Post by Two-Face on Dec 20, 2009 0:03:36 GMT -5
First Name: Harvey
Last Name: Dent
Alias or Nick-name: Two-Face, Janus, Holiday, 'Apollo' Dent
Age: 37
Height/Weight: 6'2" 195 lbs
Eyes: blue
Hair: right-side: dark brown, left-side: purple
Persuasion: Evil
Powers/Weapons: Known to use various types of pistols, rifles, machine guns, and explosives. Mainly using two of the same weapon with both hands, or using weapons that have two elelments to it (double-barriels, .22 calibar, etc.) Hand-to-hand combat training.
(wikipedia.com)
History: When he first appeared in Detective Comics #66, the character's name was Harvey Kent, but his name was changed to Harvey Dent in order to avoid unnecessary association with Clark Kent/Superman. The media nicknamed the young district attorney "Apollo" Dent for his good looks. His campaign against crime ended tragically when "Boss" Maroni, a crime boss whom Dent was prosecuting, threw vitriol (sulfuric acid) in Dent's face, horribly scarring his left hand and the left half of his face while leaving the other half undamaged. Tormented by his hideous reflection, vain Dent scarred one side of Maroni's two-headed coin and let tosses of the coin decide whether he acted for good or evil in any situation.
The comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween elaborated on these events, with some changes. In it, Dent, Commissioner James Gordon, and Batman forged an alliance to rid Gotham City of crime. Mafia chieftain Sal "The Boss" Maroni was still the criminal who disfigured Dent. Dent gets his trademark coin from his abusive father, who is referred to as being in some form of mental institution (his relationship with his father was earlier introduced in Batman Annual #14). Gilda, who had been Dent's fiancée back in Detective Comics #66 and 68 (1942), was instead his wife in The Long Halloween (1998).
The scarring of half his face brought out his latent multiple personality disorder and transformed him into the villainous Two-Face. Obsessed with duality and opposites, Two-Face's trademark was crimes involving the number two. Furthermore, his related obsession with opposites reveals itself in such "quirks" as wearing clothes with dramatically different materials on each side.
Another of Two-Face's trademarks was that he did not consistently go through with his evil deeds; every time he contemplated committing a crime, he flipped a two-headed coin, one side of which was scratched. Only if the coin came up scratched-side did Two-Face go ahead and commit the crime, never questioning the result of the toss. A particularly interesting example of this occurs when Two-Face, along with the Joker and the Penguin, poisoned Batman; when Robin suggested a coin-toss to decide whether Two-Face should give Batman the antidote, Two-Face attacked the Penguin to get the vial in question when the coin came up heads. Recent interpretations portray this compulsion as a struggle between Dent's evil "Two-Face" personality and his former, law-abiding self. It is also, as Two-Face himself implies in The Long Halloween as well as other stories, a mockery of the law that he lives by and fights for prior to his disfigurement.
Essentially viewing his own scarring as a karmatic unfairness considering the great sacrifices and work he has made, Two-Face often views justice as arbitrary; if true justice existed, he would not be scarred and would not exist. His coin is therefore the only apparent justice in the world - averages. To him, the only deliverer of reward and punishment, success and poverty, or life and death is chance.
The character only made three appearances in the 1940s, and appeared twice in the 1950s (not counting the impostors mentioned below). By this time he was dropped in favor of more "kid friendly" villains. In 1971, writer Dennis O'Neil brought Two-Face back, and it was then that he became one of Batman's arch-enemies.
In the 1980s, Frank Miller rewrote Two-Face's origin, making him a victim of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Miller also introduced a much stronger aspect to the dual nature, using Two-Face as a metaphor for the charitable and hostile sides of human nature. In this incarnation, Two-Face/Dent was reimagined as a tragic character, with a back story that included an abusive, alcoholic father and struggling through law school. Miller further expanded on the character by making the pre-accident Dent a major heroic figure in Batman: Year One. Dent's past actions and ties to both Batman and Commissioner Gordon make him an unsettling and personal foe for both men.
