Review: how the great Dick Sprang classic "Two-Face Strikes Again" kinda ruined Two-Face forever
One of the all-time great Two-Face stories is also, in my opinion, probably the worst thing to ever happen to him as a character. Which is to say, I love Two-Face Strikes Again! as a classic example of 50's Batman at its Sprang-iest fun, but I hate how it changed Harvey in ways that can still be seen in most bad Two-Face stories today.
So yeah, not to go all Chuck Dixon on you with the puns, but I'm of two minds about this one.
Also, I'm not sure who the hell drew that lousy cover, but I'm betting it wasn't Sprang. It's not often that a comic's interior art so greatly outshines the cover. That said, what kind of farm uses catapult tractors, and where the hell can I get one?
The problem with this story isn't just the way Two-Face is written, nor the way in which he's brought back. In some ways--and I can't believe that I'm saying this--Two-Face never should have returned at all! I suspect that he was never MEANT to be a recurring villain, based on the fact that the original Golden Age "Harvey Kent" trilogy was just that: a complete story, one which ended with the character's redemption and rehabilitation.
Sure, there were new Two-Face stories that followed, but as it seems like Bill Finger and company didn't want to sacrifice Harvey's happy ending, they decided to have it both ways by introducing a series of Impostor Two-Faces, each of whom became progressively ridiculous to fit the title's shift towards the Silver Age and, eventually, Adam West. This was also, mind you, the Golden Age of crime and horror comics, especially from EC, and thus it was in this iconic final stage of Batman's Golden Age--the legendary Dick Sprang era--that the temptation apparently became too great for DC. It was time to bring back the One True Two-Face.
This, of course, meant ruining Harvey Kent/Dent's happy ending, and the implied subsequent divorce from Gilda. Boo-urns! That would be bad enough on its own, but could have worked if the story continued the original trilogy's themes of duality and tragedy. Except that we were in the Sprang era, so LOL NO. The returned Harvey Dent more closely resembled the outlandish evil silliness of Impostor #3, George ("Here comes DOUBLE TROUBLE! HAHA!") Blake rather than the morose and surprisingly complex Harvey Kent. What once was a powerfully tragic and sympathic figure became a freaky-looking maniac obsessed with the number 2.
First, for comparison's sake, take a look at the splash pages from the original three parts of the Harvey Kent trilogy, and notice how all three emphasized the tragic, twisted, dual nature of Two-Face and how he's both good and evil:
Now compare it with the splash page of Two-Face Strikes Again, which heralds the grand return of the very same character:
Notice how there isn't a single mention of duality in terms of him being good as well as evil. Now, Two-Face is described with terms like "hate," "deceit," "dangerous." Hell, he's no longer even called half-handsome, but instead is described as having "a hideous face." He is now a pure all-evil all-the-time capital-V Villain.
Still, that's not to say that Two-Face Strikes Again! didn't add some new wrinkle of tragedy, one definitely worth considering when it comes to examining the bottomless pit of suck that is Harvey Dent's life:
_sprang1.jpg)
Let's put aside the writing that's bad even by Golden Age standards (even the writing on Superfriends was better!) and instead focus on the important thing: Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face again solely because he tried to do the right thing.
I mean, sure, he probably would have been better off going for a cop rather than charging in and alerting the robbers of his presence (robbers who, as safecrackers, obviously carried explosives or maybe even acid, for all Harvey knew), but let's not blame Harvey too much. You can't expect much in the way of logic from stories of this era, so it's best to suspend disbelief and consider that it was essentially an act of pure good when led to Harvey becoming pure evil.
You see, he's no longer just psychologically unhinged, but as you'll see in the next panel, he's now also brain-damaged from the explosion! I can't decide if that excuses the change we're about to see, or irreparably ruins a great character. Probably both! Wheeeee!
Once again, I'd love to see what would have happened if the coin DIDN'T land scarred side up to further the storyline. "ARGLE BARGLE! THIS PROVES IT! I'M DESTINED TO BE TWO-FACE FOREVER! BUT JUST TO BE SAFE, LET'S SEE WHAT THE COIN SAYS!" *flips* "AHA, I... oh wait, good side. Welp, never mind. back to society I go."
And yeah, in case the horses didn't tip you off, any semblance of tragedy is over. Let the Sprang-era wackiness commence! And just like George Blake (whose story, I suspect, greatly informed this one), Harvey Dent now absolutely loves being evil. It's clearly the most fun thing in the entire world.
_sprang3.jpg)
Well, have you? HAVE YOU?!
