episode that was essentially the same type of thing...the inmates at Arkham take over, Batman has to go in and be put on trial with the Joker as judge, Two-Face as prosecution etc...
...except when Batman is asked, whom does he want to defend him, Batman points at Two-Face and says "HARVEY DENT".
bam
Dini, at the panel, actually smacks his hand to his head and says, wow, what a great idea, filled with dramatic potential. So natural too, and we couldn't believe we hadn't thought of that ourselves, but it was too late the episode had already gone into production.
Grrrr....
Oh. Mahgawd. That would have been so, so awesome.
This would have pulled the same trick as Greg Rucka did in No Man's Land in the trial of Jim Gordon a few years later, but it could have been even more effective in the context of the DCAU, especially in terms of building upon and expanding Bruce's friendship for Harvey and exploring how much of Harvey Dent there is still left in Two-Face. What's more, that use of Harvey would have reached a much, much wider audience than even the great NML did, so who knows how that might have affected Harvey's legacy amongst fans? Damn it!
What I find especially interesting is how even Dini seems to see how perfectly that would have fit, especially considering how wasted Harvey really was in the context of this episode, which should have been his time to really shine. Ultimately, I must emphasize again that I still really love Trial, but the flaws have been bothering me more and more, and in the face what could have been, it's kind of hard to still really celebrate what was instead.
Next time, I shall tackle the second-best Two-Face story in all of B:TAS, which shall finally allow me to get us back to reviewing the DCAU comics by the likes of Dini and the great Ty Templeton. I'm really looking forward to getting to those after all this time.
In the show's second and third seasons, when it was retitled The Adventures of Batman & Robin, there were a lot of episodes which felt like sequels, follow-ups, or spiritual relations to classic episodes from the first season. For origins like Two-Face and Feat of Clay, and Heart of Ice, you got sequels in the form of Second Chance, Mudslide, and Deep Freeze. In that sense, I've always felt like today's episode, Trial, was akin to Almost Got 'Im, partially because of a couple winks by writer Paul Dini.
And so, hot on the heels of that classic episode, let's see if Dini can recapture the same magic as he examines the fandom-old question of whether or not Batman's mere presence "creates" his own rogues gallery. And while we're at it, let's also examine just why it might not be a smart idea to put all of Gotham's worst insane criminals under one roof.
Wherein the Arkham inmates take over the asylum, put Batman on mock trial, and force the new bat-hating D.A. to defend him. Watch it here!
Returning from her blink-and-you'll-miss-it first appearance in Shadow of the Bat, Pt. I, District Attorney Janet Van Dorn takes center stage in Trial as the voice of law and order, one with good reason to be resentful of Batman. Not only is he a vigilante who gets a free pass by the police, but his involvement in Ivy's arrest is what ends up getting her sent to Arkham rather than prison. Because Arkham is SUCH a cakewalk compared to Stonegate. Does this hold up under any legal scrutiny? You tell me.
So Van Dorn represents a much more strict side of law and order than the likes of Gordon and the former Harvey Dent, who pretty much had a "look the other way" policy. What's more, she actually believes that Batman creates these criminals, which is a theory that I've heard touted by Batman fans before and since this episode aired, so it's raising a somewhat meta issue in that regard.
So while Van Dorn is just a couple steps away from doing something like setting up her own Anti-Bat task force, she doesn't find sympathetic allies in the likes of Jim Gordon or Bruce Wayne, even though the latter still meets up with her at a fancy restaurant for... some reason. The implication is that she's there to not talk about work, thus possibly making this a social dinner, or perhaps even a date. Man, Bruce, what is with you and District Attorneys? And why do these dinner dates always seem to go very, very badly for them? At least Van Dorn was only kidnapped rather than poisoned and left in a coma for the rest of the episode, so I'd say she got off better than Harvey did in Pretty Poison.
Source: ToonZone
Speaking of that episode and Pam in general, she and Harley are the ones who get to take down Batman when he tries and fails to come to Van Dorn's rescue. Considering how this show has inspired a small but devoted following of people who ship Ivy and Two-Face, I have to wonder what Harvey would make of the fact that Ivy got the drop on Batman while dressed up as Lady Justice? Ficcers, to your posts!
