DCAU Review: "Two Timer" by Paul Dini and Ty Templeton (1995)

[about_faces]

This has to be the single most depressingly tragic tale in all of DCAU canon. It's also, not coincidentally, one of the greatest. But I'd be lying if I said that it was one of my favorites, or that I looked forward to posting about it here.

Comments

[psychopathicus]

It's my personal theory, as I think I've mentioned before, that 'Big Bad Harv' no longer actually exists, that he was subsumed into the Two-Face personality by the shock of the acid scarring. (The main evidence for this would be that Harv has no particular obsession with duality; that came later, after his 'host' was bifurcated.) As such, yeah, I don't think 'Harv has taken over, and he ain't listening' would really work. Two-Face may be brutal and irrational at times, but he's not stupid, and in just about every continuity, he hates the Joker - just hearing that the Clown Prince might have been pulling his chain should be enough to get his attention.
I think the key to writing Harvey is to portray him as someone who is teetering on the thin edge of being beyond hope - he's just barely managing to hold onto his good side and allow it some influence over his truly twisted dark side. That's kind of a tricky balancing act, and I'm guessing that a number of writers just go 'screw it' and portray him as having already gone over the edge, which is more fun to write.