During the same period, Two-Face was revealed to have murdered Jason Todd's (the second Robin) father for failing him in some way, after the man was forced to turn to crime following his wife's death from cancer. Todd later had Dent at his mercy and chose not to kill him, embracing the ideals of Batman. This storyline was later mirrored in the animated series of the late nineties with Tim Drake substituting for Jason Todd.
In 1989, writer Grant Morrison showed Dent's dependence on his coin in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. The doctors in the asylum decided to break down Dent's psychotic behavior by taking away his coin and replacing it with a die and eventually a tarot deck. Effectively giving him 78 options, Dent could no longer decide on what to do. At the end of the graphic novel, Batman gives Dent his coin back, telling him to decide his (Batman’s) fate with the flip of the coin. Harvey Dent lets Batman go, despite the scarred side of the coin being face up.
Throughout the history of the Batman franchise, attempts have been made to repair his facial scars, but they have not yet cured his insanity; he simply destroys the one side of his face and becomes Two-Face once again.
During the aftermath of the earthquake that left Gotham City in shambles, Two-Face carved out a sizable portion of the No Man's Land for himself. He took up residence in Gotham City Hall, maintaining a relatively sophisticated lifestyle. But his empire was brought down by Bane, who, in the employ of Lex Luthor, devastated Two-Face's gang during his destruction of the city's Hall of Records. Two-Face kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and put him on trial for his activities after Gotham City was declared a No Man's Land, with Two-Face as both judge and prosecutor. Gordon played upon Two-Face's split psyche to demand Harvey Dent as his defense attorney. In what is arguably one of the most powerful sequences of the storyline, Harvey Dent cross-examined Two-Face and won an acquittal of Gordon, determining that Two-Face had effectively blackmailed Gordon by implying that he had committed murders to aid the Commissioner.
It was also during this time that Two-Face met the detective Renee Montoya. Montoya was able to reach the Dent persona in Two-Face, and she was kind to him. He fell in love with her, though the romance was one-sided. Later, in the series Gotham Central, he outed her as a lesbian and framed her for murder, hoping that if he took everything from her she would be left with no choice but to be with him. She was furious, and the two fought for control of his gun until Batman intervened, putting Two-Face back in Arkham Asylum.
In the Two-Face one shot book, Two-Face leads a crusade against Gotham City, culminating in the capturing of his own father to humiliate and kill on live television for the years of abuse he suffered. It was in this story that we learned that, despite his apparent hatred for his abusive father, Dent still loved him, paying for an expensive home for him rather than allowing him to live in a slum. However, this abuse was what made Two-Face, and even Two-Face admitted that the scarring was not the key event in his creation. At the end of the book, Dent and Two-Face argue in thought, Two-Face calling Dent "spineless." Dent proves Two-Face wrong, choosing to jump off a building and end his life just to put a stop to Two-Face. Two-Face was surprised when the coin flip came up scarred, but abided by the decision and jumped. Batman caught Dent, but the shock of the fall seemed to (at least temporarily) destroy the Two-Face side of his psyche.
Two-Face is also at odds with his ex-wife Gilda, as Two-Face believes their marriage failed as he was unable to give her children. She later married Paul Janus (the events of Two-Face Strikes Twice), whom Two-Face had attempted to frame as a criminal by kidnapping him and replacing him with a stand-in, whom Two-Face "disfigured" with makeup to make it look as if Janus had gone insane just as Two-Face had. Eventually caught by Batman, Two-Face was sent away and Gilda and Janus reunited. Some time later, Gilda gave birth to twins, prompting Two-Face to escape once more and take the twins hostage, as he had believed them to be conceived by Janus using an experimental fertility drug. They were not, however, to the disappointment of the black market doctor with whom he was working. The end of the book reveals a surprise twist - Batman learns from Gilda that Janus is not the father of Gilda's twins - Harvey is. Some of Harvey's sperm had been frozen after a death threat had been made against him, and was used to give birth to the twins. Batman is able to use this information to convince Harvey to free the twins and turn himself in.
