The Definitive Harvey Dent Story: “Eye of the Beholder”

[about_faces]

It's difficult to encapsulate just how important Eye of the Beholder is both to the character of Harvey Dent and for me, personally, as a fan. To simply call it the greatest Two-Face story of all time (as some have done) doesn't do it justice.

Comments

[aliasjack]

So whatever happened to the evidence? Did Harvey turn it over, or did he keep it hidden somewhere until he got out of Arkham?
Somehow the lie he tells Bruce during the hospital visit stands out to me. It works perfectly, but it has a subtlety that's too often lost when people write him.

[thehefner]

Presumably, Harvey pocketed it someplace for use later upon his first escape from Arkham, thus putting Two-Face already ahead of the curve as a new gang boss.

[shadowlongknife]

THANK YOU.

This is one of my favorite Batman comics ever, and the face I always envision when I think of Harvey Dent was drawn by Chris Sprouse. I knew there was a reason we got along well, Hef.

[thehefner]

You're very welcome! Thanks for saying so. It's always reaffirming to know that I'm not the only one to love stories like this. :)

Remember that Who's Who entry of Two-Face drawn by Chris Sprouce? That's one of my favorite drawings of the character. Wish I had a scan of it. At the time, it almost seemed like he was going to become the Two-Face artist (along with Kieron Dwyer for the Riddler, still one of my favorite character-artist pairings ever), but now that title seems to have gone to Mark Chiarello. No complaints there.

[pure_doxyk]

Yay! I've heard about this issue but never read it. I feel more complete as a person now!

...At least, half of me does...

;)

[thehefner]

What'd you think of it, now that you've read it (albeit in an edited manner with my own long-winded commentary)?

[pure_doxyk]

Awesome. I really dug the whole "Harvey was never entirely stable, for realistic long-standing reasons" angle. This was the most believable I've seen his problem portrayed *as a mental illness*, though I thought the Arkham comics didn't do too badly either (but then again they were mostly about the villains being mentally ill).

[night_train_fm]

I'm a little hesitant to say 'this officially made a Two-Face fan of me', but...what the heck. Thanks for uploading it again - the only part I really miss is Harvey's confrontation with the doctor, and what happens when Harvey takes his advice to heart.

Man, what would it have been like if Eckhart had material like this to work with (and that's coming from someone who was grinning through most of TDK)?

On a non-Harvey note, gotta love Batman's cape-wings when he jumps off the roof.

[thehefner]

The Dr. Klemper stuff has lead to one of the only real problems I have with this story: namely, that Harvey kills Klemper. It seems a bit of a leap in his madness. Compare it with the beating of Pike, which was hot-blooded and self-defense given way to uncontrollable rage.

Klemper's murder, on the other hand, was cold-blooded, premeditated, and carefully planned... moreso in the original version of the comic as related to me by Chris Sprouce, wherein there was a whole page that step-by-step detailed how Harvey rigged the house to explode. DC nixed that page because they didn't want to teach readers how to blow things up.

It kind of betrays the beauty of how Harvey's madness is the result of being pushed too far until the fury that's bubbling under the surface bursts out uncontrollably. I do like how Klemper manipulates and pushes him, but I wish it had been handled another way. I don't know how.

[jaredmith]

The scene between Harvey and Klemper in the Judge's office reminds of me how annoyed I was with Crisis Core writing Genesis into the scene where Sephiroth learns what he is.

[swimpenguin]

rocking story.