We Believe in Harvey Dent

Another quick post today. Real life is too busy and hectic with the holidays coming up, and all my free writing time has been devoted to working on something more personal over at my neglected original LJ, thehefner. Sadly, I fear that I may not be able to whip together a Batman Returns review in time for Christmas, as I'd hoped! Well, until I can pull together anything new, let me at least tide you over with something cool and mysterious I've found, with the hope that maybe some of you might be able to shed light on this.

In my search for rare art by artists like the late, great Marshall Rogers (Strange Apparitions/The Laughing Fish, the Batman comic strip, Dark Detective), I've found four pieces of what is clearly concept art for a Batman project which never happened. More than just art, they include liner notes which hint at story details and show how this take on the characters stands out from the rest.



Thing is, though, I have no idea what the hell this project might have been! There are no details online, no clues, no hints. The only possibility that comes to mind is that maybe they were for the Dark Detective sequel which Rogers had only started at the time of his death, but nothing about these images really jives with the scant info that Steve Englehart himself has provided. So what the heck was this? Let's try to figure it out together!

( Four large scans behind the cut! )

So hey, remember when I said that I'd discovered an even-more-obscure Batman newspaper comic strip, one which featured what may well be the single rarest Two-Face appearance ever?

Well, good news, everyone! I have come into possession of several scans of the strips, including most of the Two-Face stuff! Not all of it, sadly, and I'm missing the surrounding strips, so the result kinda just feels like being plunked into the middle of a story. But the important thing is, hey, long-lost Two-Face appearance! What's more, as this pre-dates the O'Neil/Adams classic Half an Evil, this strip is actually Harvey's first true appearance during his seventeen-year absence in the Silver Age! So okay, it's crazy rare and historically important, but is it any good? Let's find out!



( He was top of his class at Handsome Law School! )

And on that cliffhanger, I'm afraid I've run out of strips. If I ever get my hands on any other scans, I'll be sure to either revise this post or do a whole new, more complete version of this. So yeah, all in all, this strip is much more what I expected the 90's strip to be: an amusing and kinda cool little artifact with some neat bits, but ultimately nothing to write home about for any reason other than its sheer obscurity. Pretty much everything that I didn't include centered around 60's-style Batman detective work and riddle-solving, which didn't exactly make for compelling reading nor offer any character moments. Still, I'm glad to at least have found this much of something which isn't anywhere else on the internet! What think you folks?

Since it's the second time this year that we've had a Harvey-relevant date, I would be remiss if I didn't post SOMEthing! It can't be the review for Two-Face, Part II just yet, since that's far from complete. The first one was a ton of work, and hard as hell to compose, but your enthusiastic responses were so awesome that it's fired me up to put the same effort into the second half. Thanks for that.

So what can I post today? How about a double-dose of quick single-page cameos?

Let's start with one from Detective Comics Annual #4, an oddball story by Louise Simonson and Tom Grindberg. You don't really need any context for this page, since it's a pretty random and pointless Two-Face cameo, but for the curious, here you go: in a possible future, Batman's final battle with Ra's ends with the Demon dead and his own body smashed on a cliffside. When an adult Tim Drake takes up the mantle of Batman, he's swiftly murdered by Talia and the League of Assassins, prompting a sullen Bruce Wayne to create a concealed exoskeleton and go searching for the identity of Tim's killers. So where better to go than to visit one of the usual suspects?



"... he has a box of tricks," Harvey says, in voice-over on the next page, "and he's playing both sides against the middle." Figures: after a whole page assault of puns, the only one that really thematically works isn't even on this page! The Joker proceeds to tease Batman with the clue that will lead him to Talia, knowing that the revelation will eventually lead to both Bruce and Talia's destruction.

So yes, in this alternate universe, this page is the final encounter between Batman and Harvey, who is left with nothing more than a coin bent by a cybernetic Bat-hand. I like to imagine him now trying and failing to adequately flip the warped coin, and eventually giving up. Hey, maybe without the coin and Batman alike, that could lead to his eventual rehabilitation in his universe? I'd certainly like to think so, but I doubt the Joker would let that happen. The Joker is an asshole.