In the storyline Batman: Hush, Dent's face was repaired once more via plastic surgery. This time around, only the Harvey Dent persona exists. However, he ended up taking the law into his own hands twice: once by using his ability to manipulate the legal system to free the Joker, and then again by shooting Hush (Thomas Elliot), but managing to manipulate the courts into setting him free, as Gotham's prosecutors wouldn't attempt to charge him without a body.
In Detective Comics #817, as part of DC's "One Year Later", it was revealed that, at Batman's request and with training, Dent had become a vigilante protector of Gotham City in most of Batman's absence of nearly a year (about eight or nine months). He was reluctant to take the job, but Batman assured him doing good would atone him of his past crimes. After two to three months in training, they fought Firebug and Mr. Freeze, before Batman left for nearly a year. Soon, Dent found himself enjoying his new role, but his methods were seemingly more extreme and less refined than Batman's. Upon Batman's return, Dent began to feel unnecessary and unappreciated, which prompted the return of the "Two-Face" persona (seen and heard by Dent through hallucinations). His feelings of uselessness were compounded by a series of mysterious killings that seemed to have been committed by Two-Face; the villains KGBeast, Magpie, The Ventriloquist, and Orca were all shot twice in the head with a double-barrelled pistol, implying that Dent was the perpetrator. When Batman confronted Dent about these deaths, asking Dent to confirm that he was not responsible, Dent refused to give a definite answer regarding his involvement in these deaths. He then detonated a bomb in his apartment.
Despite escaping the explosion physically unscathed to a motel, Dent suffered a crisis of conscience and a mental battle with his "Two-Face" personality. Although evidence was later uncovered by Batman that exonerated Harvey Dent for the murders, it was too late to do anything to save him. Prompted by resentment and a paranoid reaction to Batman's questioning of him, Dent scarred half his face with nitric acid and a scalpel, becoming Two-Face once again. Blaming Batman for his return (despite Batman's having consistently defended Harvey to the authorities), Two-Face immediately went on a criminal rampage, threatening to destroy the Gotham Zoo (having retained two of every animal - including two humans) before escaping to fight Batman another day. He is currently at large, and his whereabouts and motives are unknown.
Comic character is from: Detective Comics, Batman, etc.
Last Name: Dent
Alias or Nick-name: Two-Face, Janus, Holiday, 'Apollo' Dent
Age: 37
Height/Weight: 6'2" 195 lbs
Eyes: blue
Hair: right-side: dark brown, left-side: purple
Persuasion: Evil
Powers/Weapons: Known to use various types of pistols, rifles, machine guns, and explosives. Mainly using two of the same weapon with both hands, or using weapons that have two elelments to it (double-barriels, .22 calibar, etc.) Hand-to-hand combat training.
(wikipedia.com)
History: When he first appeared in Detective Comics #66, the character's name was Harvey Kent, but his name was changed to Harvey Dent in order to avoid unnecessary association with Clark Kent/Superman. The media nicknamed the young district attorney "Apollo" Dent for his good looks. His campaign against crime ended tragically when "Boss" Maroni, a crime boss whom Dent was prosecuting, threw vitriol (sulfuric acid) in Dent's face, horribly scarring his left hand and the left half of his face while leaving the other half undamaged. Tormented by his hideous reflection, vain Dent scarred one side of Maroni's two-headed coin and let tosses of the coin decide whether he acted for good or evil in any situation.
The comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween elaborated on these events, with some changes. In it, Dent, Commissioner James Gordon, and Batman forged an alliance to rid Gotham City of crime. Mafia chieftain Sal "The Boss" Maroni was still the criminal who disfigured Dent. Dent gets his trademark coin from his abusive father, who is referred to as being in some form of mental institution (his relationship with his father was earlier introduced in Batman Annual #14). Gilda, who had been Dent's fiancée back in Detective Comics #66 and 68 (1942), was instead his wife in The Long Halloween (1998).
The scarring of half his face brought out his latent multiple personality disorder and transformed him into the villainous Two-Face. Obsessed with duality and opposites, Two-Face's trademark was crimes involving the number two. Furthermore, his related obsession with opposites reveals itself in such "quirks" as wearing clothes with dramatically different materials on each side.
