We Believe in Harvey Dent

Previous installments: Part 1, Part 2


Once again, I'd completely forgotten what the hell happened in last month's installment of Tony Daniel's Two-Face story in Detective Comics. And once again, I find myself not disliking the direction in which it's headed. I'm still not loving it, but there are some interesting ideas at play, and so far they continue to build up into something with the potential to be quite good.

Sheesh, don't I just sound glowingly enthusiastic? In truth, there's still not much here to really care about. Not yet, anyway. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone really caring about this story if they didn't already care about Harvey in the first place. Honestly, the one thing that really is interesting about this story is the possibility of--gasp shock horror--actual character development for Harvey, and if this story just ends with everything going right back to the status quo (as it probably will), I doubt that there will be anything to recommend at all.

But for now, there's that potential. That's what I'm holding onto with each installment, and it hasn't been wasted yet. Might Mr. Daniel really be going somewhere with all this beyond your standard gritty noir tale?




( I fear for this one. )

The first part of Tony Daniel's Detective Comics backup story dedicated to Harvey--entitled Welcome to the Dark Side--was such a nothing that it hardly feels worth reviewing.

It's hard enough to review single installments out of context, especially these days, with the majority of comics authors "writing for the trade." Nowadays, you can breeze through most superhero comics within minutes thanks to all the watered-down decompressed storytelling, and what's worse, it can be whole pages before anything actually happens. The best you can hope for is a memorable scene here, a good moment there, and enough intrigue to keep you interested in the next part.

Comics shouldn't be this way. We deserve better. But that's the way it is right now for far too many comics. As such, if so many writers are having trouble telling substantiative stories in twenty pages, what the hell can they possibly do in eight-page backup stories like Welcome to the Dark Side? Well, let's find out for ourselves.

The story opens with a man stumbling through an alleyway, and between the narration (with open with the line "Nailed me.") and the body we know two things: 1.) It's Harvey, and 2.) he's injured.




( So, who's made Harvey's life decidedly crappier THIS time? )

And that's the end of the first part. While I did manage to find something to say, it wasn't easy when nothing actually happened. This was all mood, set-up, and exposition, and very few actions that characters perform here are muddled in their motivations. Still, there was just enough potential (or potential for potential) for an interesting story here.

That said, you'll notice that Daniel hasn't yet gone into Harvey's personal history in any detail. Will he screw around with Harvey's origins? Is he planning on introducing wild new theories about Harvey's mental state? Will this story change any of Harvey's pre-DCnU history? We'll have to wait and see next month. Hopefully something will actually happen, and hopefully it won't be awful.

Detective Comics #8 is out in comic stores today, and can be purchased as a digital comic over at DC's Comixology app for the ridiculously expensive price of $3.99.

And it's going to be written by Tony Daniel.



( The details and my measured reactions behind the cut )

Welp, here's to the New 52, everybody! Drinks are on me!



I'll be over here, trying to keep up with this gif. Rouse me out of my drunken coma when it's time for the DCnU2.

Big thanks to superfan1 for providing four scans from the issue which came out today, as I have no scanner access at present. I was planning on just doing a text review, but actual images help a lot. While most of my thoughts are spoilery, I want to at least talk about what'd going on early in the issue:





So hey, I don't hate the way Harvey himself is depicted in this issue! Yay! He's written a bit too generic-mobster for my tastes, but I like how he's not just desperate and out of control. More importantly, he's aware of how desperate and out-of-control he is, and doing everything in his limited power to reign himself in. In the next page, he actually gets himself under control, then proceeds to shoot a cop through the head, just 'cause.

I was surprised to see that Daniel isn't drawing this story, leaving the art chores instead to Steve Scott and Ryan Winn, who are quite good. I also like the coloring a lot, even if Harvey's later colored with blue eyes (a common, petty mistake) and his coin is gold, not silver. Why the hell do several Two-Face stories lately give him a gold coin? I mean, seriously? But whatever, those are cosmetic complaints, hardly the meat of this story.

Which, again, must go behind the cut.


( SPOILERS AHOY )

Finally, I'm interested by the fact that the cover outright advertised: "TWO-FACE RETURNS!" Is he finally that big of a deal to warrant a full announcement? If so, maybe people should buy this issue just to issue support for the character.

That about sums up my thoughts. At least, best as I'm able to in my brain-fried state after a full day in the Orlando sun. What do you guys make of this development, and where do you think Daniel's going with it?