Man, even in the Golden Age, Dick doesn't give a damn when it comes to understanding Harvey. "Eh, he's just nuts! Let's go beat him up!" At the same time, Batman isn't written as showing any trace of sorrow nor disappointment in Harvey's return to crime. At first, I was wondering if Bill Finger had forgotten his own story, because I assumed that Bill Finger pretty much wrote every issue of Batman until he died in poverty and Bob Kane danced over his grave wearing a red devil costume. But no, from what I can find, this was supposedly written by David Vern Reed: creator of Deadshot, writer of the Sprang-era classic Joker's Millions (yes, the basis for the great TNBA episode) and several not-very-good Batman stories in the 70's, including the mini-epic (and possible inspiration for the TAS episode Almost Got 'Im?), Where Were YOU The Night Batman Was Killed?
If you haven't read that story, click the link to find more links that will let you do just that. It's a fascinating story, one which I dearly want to call one of the greatest Two-Face stories ever, but can't for reasons that become clear by the end. If that story was any indication, then Mr. Reed never really cared about having the Rogues act in character, as evidenced by Ra's al Ghul slumming with the rest. That would explain why Harvey's written so out of character here, and also why it's so entertaining regardless.
For further evidence of the small but vital difference between original Two-Face and this one, look at his hideout. No more is his lair a room split between beauty and ugliness, displaying the dichotomies of his own mind of good/evil, order/chaos, law/crime, etc. Now, it's just based around twos. Two phones, two lamps, two chairs, and the number two just slapped on his desk and floor, because he clearly ran out of ideas by that point.
That said, hopefully he won't notice that there are three "2's" there. And unless that's a coloring error, I'm not quite sure how the car is "two-toned." Hmmm... maybe Dick was on to something after all.
I'm already going over my scan limit, so I'm going to have to skip past the rest of the issue save for the very end. So you'll have to buy it in trade (links to follow at the end) if you want to see Batman and Robin dodging giant billiard balls in "Chicago Al's" oversized casino (in case you were wondering, his "other face" is a puh-puh-puh-poker face), as well as Harvey trying to rob a Japanese diplomate and deface the massive statue of some unnamed Japanese hero.
Why was the Japanese diplomat a target of Harvey's, you wonder? Because, as Robin tells us, "when an Oriental is disgraced, it is claimed that he 'lost face.'" If you think that's bad, don't even ask about Bruce Wayne being the next target because the Sioux nation decided to award him honorary status as a "Paleface Indian Chief." Oh, old comics.
Let's just fast-forward to the inevitable death trap climax, as promised by the cover. And yeah, once again we come back to Almost Got 'Im, as I dare say that scene HAD to be inspired by this. That said, just like that episode, the trap is rigged, and Two-Face's claims of it being "fifty-fifty" on the cover are false. This is the first example of Two-Face being written as a cheater, and sadly it was far from the last.
_sprang6.jpg)
"Wait, you were fiddling with your belt radios? I thought you... erm, no, no, never mind. BLAST YOU, HEROES!" Also: oh, classic Batman: abandoning any sense of character or storytelling in favor of wacky pseudo science.
So yeah, there's no sense of tragedy nor loss with the capture of Two-Face. There's no "Maybe the doctors in prison will get you the help you'll need, Harvey" or even a "Poor Harvey, what a waste." Nope, instead, it's smiling Batman arresting the mean ol' cheating bad guy thanks to "science" and a happy ending for justice! It was very much an ending in keeping with the changing styles of the Golden Age on its march to the Silver.
And yet, it seems that even this campier, sillier Two-Face proved unsuitable for the next generation of Batman writers. Two-Face vanished entirely in the Silver Age, save for the one time when Batman was brainwashed into thinking that he was Two-Face. Why did Two-Face vanish? There's never been any explanation that I've yet found, only speculation that he was too gruesome, too dark, too tragic for the "New Look" era. It seems that Two-Face was yet another victim of Dr. Frederick Wertham.
But unlike Wertham's flesh-and-blood victims, many of whom lost their livelihoods and were never able to recover (here's a must-read book on the subject), Two-Face would eventually return to his former glory and beyond seventeen years later. However, the changes to the character from Two-Face Strikes Again would remain intact, right down to a panel-by-panel recreation by some new hotshot artist by the name of Neal Adams, solidifying the concept of Two-Face as a villain and cheater obsessed with the number two.
In some ways, he still has never fully recovered, but it's better fate than comic book limbo. I think.
