Poll of the Day > Harvey Dent is the worst Batman character

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ok, so nevermind that people with split personalities just don't act like that, when Harvey becomes twoface, he doesn't even act he has a good personality. He just acts like a generic bad guy. He just robs banks... for some reason.

Harvey is stupid. His face being split straight down the middle is cheesy, and his split personality is forced. He constantly refers to himself as "us" and flips in between the same sentence. If I saw him in real life I would assume he was just being painfully fake.

No one walks away from a Batman media thinking "man, I really liked that version of twoface". It's always "twoface was there and he was kind of cool I guess".

He's a shit main character. I like condiment man more. Give him the spotlight.

Yellow posted...

Ok, so nevermind that people with split personalities just don't act like that

If you're looking for realism in comic books, there may be no hope for you.

But honestly, I'm not sure any form of media has ever gotten the depiction of MPD/DID right.

It's the same problem with schizophrenia. Laypeople have no idea what that actually means, and like with most mental illness they base their portrayal of it almost entirely on pop culture and armchair psychology assumptions about what it is (that are almost always wrong).



Yellow posted...

No one walks away from a Batman media thinking "man, I really liked that version of twoface". It's always "twoface was there and he was kind of cool I guess".

I really liked the Batman: The Animated Series version of Two-Face. And it's not just because Richard Moll is my spirit animal. They did a really good job of making him sympathetic but also utterly broken.

BTAS did a fantastic job on most of their villains, though. I consider most of them my definitive favorite versions of any given Batman villain.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

BTAS

BTAS is better than it used to be, and that's just how well it aged.

But no Batman villain is as good as Charlie Collins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkqSXcTR2AM

Two Face seems to act completely differently in every incarnation I've seen him in, which is bizarre because of all the Batman villains you'd think his gimmick would be the most straightforward.

When I was a kid I thought his name was Toothpaste because his face was often depicted as a minty toothpaste color.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Two Face seems to act completely differently in every incarnation I've seen him in, which is bizarre because of all the Batman villains you'd think his gimmick would be the most straightforward.

If you really want to blow your mind...

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Harvey_Kent_(Earth-Two)

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Wilkins_(Earth-Two)

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Sloane_(Earth-Two)

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/George_Blake_(Earth-Two)

Blightzkrieg posted...

Two Face seems to act completely differently in every incarnation I've seen him in, which is bizarre because of all the Batman villains you'd think his gimmick would be the most straightforward.

When I was a kid I thought his name was Toothpaste because his face was often depicted as a minty toothpaste color.

Real explanation is because they can't figure out how to do him right.

Also fucking lol at him being the toothpaste man.

He should have gotten more screentime in TDK

I wanna say I almost liked him in the Telltale batman Game, but then I had to look it up to remember and he just gets forced into the villain role even if you save/help him at every single opputunity anyway, which is like twice every episode.

Cruddy_horse posted...

I wanna say I almost liked him in the Telltale batman Game, but then I had to look it up to remember and he just gets forced into the villain role even if you save/help him at every single opportunity anyway, which is like twice every episode.

Yeah, the Telltale games are notorious for that sort of thing (though some are worse than others).

That was probably the one time it annoyed me the most, though - you can go out of your way to save him and he still goes crazy (for basically no reason). He basically turns into Two-Face, just without the face (One-Face?).

Would have been nice if you could save him, and have him stay mostly good for the rest of the story (it's not like Telltale can't tell stories with consequence - the choice in Tales From the Borderlands where you choose whether or not to ally with Jack creates significant changes to the plot for an entire act or so, which makes the choice feel way more meaningful). Since you actively have to leave Catwoman in danger to save him, it might have been neat for the branching story to have her turn against you instead in his place, otherwise create conflict that way.

Catwoman's plot as a whole was the other thing that annoyed me in that story - you can go out of your way to reject her at every opportunity, yet the game still kind of forces you together with her (about the only real change is whether you get to kiss her goodbye when she leaves or not). Would have been nice if any of the choices you make with her ever meant anything of substance.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm not sure any form of media has ever gotten the depiction of MPD/DID right.