Oh, and in an extra special bit of news, do you know what the latest collection of Tony Daniel's Batman run is going to be titled? "Eye of the Beholder." Seriously. That's just bloody super, especially considering that the Two-Face EotB is STILL not in print. I think I need to write to DC about that. Maybe they'll appreciate an actual letter.

Regular commenter Vito alerted me to this page, which describes the first half hour of Batman: Arkham City in detail (SPOILERS, obviously). Having read that, all I can say is, "well, nuts." All I'm gonna say is that I'm going to watch the actual gameplay with little to no expectations, so that if anything good actually happens, it'll be a pleasant surprise.

Oh, and the cover image and solicitation for the final part of Tony Daniel's upcoming Two-Face story has been released. It's not worth posting here, but you can find it along with the other solicits here. So Harvey's lost his coin? Or was it taken from him? There's certainly some potential for seeing a wayward Harvey, but we all know how optimistic I am about Daniel's story in general.

In both cases, I guess we'll just wait and see.

I've been working on my review of Joker's Asylum: Two-Face. For the past two weeks. And by review, I mean "comprehensive autopsy." This might be one of the biggest, most in-depth critiques I've written, definitely the sort of thing that average comic fan might sniff at and go, "Ugh, you're thinking too much, why don't you just enjoy it or whatever?"

So, hopefully you folks will enjoy it. I had a lot more to say than I realized, but it's rare to find such a glowing example of everything I hate about the way Two-Face is written. Expect to see that within the next week or two, as Henchgirl and I are still on the road.

What else is new? Several things! First off, the solicit for the latest issue of Tony Daniel's dreaded Two-Face story:





BATMAN #711
Written by TONY DANIEL
Art by STEVE SCOTT and RYAN WINN
Cover by TONY DANIEL
Batman acts on his suspicions of a newly elected political figure in Gotham City and finds himself in deep water. With piranhas. Meanwhile, Two-Face fights his way back from the brink of death to find an unlikely ally who will show him that there are two sides to every story.
On sale JUNE 15 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T


... Well, Harvey looked craggier and more Tommy Lee Jones than I'd like, but I'm loving the possibility that Daniel's having him wear his outfit from Nightwing: The Great Leap, which might just be my favorite Two-Face outfit. I still hate everything about Eddie here, and I'm still praying that the mystery female won't turn out to be Gilda.

Finally, prof_pig receives the distinction of being the first person to alert me to the fact that the new Arkham City trailer has been released, with footage of Harvey and Hugo!





First off, the trailer is pretty cool, although I'm torn on the use of indie rock. I kinda like how it reminds me of the awesome Sin City trailer that used "The Servant" by the Cells, but it hardly fits the tone of Batman or his world. Especially THIS Gotham.

Secondly, I adore the fact that Hugo, right off the bat (hurr), is fucking with Batman's brain, and that he calls the rogues and criminals "animals." I have absolutely no doubt that Hugo is going to be stellar in this game, and that a potentially great version of a great but unloved character will reach a whole new generation.

Harvey, on the other hand, is a different matter.

( Screenshots! With commentary! )

For comparison's sake, here's a look at the upcoming figures from Arkham City.





*shrugs* Eh? I'm looking forward to seeing how the final released figure will look, but based on this, it too is pretty standard. It looks like Harvey fell into a puddle of grape jelly. And I still hate the scarred arm. That's just silly-looking, not to mention that it pushes suspension of disbelief too far. Come on, that has to hurt like hell. Really, TAS aside, I've never understood why people give Harvey body scarring. He had the acid in his face, nowhere else, except maybe his hand as well. Some people just push the split thing too far.

Y'know, I was really, truly hoping that Tony Daniel wouldn't use Harvey. I really was. But it looks like he has plans for 2011:


“BATMAN in 2011 will prove rife full of challenges for Dick Grayson in Gotham City. While the Falcones are digging deeper into the business affairs of Gotham, someone has decided to help TWO-FACE return to glory. But are there ulterior motives at play? What role does Riddler play in all this and what does he want out of it? And with Catgirl being more of a menace than a hero, will she work through her nine lives before Batman to save her…from herself? Dick Grayson has a tough road ahead as Batman but he’ll forge ahead the best way he knows how—as guardian, protector, and savior of Gotham City.”


