In little more than a day from now, we'll have our first major appearance of Two-Face in the DCnU, one which will give us some firm idea of what his canon backstory and personality is nowadays.

We're nearly eight months into this new continuity, and while we've already had three Harvey appearances thus far, they've been too small to really make any impact on the character either way. That said, they've all been... interesting... in their own ways. First, we had Greg Capullo's take in Batman #1.



As far as I know, this design was entirely Capullo's idea, since I recall reading that he wanted to really play around with the designs of the classic villains and make his own personal mark on the characters. I can appreciate that perspective, because hey, why just draw the same old Two-Face (as if there ever was just one design)? But as I've said before, he looks less like a burn victim and more like a zombie from a 70's horror movie, his face caked with heavy prosthetics.



It's horrific, yes. Grotesque, yes. But Harvey Dent is not a zombie, especially not one who looks like he's about to molt. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing a whole Harvey story drawn by Capullo, whose aptitude for facial expressions would theoretically lend themselves greatly for Harvey's good side. If he was written by Scott Snyder as well, he'd certainly be interesting, but Snyder almost certainly would have no interest in writing Harvey unless he could somehow tie Harvey into the Court of Owls, as is about to happen with poor Mr. Freeze.

The next appearance of Harvey is thus far the largest and most infamous, courtesy of David Finch and Paul Jenkins in The Dark Knight #2, where Harvey was hopped up on... well, I haven't read the storyline, but I assume it's a fear toxin Venom/Titan thingiebadoo. I know, I know, bad Mr. Two-Face Blogger, who doesn't even read the things he's writing about. But really, can you blame me for avoiding this comic like the Clench?



Yeah, I didn't think so.

While some silly people thought that this was the new status quo for the character, Harvey shrunk back down to his normal self in the next issue, where Finch drew him rather standardly, nothing to write home about either way. So yeah, while this moment seemed like a huge, horrible new direction for Harvey, it was just part of a larger storyline, and thus something to quickly be tossed aside and forgotten. It didn't affect things either way, and certainly didn't shed any light as to establishing any history and/or personality.

Finally, the last appearance of Harvey was in Batman and Robin #4, where he appeared in a villain montage as drawn by Patrick Gleason. It's a unique take, I'll give it that.



It's rather reminiscent of the Dick Tracy villain Haf-and-Haf, whom we've noted as looking more horrific than many takes on Harvey to date. This is a Two-Face whole face has really been melted off, taking his entire eye and much of his mouth with it. It's more in line with what people associate with "realistic" burn scarring. If this design were used for a whole story, then all of the expressiveness would HAVE to come from the unscarred side, which is the only reason I'd be interested in reading such a story. As it is, this look doesn't really convey the other personality within Harvey. This Two-Face isn't a man struggling with his inner demon, between good and evil. He's just a guy with half his face missing. Also, I'm really distracted by the fact that it looks like Harvey has a mustache.

So will any of these three takes find their way into Tony Daniel's upcoming version of Two-Face this Wednesday? Hard to say, but considering how there was no substance to these three takes beyond the cosmetic and the WTF, I think Daniel's will be the first real stab and laying definitive groundwork for Harvey's new status quo. Even if it doesn't take off (and based on Daniel's track record, I'm preemptively REALLY hoping it won't), these three early looks at DCnU Harvey aren't likely to have any lasting effect on the character. Nonetheless, they're at least interesting, much like a piece of fan art or a profession convention sketch can be interesting. Well, the Capullo and Gleason ones, anyway.

Wednesday's almost here. I'm just bracing myself to see what the hell they're gonna do to Harvey this time, and how it's going to affect his character from here on out.

I know it's a week late, but I figured that I would be remiss in not giving a quick look at the opening pages of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman #1, which is being hailed by some as the very best comic to come out of the DCnU so far.

My own reaction: it's good. Not brilliant, but good. It doesn't punch me in the gut, nor does it blow my socks off, or move me to tears, paint my house, pay off my car payments, or taste like bacon. It's just good. I suppose that in the sea of mediocrity that is most popular fiction these days, that should be remarkable in of itself. But even in that case, how sad is that? Shouldn't we hold comics to a higher standard so that stories like Batman #1 are the AVERAGE quality, not the EXCEPTION?

The issue itself is a solid introduction for new readers that also flows seamlessly from Snyder's work in Detective Comics: The Black Mirror and The Golden Gates of Gotham, as he works to create an overarching epic that is clearly shaping up to be Batman versus Gotham City itself (presumably as a living entity ala Milligan's Dark Knight, Dark City).

