We Believe in Harvey Dent

Over the past month, there have been two DC projects which have dealt with an alternate-reality Gotham, both of which feature their versions of Two-Face... more or less. And yeah, okay, they're not official "Elseworlds" because DC doesn't call their alt-u books those anymore, but screw you, DC, they'll always be Elseworlds to me!

The first is Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Batman: Earth One, which I'd recently speculated might feature a Harvey Dent cameo at least. I still haven't read the book myself, but thanks to the help of martin_l_gore, I've at least gotten the low-down on the basic details, especially when it comes to the Harveys and the Dents. Yes, that was indeed a pair of plurals, as in addition to a surprising new take on Harvey Bullock, there are two Dents in B:EO.



( SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS FOR BATMAN: EARTH ONE BEHIND THE CUT )

As for Batman: Earth One as a whole, everything I've seen about the book makes it looks like a perfectly fine B-grade story that is perfectly serviceable even though it doesn't acquit its existence as being yet another goddamn Batman origin. By far, the most interesting aspect appears to be the subplot of Jim Gordon, who is a compromised/corrupt cop here, and a very different take on Harvey Bullock, much of whose SPOILER-filled storyline was posted here by martin_l_gore. Thanks again, Martin! Because of these scans, I will definitely be picking up a copy of this at some point! When I saw the Bullock stuff, my first thought was "DO NOT WANT," but I think Johns made it work by the end. We'll see where his story goes in volume two.

The other big appearance is only an extremely technical and distant connection to any Harvey we know, but I think you'll understand why she merits at least a mention:



So DC's been doing weekly digital comics based on the Ame-Comi line of figurines, which reimagined female heroes and villains with anime-style designs. One of the released figures was Duela Dent, who--as you can see--was a steampunk take on a female Joker with a Heath Ledger Glasgow smile. Unsurprisingly, a small fandom started to emerge around her via fan art and cosplay, and it only seems to be catching on more with each passing convention season.

Now, the Ame-Comi version of Duela has gotten her own origin in the pages of Ame-Comi Girls, written by the Jonah Hex team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, and drawn by Courtney Crumrin creator Ted Naifeh, so naturally, I was curious to see what they would do with the character's murky family lineage. Would she be Two-Face's daughter? The Joker's? The Jokester and Three-Face's ala Countdown, god help us?

( Daddy's little girl... but who's the Daddy? )

So yeah, at least there's KIND of a Two-Face connection with her attacking both the law and crime, but it's in the name of chaos, which would be just like the Joker except it's not really funny chaos. So pretty much, I find absolutely nothing interesting about this character (other than her hate-crush on Batgirl, who may well be Gotham's sole protector in this universe, along with her cousin, Cass, who's Robin), which is a shame because Henchgirl and I really, really, REALLY loved the Ame-Comi Wonder Woman story, where Diana was a rather Barda-like asskicking warrior.

Tangent: But then, that storyline was drawn by Amanda Conner, who makes everything better. Everything. Amanda Conner's artwork instantly gives the characters more personality, and the storytelling is so much more fun. I cannot praise her enough for what she brings to a comic, and it's such a shame that she's wasting her talents on Before Watchmen. Well, I guess Amanda Conner gotta eat. /Tangent

If you'd like to read these comics for yourself, Batman: Earth One is available at finer bookstores and comic stores across the country, and can be purchased online (and for Kindle!) on Amazon. The Ame-Comi comics are first being released digitally, and then will be released in paper a month or two from now. The Duela Dent chapter I reviewed here can be purchased digitally, as can the second part, which just came out today.

While DC's current Flashpoint event is apparently being met with complete apathy now that it's been entirely overshadowed by the impending don't-call-it-a-reboot-reboot of DCnU, there's one thing that's caught the attention of the whole comics community. It's one thing that everyone--from the biggest news and gossip sites to fan communities to even the critical folks at scans_daily--can agree upon.

And that is that Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's Flashpoint: Batman--Knight of Vengeance is great.

No, not just great. Google reviews for the third issue, and every single one you'll find save for maybe one is glowing. Flashpoint: Batman is universally considered to not just be the best of the Flashpoint tie-ins by a *wide* margin, but legitimately, A+, best-of-2011 "instant classic" great great GREAT.

I understand where they're coming from, and y'know, I can almost agree.

But something holds me back, and I'm getting increasingly annoyed that it's something that no one else seems to notice or care about. They seem to be focusing less on the story and more on the twist, which has now been plastered so many places by now that I'm hoping I won't be spoiling any of you by posting it right here. Because for me, the moment I actually became interested in the potential of F:B-KoV wasn't when the twist happened in the story itself. No, it was when I saw Dave Johnson's cover art for the final issue:





Hoshit. When I saw that cover last month, a dozen ideas and possibilities popped around in my fan-brain. That image alone tells a whole story without a single word. In this reality, Bruce was the one who died, and so Thomas became the Batman while Martha became the Joker.

It inverts and plays with the idea of Batman and the Joker being mirrors and/or polar ends and/or two sides of the same coin and/or whatever their dynamic represents, depending on the fan and writer. How would that grief turn the noble Martha Wayne into the Joker, and more importantly, what kind of Joker would she be? How would Dr. Thomas Wayne, a full-grown adult without any of Bruce's years of rigorous training and childhood trauma, become a vigilante himself? Even in this alternate reality, why is it so tragically inevitable that there be a Batman and a Joker?

I think that these kinds of questions were what so intrigued everybody who loved F:B-KoV. Perhaps all the more so because they go completely unanswered. I suppose that, for many, that open-endedness is brilliance. For me, it's a half-baked non-story of pretension, posturing, and bullshit. And it's made all the worse by the three or four useless, boring subplots that go nowhere, add nothing to the story as a whole, and take up space that could be better used looking expressly at the Thomas/Martha story, which is all anyone cares about anyway. And even still... it doesn't work for me. Not like it should.

So in a rare case of striking while the iron is only-recently-cool, let's take a look at Flashpoint: Batman--Knight of Vengeance and see if maybe I'm not missing something.


( So there was this time when Batman's wife, the Joker, kidnapped Harvey Dent's twins... )


And yet, I say again, this story has stayed with me. I'm STILL thinking about it, and I'm still thinking about Martha most of all. I just read another comic that mentioned Martha Wayne, and I found myself still thinking about Joker!Martha, as if that's now her defining appearance. I wonder and worry that I'm not alone. Let's face it, this story is probably the most prominence that Martha Wayne has achieved in comics history as a character since her creation, just by default of the fact that no one ever does anything with her. I just hope that this doesn't stain the character in anyone's minds, not even my own.

And so to cleanse the palate, I offer up both Ming Doyle's Martha-centric fancomic Lady Gotham, as well as this wonderful piece by Yasmin Liang entitled, "Trinity Mothers":





Ahhh, that's the stuff.

Oh, wait, aren't they killing off Martha Kent in the DCnU? Well, fuck. Thanks, DC!