Speaking of Harvey, Joker, and Talia, that brings us to our second page, one from several years earlier: 1983's (hey, my birth year!) All My Enemies Against Me!, from Detective Comics #526, commemorating Batman's 500th appearance in that series!

The issue served as the culmination of Gerry Conway's original Jason Todd and Killer Croc storyline, bringing in a veritable Who's Who of Batman greatest enemies, including several soon-to-be-forgotten guys like Captain Stingaree and the Spook. Since Croc is trying to "steal our thunder" by trying to kill Batman, the Joker proposes that the villains all team up to beat Crockers t the punch, but one villain, Talia, decides to opt out. Joker doesn't approve, and a brief fight scene breaks out as the Joker demands that the other villains not let her escape.



I don't know what I love more: Harvey being genuinely unpredictable by adhering to the coin's rulings and his own sense of ethics, or the Joker calling him a loony. Also, I adore how the coin's trajectory spun over two panels. It's something that can only be done in comics storytelling, and I wish that more artists would play with the art form's unique capabilities more often. I'd love to see more Two-Face stories written and drawn in ways that only work in comics.

Harvey appears elsewhere in this issue, but aside from a couple wonderfully-drawn panels by Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala, there's nothing else of specific note for the Two-Face fan. If you'd like to read more of the issue, I've found the first nineteen pages scanned and posted up here. Don't hold your breath about the rest of the issue getting posted, since whoever runs that sites seems to have left it abandoned.

Still, the site is well worth investigating, since there are several great stories posted there in their entirety. I recommend checking out The Messiah of the Crimson Sun, a fantastically odd story with fucking STUNNING art by Trevor Von Eeden and a wonderfully cracked-out ending that, I promise, will throw you for a loop. Even more highly recommended is Alan Brennert's The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne, which is one of the greatest Batman comics ever. Period. One of these days, I'm finally going to write that post about the brilliance that is Alan Brennert, who might well be my favorite Batman writer of all time. If he ever wrote a Two-Face story, I think my head would explode.

Okay, back to working on that Two-Face, Part II review.

Whew, made it! And just in time for Twelfth Night, too!

Doing this series of posts has been one of the most exhausting, draining, frustrating, and goddamned fun projects I've ever done on this blog. It's a shame that it has to end this way, with an assortment that largely covers some of my least favorite Batman eras and characters.

That's not to say there isn't anything I love about Batman from 1997 to 2006. Sure, the days of the great Bat-trio of Moench/Grant/Dixon were starting to wind down, with many good stories hindered by one big crossover after another after another. The fact that they were all fired to make way for the next big crossover would haven been bitterly misguided if that crossover hadn't been No Man's Land. Far as I'm concerned, NML the highest achievement for Batman since Batman: Year One, since it was an event that was mostly focused on character rather than... well, events. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than any other major Batman crossover I have ever read, and thus I was greatly excited with the prospect of NML mastermind Greg Rucka continuing to write the ongoing Detective Comics.

While I loved Rucka's run, as well as Brubaker's Batman and Devin Grayon's Gotham Knights, the changes they made to Batman's character and supporting cast led the series down a path that I didn't necessarily like, but stuck with because I trusted the creative teams involved. And then they were all gone, with Loeb and Lee giving us Hush. After that, new writers followed the threads left by Rucka, Brubaker, and Grayson, and it all went to hell. The stories that followed left me cold, and much as I rag on Grant Morrison's run, I think I might honestly prefer it to the era of Black Mask. Don't force me to choose, please.

So now, at the end of a project that I started to celebrate the characters I love, I shall see if I can muster any of the same kind of enthusiasm for some of my favorite and least favorite eras alike.


( Rassum frassum get off my lawn behind the cut )


So here's to another year for about_faces. The output will be infrequent, but I'm not going anywhere. There are too many stories left to look at, too many stupid things to rant about, too many comics and characters and ideas worth celebrating. Hope you'll stick around, and as always, keep the comments coming. You're the smartest damn bunch of fans I know, and that's no lie, no flattery, it's the damn truth. So thank you, and be seeing you.