Thus far, the only time Daniel's written Harvey was in Battle for the Cowl, where he had Two-Face grind up a woman and at least two kids into shark chum. While I know that, yeah, Two-Face is a monster and all... I don't really like seeing him do that sorta thing, y'know? Personal preference and all, but I can really live without buckets of children meat in my Batman comics. And it's not exactly a promising indication of what Daniel might do with Harvey.

Nor is the fact that Daniel is such a fan of Jeph Loeb's Batman comics that, in the very first issue of his Batman run, he made The Long Halloween/Dark Victory canon. I mean, it was already sorta canon as of Hush, but one could easily argue that was just Loeb's personal canon, as it was mostly ignored by everyone else. Not Daniel, though. That said, while I dislike those stories, I don't hate the way Loeb wrote Harvey himself (although I do have my complaints), which makes the brief, nasty, all-evil appearance by Daniel even more disappointing.

But who knows? Given free reign with the character, perhaps Daniel actually might do something interesting with Harvey. Or, conversely, he might actually try to make this canon:





*shudder*

I'll say this, though. Since Daniel is clearly such a fan of Grant Morrison's mine-everything-in-Batman's-past-canon-and-make-it-darker method, I will accept nothing less in the way of a "return to glory" than seeing Harvey back in the orange and purple suit, green scarring, and either the bow tie or white turtleneck. Who says I'm too exacting and nit-picky? ;)

Note: action figure photos are courtesy of Nathan at DorkDimension.com, who took them for his excellent toy review, used here with permission.

Let's talk about the "Two-Face as Batman" action figure from the recent BATMAN REBORN action figure line, released from DC Direct a couple weeks ago. Actually, we can't do that until we talk about the costume itself first.



There are no two (hurr) ways around it: this costume sucks.

Ohhhh, god, what was Tony Daniel thinking when he designed it for a "Battle for the Cowl" teaser poster? It's like Harvey got into Harley Quinn's wardrobe and just slightly (you wouldn't have to do much!) altered her costume into a Batman outfit.

Imagine my great relief when Harvey never actually showed up wearing the damn thing in BftC. Imagine my horror when I saw the above image on the solicits for the finale of the excellent "Long Shadows" storyline by Judd Winnick, indicating that he would finally be wearing after all.





Imagine my slightly more relived reaction when I actually read the issue, and discovered that it was only used for a fear-toxin-induced hallucination on Dick's part. Why Dick would see that particular costume is beyond me, but there's no denying that it's certainly horrifying, all right. And not in the intended way.

Then imagine my own horror when I discovered that DC Direct was making an action figure of Two-Face as Batman in this abominable outfit. I was like, oh man, here's the one Two-Face figure I will never, ever buy. So imagine my surprise when I actually saw the figure in person and thought, "Wow, this... this ain't half-bad! It ain't half-good, but it ain't half-bad either!"

(Hey, I've been reading Golden Age Two-Face comics today, cut me some slack on the puns.)

What actually impressed me about it were tw... er, a couple things. First. is the facial sculpt, particularly the scarring and the paint job. Man, how I wish we could see that kind of detail on a regular Two-Face figure! The other detail is how the costume doesn't just have different colors, but the blue paint is glossy while the red is matte finish. Subtle, and quite clever!

But it's not enough to redeem that costume. And while I now kinda want the figure, $17 is a lot to pay for a great figure of a great character in a horrible outfit.

So what's to be done? Well... how about a custom repaint?

The thought occurred to me when I considered that we've occasionally seen images of Two-Face as Batman (or is it vice versa?), even going so far as getting something like this:





So I have to wonder, what would be a good design for a Batman costume that Two-Face would wear?

My first idea was that it would be a standard Batman costume, but one half burned, shredded, stained, and otherwise ruined, ala the outfit from NIGHTWING: THE GREAT LEAP, which itself was an (improved, IMO) expansion of the Aaron Eckhart movie outfit.

My next idea was maybe have the good half be a classic blue-and-gray Batman w/yellow symbol, maybe from the Bronze Age or even Adam West's outfit, with the bad side being dark, grim black-and-gray with no yellow circle (maybe the chest symbol would be just the bat itself, like the Daniel costume has, only yellow on one half and black on the other?), with the good side's bat ear filed down to a more reasonable point to counterbalance the huge JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED style devil's horn ear.

But no repaint is gonna get rid of that damn cape ring thing around his shoulders. No idea what to do about that. I still dunno, neither about that or what kind of repaint I'd want. Which is why I haven't bought the figure yet.



What do you think, folks? How would you redesign the costume? What kind of split would you give him? Or do you like the original Daniel design? If so, why?