I'd recommend Moonknight on Disney + if you haven't seen that already. It does a decent job, at least for a while. The Cinema Therapy video on YouTube goes more in depth as to why.

I really liked the Batman: The Animated Series version of Two-Face.

Yep, that's the best depiction of Two-Face, bar none. But that goes for almost every Batman villain, and The Dark Knight himself.

You could make an argument for the Arkham games, too. Since they kind of carried the torch of TAS for a while.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But honestly, I'm not sure any form of media has ever gotten the depiction of MPD/DID right.

Brandon Sanderson certainly tried in the third and fourth Stormlight books, with one character. Apparently he interviewed a few people with it as a reference. Now whether or not he got it spot on is another story, that I cannot speak to, and I'm sure you've no interest in doing considering whom the author is.

Ok, honest idea for the improvement of twoface.

Previously he was an attorney who was good but occasionally corrupt. As a mobster, he should be mostly evil with occasional uncharacteristic returns to be a heroic person.

So example, Joker and twoface have territorial disputes and gang violence. But occasionally twoface will try to interfere with Joker's plans for simply being too evil, while incoherently doing something just as evil somewhere else.

Batman can choose to support twoface being the lesser of two evils at times, or reject his overall instability and unreliability. Maybe twoface even abides by Batman's "no killing" rule, requesting Batman's help to use non-lethal means, and at other times just committing mass murder, making him a character that you really can't trust but occasionally have to work with. He would be a good metaphor for a corrupt government official.

Twoface is really the spawn of Joker, who just wants chaos. Make him good half the time, not just "another mobster".

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you really want to blow your mind...

Wait a minute...

Harvey Kent, not Harvey Dent?
George Blake was the third impostor of Two-Face, but also Sloane continued on as the third Two-Face.
But then George Blake used as reference a newspaper photograph of Dent from a reversed negative. Dent, not Kent again.

I like how his evil half is called "Big Bad Harv"

Yellow posted...

Ok, so nevermind that people with split personalities just don't act like that,

Youre aware that hes a comic book character, yes?

Yellow posted...

No one walks away from a Batman media thinking "man, I really liked that version of twoface".

Incorrect. Hes one of my favorite villains. Loved him in The Animated Series and The Dark Knight especially.

I was always disappointed they didnt do more with him in the Arkham games.

rexcrk posted...

Youre aware that hes a comic book character, yes?

Wait, really? I guess I should have said something like nevermind that fact.

Yellow posted...

Wait, really? I guess I should have said something like nevermind that fact.

Just take the L, man.

Yellow posted...

Ok, honest idea for the improvement of twoface.

Previously he was an attorney who was good but occasionally corrupt. As a mobster, he should be mostly evil with occasional uncharacteristic returns to be a heroic person.

Ditch the black and white split suit and make him remorseful of his dual personality that makes him an outcast in both the legal and crime world, fitting in nowhere. Keep his half burnt face but make him a normal looking burn victim, and make it not perfectly symmetric. Make him do things that are completely uncharacteristic of a mobster. Make it so he has to consistent ideology because he keeps changing his mind.

If you ditch the split face he's just another boring villain with burn scars. At that point he's competing with Doctor Doom, Baron Zemo, Freddy Krueger, Zuko, Darth Vader, etc.

He's already frankly a bit boring as a villain to begin with.

I do like the rest of the idea though he probably should keep the coin flip (again to stand out). The split suit can be a bit much.

I'm sure there's some variation of two face out there that's basically that though. He's different every time somebody writes him.

Blightzkrieg posted...

I do like the rest of the idea though he probably should keep the coin flip (again to stand out). The split suit can be a bit much.

The split suit is indeed much. And also, even the comics have poked fun at him going after anything that was in 2s, like the time he robbed a bank of its $2 bills.

I thought the Dark Knight did him about as well as possible: focusing 90% on Harvey Dent and 10% on the silly comic villain. The downfall from his white knight status was compelling, although of course it can't be terribly realistic falling from brave/stable/good lawyer all of the way to a scarred-face murderer due to one event no matter how bad said event was. They had little choice given the source material, though.

Can I get clarification on the Kent / Dent confusion? And which of them was the 3rd Two-Face?