Another of Two-Face's trademarks was that he did not consistently go through with his evil deeds; every time he contemplated committing a crime, he flipped a two-headed coin, one side of which was scratched. Only if the coin came up scratched-side did Two-Face go ahead and commit the crime, never questioning the result of the toss. A particularly interesting example of this occurs when Two-Face, along with the Joker and the Penguin, poisoned Batman; when Robin suggested a coin-toss to decide whether Two-Face should give Batman the antidote, Two-Face attacked the Penguin to get the vial in question when the coin came up heads. Recent interpretations portray this compulsion as a struggle between Dent's evil "Two-Face" personality and his former, law-abiding self. It is also, as Two-Face himself implies in The Long Halloween as well as other stories, a mockery of the law that he lives by and fights for prior to his disfigurement.
Essentially viewing his own scarring as a karmatic unfairness considering the great sacrifices and work he has made, Two-Face often views justice as arbitrary; if true justice existed, he would not be scarred and would not exist. His coin is therefore the only apparent justice in the world - averages. To him, the only deliverer of reward and punishment, success and poverty, or life and death is chance.
The character only made three appearances in the 1940s, and appeared twice in the 1950s (not counting the impostors mentioned below). By this time he was dropped in favor of more "kid friendly" villains. In 1971, writer Dennis O'Neil brought Two-Face back, and it was then that he became one of Batman's arch-enemies.
In the 1980s, Frank Miller rewrote Two-Face's origin, making him a victim of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Miller also introduced a much stronger aspect to the dual nature, using Two-Face as a metaphor for the charitable and hostile sides of human nature. In this incarnation, Two-Face/Dent was reimagined as a tragic character, with a back story that included an abusive, alcoholic father and struggling through law school. Miller further expanded on the character by making the pre-accident Dent a major heroic figure in Batman: Year One. Dent's past actions and ties to both Batman and Commissioner Gordon make him an unsettling and personal foe for both men.
During the same period, Two-Face was revealed to have murdered Jason Todd's (the second Robin) father for failing him in some way, after the man was forced to turn to crime following his wife's death from cancer. Todd later had Dent at his mercy and chose not to kill him, embracing the ideals of Batman. This storyline was later mirrored in the animated series of the late nineties with Tim Drake substituting for Jason Todd.
In 1989, writer Grant Morrison showed Dent's dependence on his coin in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. The doctors in the asylum decided to break down Dent's psychotic behavior by taking away his coin and replacing it with a die and eventually a tarot deck. Effectively giving him 78 options, Dent could no longer decide on what to do. At the end of the graphic novel, Batman gives Dent his coin back, telling him to decide his (Batman’s) fate with the flip of the coin. Harvey Dent lets Batman go, despite the scarred side of the coin being face up.
Throughout the history of the Batman franchise, attempts have been made to repair his facial scars, but they have not yet cured his insanity; he simply destroys the one side of his face and becomes Two-Face once again.
During the aftermath of the earthquake that left Gotham City in shambles, Two-Face carved out a sizable portion of the No Man's Land for himself. He took up residence in Gotham City Hall, maintaining a relatively sophisticated lifestyle. But his empire was brought down by Bane, who, in the employ of Lex Luthor, devastated Two-Face's gang during his destruction of the city's Hall of Records. Two-Face kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and put him on trial for his activities after Gotham City was declared a No Man's Land, with Two-Face as both judge and prosecutor. Gordon played upon Two-Face's split psyche to demand Harvey Dent as his defense attorney. In what is arguably one of the most powerful sequences of the storyline, Harvey Dent cross-examined Two-Face and won an acquittal of Gordon, determining that Two-Face had effectively blackmailed Gordon by implying that he had committed murders to aid the Commissioner.
It was also during this time that Two-Face met the detective Renee Montoya. Montoya was able to reach the Dent persona in Two-Face, and she was kind to him. He fell in love with her, though the romance was one-sided. Later, in the series Gotham Central, he outed her as a lesbian and framed her for murder, hoping that if he took everything from her she would be left with no choice but to be with him. She was furious, and the two fought for control of his gun until Batman intervened, putting Two-Face back in Arkham Asylum.