Hell, that's exactly what Snyder has said in interviews, where he posited the ludicrous theory that Gotham has literally been "Batman's best friend," lol wut. No, no, no, if Gotham is sentient at all (and what's with this fascination some writers have for envisioning cities as actual entities?), it's hardly EVER been Batman's bosom pal.

Based on his two previous Batman stories, I suspect that Snyder is probably continuing the Morrisonian trope of evil secret societies of cult-like evil evilness (and if Newbie McMayorChin isn't revealed to be involved, I'll be damn surprised). As you may have guessed, this type of story fills me with aggressive apathy, but as long as Snyder keeps a focus on characters, I'll keep reading. He writes a fine Jim Gordon, and I'm glad to see Bullock prominently featured, even if Snyder's Bullock sounds a lot more like Slam Bradley. As for the rest of the issue, it's pretty much all set-up, with an empty cliffhanger ending we've seen before countless times. I look forward to reading the story as a whole, but there's not much to especially recommend about this one chapter, which is a common problem in this day and age of wait-for-the-trade.

What I do want is just quickly look at the opening pages, featuring the Rumble In Arkham that we've seen in previews:


( Batman versus Everyone (What do you mean, everyone? EV-RRREEEE-WUUUUNNNN!!!!) behind the cut )









Oh. One more thing... /uncle

In comic news about something which actually DID come out today, I give you the spoiler-tastic final page for The Dark Knight #1, which features the first look at whatever the fuck it is they're doing with Harvey. Go. Go read it. Seriously.

Back? Okay. WOW that's dumb. Kind of delightfully so! I mean, seriously, "One-Face?" What the fuck does that even MEAN? He still has the scarred and unscarred sides! Was there a miscommunication between writer and artists here? Is it supposed to indicate that Harvey's bad side has completely taken over when he became Hulk!Harv? Honestly, that breaks my brain more than the Venom/Titan/whatever he's hopped up on!

Oh, Paul Jenkins, you're the gift that keeps on giving... ridiculously overblown Two-Face stories. Which reminds me, I still need to summon up the courage to review Batman: Jekyll and Hyde. You poor people, you.

When it comes to Harvey's place in the DCnU, the only thing anybody seems to be talking about is his appearance in Scott Snyder's* Batman drawn by Greg Capullo. God knows that all I've noticed, and we've talked about it at length. However, it turns out that Harvey was actually featured front and center on another Batman cover, and no one noticed it! Not even me, nor FYeahTwoFace! Wow! How could I possibly have missed Harvey being featured on David Finch's cover for The Dark Knight #2 and OH DEAR GOD WHAT IN THE HELL IS I DON'T EVEN WHAT.

No, I'm not posting it here. I don't want that taking up my bandwidth. Just go, see for yourself.

Yeah. Seriously, when I saw the thumbnail of that image on the solicits, I could have sworn that it was just a 'roided-up hillbilly in overalls. Even now that I look up teeny versions of that cover, all I see is a refugee from The Hills Have Eyes, not Harvey. Not whatever the hell is being done with Harvey.

Venom. I'm guessing that he's hopped up on venom. He has to be. Bane is all the rage now, and a modified venom-type serum called Titan was featured prominently in the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game, to similarly ridiculous results when applied to the Joker (seriously, how anyone could take the game seriously after that final boss battle is beyond me). That game alone is apparently big enough to influence the look of Batman's ugly new logo, so I'm guessing that Finch's Top-Cow-Tacular series is following suit.

All things considered, this use of Harvey isn't so horrible. I mean, his scarring looks more typical than Capullo's, and he has his eyeball back, so that's a good sign that the character will likely be physically unchanged in the DCnU depending on the artist. I figured that'd happen anyway, later if not sooner, but it's nice to see that happening right off the bat (hurr). And really, it could be a lot worse. Bear in mind, David Finch is the guy with the distinction of having drawn the single most grotesque take on the Penguin ever put to print, so maybe Harvey got off easy here. We'll see what actually happens in the issue.




*I have now procured all but one issue (the third one) of Scott Snyder's current, much-ballyhooed run on Detective Comics. Once I get the missing issue, Henchgirl and I will read through it together and judge. Harshly. Because seriously, no way it can live up to the hype, and even still, I'm still really pessimistic about the idea of turning James Jr. into a monster. It kind of stains the ending to Batman: Year One, from Gordon's perspective. But we'll see, we'll see.