And speaking of ships, I wonder if anyone has considered the implications of Van Dorn's possible history with the very inmate who "welcomes" her to Arkham once she wakes up from her kidnapping-induced coma:
Upon seeing Harvey, she immediately gasps, "Two-Face!" which is not the way I'd expect the new D.A. to refer to her (immediate?) predecessor. It's likely that she knew the Harvey Dent who was as a colleague, perhaps as a fellow Assistant District Attorney. In fact, the YA novelization Dual to the Death actually listed Van Dorn as Harvey's opponent during his reelection campaign, and the person who took over the job after his accident, but of course we can't expect a YA novelization to be considered canon by anybody.
I suspect that none of these possibilities occurred to Paul Dini, who seems mainly to be using Harvey here as nothing more than another costumed criminal. Either way, this entire scene is a huge missed opportunity for character study between Harvey and Janet here. No, instead, this scene is just Harvey (along with the Mad Hatter, who was my second favorite villain of B:TAS) filling Janet in on the plot. While the inmates have taken over the asylum with the ultimate plan to escape, Harvey explains that "we got some legal business to settle first."
TWO-FACE: You said it yourself, lady, Batman made every one of us.
HATTER: So, we're facing him before the bar to face our justice.
VAN DORN: And me?
TWO-FACE: Basic fifty-fifty option. You get him off, you both go free. He goes down, you take the fall with him.
HATTER: Amusing idea, what? Kidnapping you to be Batman's attorney?
TWO-FACE: Personally, I suggested a quick slug between the eyes but I lost the coin toss.
Oh Harvey, your methods are so efficiently-minded, if a tad on the boring side. Maybe he just learned from his last mistake: "Okay, no more overly elaborate deathtraps. Just shoot the bastard." And hey, this time, his "fifty-fifty option" actually seems fair! Of course, SPOILER ALERT, it's not, but we'll get to that problematic aspect later.
First, let's focus on a whole different problematic aspect: the fact that Harvey is okay with doing this at all! At the trial, Judge Joker (because of course the Joker is going to be the Judge) tells "Mr. Prosecutor" to make his opening statements. After a dramatic pause, during which he seems to be getting back into "courtroom lawyer" mode, the former District Attorney's entire argument goes as follows:
"Look at us. We're all freaks and monsters. And who made us this way?" *dramatic finger point* "BATMAN!" And that's it. That's the whole argument, which is basically just to parrot Van Dorn's own unsubstantiated claim. Not only is Harvey in charge of less-than-half-assedly representing a specious argument in the first place, but what's worse, it's all done within a kangaroo court scenario that mocks everything that Harvey Dent stood for.
Now, the entire scenario makes perfect sense for the Joker, as the way it all unfolds very much fits into the twisted logic of Joker humor, especially since he has a history with this sort of thing. I can see the other villains playing along too, some because they genuinely DO blame Batman, but most because, hey, chance to have fun and kill Batman, sure, let's have a trial/execution, sounds like a blast! But does it work for Harvey? Well, considering what we learn about the lengths that he will go to destroy himself out of his own internal conflict and self-loathing in the next review, I suppose there's a plausible argument for why Two-Face would be playing along with this perversion of Harvey Dent's ideals.
J'accuse!
But that doesn't answer the other big question I'm wondering: does he actually believe his own argument? Would any part of Harvey realistically blame Batman for his downfall/creation? I sincerely doubt it, unless he'd been manipulated into thinking that way. Honestly, I could have bought that premise if Dini cared to try working it into the story, but then, this episode is filled with so many characters that several characters have to get bent (or broken) to fit into the plot. Ultimately, all the villains have to be homogenized into a single crazy Joker-led hive mind to in order to turn Van Dorn's whole "Batman created you!" point against her in an ironic Twilight Zone fashion.
Before we get there, though, we're treated to a sampler platter of great villain spotlights from:
--Killer Croc, who throws in a "THROW A ROCK AT HIM!", thus firmly establishing that as his actual character, for better or worse.
--Harley Quinn, who gets both an adorably unhinged moment as well as a rare moment of rage at how assholish the Joker can be.
--Ventriloquist and Scarface as the bailiff, the latter of whom laughs his ass off when the former gets accidentally walloped by a raging Harley.
--Mad Hatter, whose great moment unfortunately pushes him over the line from "tragic sad lonely romantic" into full-blown "obsessive stalker and date-rapist."
--And Poison Ivy, who makes another reference to her ex:
"He should have let me bump off Harvey Dent. We all would have been better off...
"... wouldn't we, Harv?"
"... whyyourottenrassafrassa *unintelligible grumbling*..."