In the Two-Face one shot book, Two-Face leads a crusade against Gotham City, culminating in the capturing of his own father to humiliate and kill on live television for the years of abuse he suffered. It was in this story that we learned that, despite his apparent hatred for his abusive father, Dent still loved him, paying for an expensive home for him rather than allowing him to live in a slum. However, this abuse was what made Two-Face, and even Two-Face admitted that the scarring was not the key event in his creation. At the end of the book, Dent and Two-Face argue in thought, Two-Face calling Dent "spineless." Dent proves Two-Face wrong, choosing to jump off a building and end his life just to put a stop to Two-Face. Two-Face was surprised when the coin flip came up scarred, but abided by the decision and jumped. Batman caught Dent, but the shock of the fall seemed to (at least temporarily) destroy the Two-Face side of his psyche.
Two-Face is also at odds with his ex-wife Gilda, as Two-Face believes their marriage failed as he was unable to give her children. She later married Paul Janus (the events of Two-Face Strikes Twice), whom Two-Face had attempted to frame as a criminal by kidnapping him and replacing him with a stand-in, whom Two-Face "disfigured" with makeup to make it look as if Janus had gone insane just as Two-Face had. Eventually caught by Batman, Two-Face was sent away and Gilda and Janus reunited. Some time later, Gilda gave birth to twins, prompting Two-Face to escape once more and take the twins hostage, as he had believed them to be conceived by Janus using an experimental fertility drug. They were not, however, to the disappointment of the black market doctor with whom he was working. The end of the book reveals a surprise twist - Batman learns from Gilda that Janus is not the father of Gilda's twins - Harvey is. Some of Harvey's sperm had been frozen after a death threat had been made against him, and was used to give birth to the twins. Batman is able to use this information to convince Harvey to free the twins and turn himself in.
In the storyline Batman: Hush, Dent's face was repaired once more via plastic surgery. This time around, only the Harvey Dent persona exists. However, he ended up taking the law into his own hands twice: once by using his ability to manipulate the legal system to free the Joker, and then again by shooting Hush (Thomas Elliot), but managing to manipulate the courts into setting him free, as Gotham's prosecutors wouldn't attempt to charge him without a body.
In Detective Comics #817, as part of DC's "One Year Later", it was revealed that, at Batman's request and with training, Dent had become a vigilante protector of Gotham City in most of Batman's absence of nearly a year (about eight or nine months). He was reluctant to take the job, but Batman assured him doing good would atone him of his past crimes. After two to three months in training, they fought Firebug and Mr. Freeze, before Batman left for nearly a year. Soon, Dent found himself enjoying his new role, but his methods were seemingly more extreme and less refined than Batman's. Upon Batman's return, Dent began to feel unnecessary and unappreciated, which prompted the return of the "Two-Face" persona (seen and heard by Dent through hallucinations). His feelings of uselessness were compounded by a series of mysterious killings that seemed to have been committed by Two-Face; the villains KGBeast, Magpie, The Ventriloquist, and Orca were all shot twice in the head with a double-barrelled pistol, implying that Dent was the perpetrator. When Batman confronted Dent about these deaths, asking Dent to confirm that he was not responsible, Dent refused to give a definite answer regarding his involvement in these deaths. He then detonated a bomb in his apartment.
Despite escaping the explosion physically unscathed to a motel, Dent suffered a crisis of conscience and a mental battle with his "Two-Face" personality. Although evidence was later uncovered by Batman that exonerated Harvey Dent for the murders, it was too late to do anything to save him. Prompted by resentment and a paranoid reaction to Batman's questioning of him, Dent scarred half his face with nitric acid and a scalpel, becoming Two-Face once again. Blaming Batman for his return (despite Batman's having consistently defended Harvey to the authorities), Two-Face immediately went on a criminal rampage, threatening to destroy the Gotham Zoo (having retained two of every animal - including two humans) before escaping to fight Batman another day. He is currently at large, and his whereabouts and motives are unknown.
Comic character is from: Detective Comics, Batman, etc.
