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Batman Character
Two-Face (Harvey Dent)
Publisher	DC Comics
Gender	Male
Species	Human
Creator(s)	Bill Finger & Bob Kane
First Appearance	Detective Comics #66 (1942)
Profession	Former District Attorney of Gotham City, Master criminal
Affiliations
Special Features	Left half of face is disfigured, Flips two-headed coin before a crime.

Two-Face is a fictional comic book recurring villain who has gone up against the Batman character for decades. Batman is a comic book superhero published by DC Comics.

Two-Face’s face is hideously scarred, but the scars only exist on the left half of his face, dividing his face neatly in two. This emphasizes the duality of the character, a theme that is his trade mark. Like all of us, Two-Face has a “good side” and a “bad side”, but, in his case, both are sharply delineated and exaggerated. He often dresses in a suit that is sharply divided down the middle into two styles, one neat and professional lining up with the unscarred half of his face, the other garish and bizarrely colored lining up with his scarred side. Two-Face’s outside appearance represents the struggle between his good and evil natures.

He carries with him, always, a two headed coin, with one side marked and disfigured like the man himself. The coin serves as a kind of “tie-breaker”. At each juncture, before committing a crime, or when he has a chance to commit a heinous act of one kind or another, Two-Face is compelled to flip the coin. If the marked side comes up, he goes ahead with the crime, if the good side comes up, he shows mercy or abandons the criminal act.

Two-Face, who always partly wants to be caught, often uses the number two as a theme for his crimes. He’ll strike at 2:00, or kidnap twins, or something of this nature. Between crime sprees, Two-Face is shown to reside at Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane.

In all versions of the story, Two-Face is District Attorney Harvey Dent, both friend to Bruce Wayne and ally to the Batman. When his face is splashed with acid by criminal “Boss” Maroni during a trial, his mind is fractured forever and Two-Face is born. In the original version, Maroni’s first name is “Sal”, and Harvey gets the coin from the criminal himself, who is flipping it casually on the witness stand just before tossing the acid. This would change in the retellings. Batman often holds out hope that he can cure his friend Harvey, making their adversarial relationship a particularly poignant one. Harvey Dent’s face has been repaired a few times surgically, and this has temporarily restored his sanity in the past. Before long, poor Harvey is always compelled to undo the work, and Two-Face is back.

Character Origin

The details of the Two-Face origin changes as each writer puts his own spin on the character. In Batman Annual # 14 (1990), Andrew Helfer and Chris Sprouse deliver a masterful fifty-five page retelling of the Two-Face story. The summary below is mostly based on this version.

Harvey Dent has a violent upbringing, with a father who is an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, and who would beat his son on a nightly basis. When Harvey has problems getting through school, he is brought under a psychiatrist's care. He is diagnosed a hebephrenic schizophrenic, and the doctors hold out little hope of his leading a normal life. In other versions of the tale, Harvey is diagnosed bi-polar and schizophrenic.

Then Harvey gets interested in the law. The more he studies, the more his condition improves. By the time he enters college, he seems to have completely suppressed his dark side, and appears completely normal. He marries, graduates law school, and works himself up the ladder until he eventually gets elected as district attorney of Gotham City. At this point, he visits his father and tries to resolve their relationship. The old man proves to be as abusive as ever, but makes a present to Harvey of one of his two-headed silver dollars that he loves to collect. His wife notes that it is the one thing that his father has ever given him.

Harvey prosecutes a serial killer brought in by the Batman. But the new vigilante, just starting out, fails to gather sufficient evidence against him, and Harvey loses the case, and the killer goes free. That night, Harvey commits his first crime and murders the killer. Though he gets away with the crime, it appears that this will not help his now floundering career, which the loss of the case seems to have irreparably damaged.

At the suggestion of then Captain James Gordon, Harvey enters into a relationship with the Batman. Batman will continue to operate as he does, but Harvey will advise him on what evidence he has acquired and exactly what is still needed. Batman will hold off arresting the criminal, until Harvey feels he can get a conviction.

This arrangement works well. Soon, they find that they have put away enough criminals to repair Harvey’s reputation and make Batman a more effective vigilante. The two eventually build up an air-tight case against “Boss” Vincent Maroni, which would be Harvey’s crowning achievement. With nothing left to lose, Maroni takes the stand, and throws acid in the face of the district attorney, scarring the left half of his face terribly.

At this point, Harvey’s suppressed psychological scars come to the surface. He murders his corrupt assistant, who colluded with Maroni and even supplied him with the acid, and then goes to confront his father. Harvey marks one side of the silver dollar his father gave him. The old man is contrite, but Harvey flips the coin. The scarred side comes up, and Harvey commits patricide, forever cementing the Two-Face personality in place.

Two-Face Portrayals

Billy Dee Williams plays a pre-acid District Attorney Harvey Dent in the live action film Batman (1989 film) (1989), though he never appears in the Two-Face persona.

Tommy Lee Jones played Two Face in the live action movie Batman Forever (1995).

Aaron Eckhart will take on the role in the upcoming film The Dark Knight.

Richard Moll voiced the character of Two-Face in Batman: The Animated Series (1992).