Gif source: castlewyvern
Okay, I'm clearly spending far too much time on the internet, because now even I'm seeing the tension here. Great, now I can't figure out if I 'ship Two-Face with Ivy, Grace, OR Candice.
Really, these moments are what make this episode worthwhile, since every character gets a fun bit. Well, every character save for Scarecrow and the Riddler, who don't even get speaking lines, presumably due to both time constraints and WB not wanting to pay Henry Polic II and John Glover. That said, even the Scarecrow at least gets to be creepy in an effective sytche-wielding moment, whereas I'm fairly positive that the Riddler doesn't even move the whole episode!
Y'know, considering that Eddie vanishes from the episode after the verdict is delivered, I've always liked to imagine that it's actually a dummy that the Riddler left behind in his place, and that he discreetly escaped when the inmates took over the asylum and brainwashed the staff. While everyone else is having their wacky little trial with Batman, Eddie has all of Gotham to himself! Well, he could still run into heroes like Robin and Batgirl or clash with rival sane villains like the Penguin or Catwoman, so he could be screwed no matter what. Even still, I love the idea that Eddie was smart enough to go, "LOL, bye! Y'all enjoy your inevitable ass-whupping by Batman, now!"
The rest of the episode isn't really worth talking about, since it's pretty much one great big action sequence of Batman escaping from and/or beating up the inmates and saving Van Dorn. So more big character moments, no emotional denouement from the villains themselves, just typical day-saving and an admittedly nice closing exchange between Batman and Van Dorn. Really, I love the episode, but there's little suspense in watching the trial knowing full well that they're just going to try to kill Batman no matter what.
The only twist is that they (or at least, Mad Hatter and Joker) admit that Batman didn't "create" them, and that they "messed up our own rotten lives." Again, I don't know if Harvey would agree with that, since he pretty clearly has someone to blame in the form of Rupert Thorne, but whatever. So yeah, even though Batman was screwed from the start, Van Dorn at least managed to get a "not guilty" verdict from a jury of Batman's anti-peers. I just wish that Harvey would at least have gone, "Hey, that's not fair," but he wasn't there to be his own character, just a villain.
That said, in some other reality, it might not have gone that way. According to Kent S.--a major Two-Face fan-friend of mine who contacted me after my first "The Stories That Never Were" post--Paul Dini once regaled a story at a convention that could have dramatically changed the status of Two-Face as a character.
Kent recalls the moment as such: Paul Dini, at a comic-con in the late 90's / maybe 2000 was speaking at a panel on writing and someone was talking about why studios copy each other (at the time Ants and Bug's Life were a big deal) and Dini said occasionally good ideas really are in the air, if something is good it's entirely possible mutiple people could come up with it.
In a rare, rare rare moment where I've EVER heard of an industry writer admitting to reading an outside submission (apparently this one came from an agent and was legally covered otherwise I doubt he would have mentioned it) they received a script at Warner Brothers for a Batman episode that was essentially the same type of thing...the inmates at Arkham take over, Batman has to go in and be put on trial with the Joker as judge, Two-Face as prosecution etc...
...except when Batman is asked, whom does he want to defend him, Batman points at Two-Face and says "HARVEY DENT".
bam
Dini, at the panel, actually smacks his hand to his head and says, wow, what a great idea, filled with dramatic potential. So natural too, and we couldn't believe we hadn't thought of that ourselves, but it was too late the episode had already gone into production.
Grrrr....
Oh. Mahgawd. That would have been so, so awesome.
This would have pulled the same trick as Greg Rucka did in No Man's Land in the trial of Jim Gordon a few years later, but it could have been even more effective in the context of the DCAU, especially in terms of building upon and expanding Bruce's friendship for Harvey and exploring how much of Harvey Dent there is still left in Two-Face. What's more, that use of Harvey would have reached a much, much wider audience than even the great NML did, so who knows how that might have affected Harvey's legacy amongst fans? Damn it!
What I find especially interesting is how even Dini seems to see how perfectly that would have fit, especially considering how wasted Harvey really was in the context of this episode, which should have been his time to really shine. Ultimately, I must emphasize again that I still really love Trial, but the flaws have been bothering me more and more, and in the face what could have been, it's kind of hard to still really celebrate what was instead.
Next time, I shall tackle the second-best Two-Face story in all of B:TAS, which shall finally allow me to get us back to reviewing the DCAU comics by the likes of Dini and the great Ty Templeton. I'm really looking forward to getting to those after all this time.