If you'd like to read this story in full, you have SEVERAL options, as it's been reprinted in four different volumes: Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder: From the 30's to the 70's, Batman in the Fifties, The Greatest 1950's Stories Ever Told, and Batman VS Two-Face.
The scans from this post have been taken from the last collection, and I suspect those pages were recolored for either the 1950's or Fifties collections. If you'd like to see what the ORIGINAL printed pages and coloring looked like--including Harvey's original gray scarring--you can read them here. I recommend it, as the original coloring is what's going to be referenced in the next post, when we finally look at Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' Half an Evil.
So yeah, not to go all Chuck Dixon on you with the puns, but I'm of two minds about this one.
Also, I'm not sure who the hell drew that lousy cover, but I'm betting it wasn't Sprang. It's not often that a comic's interior art so greatly outshines the cover. That said, what kind of farm uses catapult tractors, and where the hell can I get one?
The problem with this story isn't just the way Two-Face is written, nor the way in which he's brought back. In some ways--and I can't believe that I'm saying this--Two-Face never should have returned at all! I suspect that he was never MEANT to be a recurring villain, based on the fact that the original Golden Age "Harvey Kent" trilogy was just that: a complete story, one which ended with the character's redemption and rehabilitation.
Sure, there were new Two-Face stories that followed, but as it seems like Bill Finger and company didn't want to sacrifice Harvey's happy ending, they decided to have it both ways by introducing a series of Impostor Two-Faces, each of whom became progressively ridiculous to fit the title's shift towards the Silver Age and, eventually, Adam West. This was also, mind you, the Golden Age of crime and horror comics, especially from EC, and thus it was in this iconic final stage of Batman's Golden Age--the legendary Dick Sprang era--that the temptation apparently became too great for DC. It was time to bring back the One True Two-Face.
This, of course, meant ruining Harvey Kent/Dent's happy ending, and the implied subsequent divorce from Gilda. Boo-urns! That would be bad enough on its own, but could have worked if the story continued the original trilogy's themes of duality and tragedy. Except that we were in the Sprang era, so LOL NO. The returned Harvey Dent more closely resembled the outlandish evil silliness of Impostor #3, George ("Here comes DOUBLE TROUBLE! HAHA!") Blake rather than the morose and surprisingly complex Harvey Kent. What once was a powerfully tragic and sympathic figure became a freaky-looking maniac obsessed with the number 2.
First, for comparison's sake, take a look at the splash pages from the original three parts of the Harvey Kent trilogy, and notice how all three emphasized the tragic, twisted, dual nature of Two-Face and how he's both good and evil:
Now compare it with the splash page of Two-Face Strikes Again, which heralds the grand return of the very same character:
Notice how there isn't a single mention of duality in terms of him being good as well as evil. Now, Two-Face is described with terms like "hate," "deceit," "dangerous." Hell, he's no longer even called half-handsome, but instead is described as having "a hideous face." He is now a pure all-evil all-the-time capital-V Villain.
Still, that's not to say that Two-Face Strikes Again! didn't add some new wrinkle of tragedy, one definitely worth considering when it comes to examining the bottomless pit of suck that is Harvey Dent's life:
Let's put aside the writing that's bad even by Golden Age standards (even the writing on Superfriends was better!) and instead focus on the important thing: Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face again solely because he tried to do the right thing.
I mean, sure, he probably would have been better off going for a cop rather than charging in and alerting the robbers of his presence (robbers who, as safecrackers, obviously carried explosives or maybe even acid, for all Harvey knew), but let's not blame Harvey too much. You can't expect much in the way of logic from stories of this era, so it's best to suspend disbelief and consider that it was essentially an act of pure good when led to Harvey becoming pure evil.
You see, he's no longer just psychologically unhinged, but as you'll see in the next panel, he's now also brain-damaged from the explosion! I can't decide if that excuses the change we're about to see, or irreparably ruins a great character. Probably both! Wheeeee!
Once again, I'd love to see what would have happened if the coin DIDN'T land scarred side up to further the storyline. "ARGLE BARGLE! THIS PROVES IT! I'M DESTINED TO BE TWO-FACE FOREVER! BUT JUST TO BE SAFE, LET'S SEE WHAT THE COIN SAYS!" *flips* "AHA, I... oh wait, good side. Welp, never mind. back to society I go."
And yeah, in case the horses didn't tip you off, any semblance of tragedy is over. Let the Sprang-era wackiness commence! And just like George Blake (whose story, I suspect, greatly informed this one), Harvey Dent now absolutely loves being evil. It's clearly the most fun thing in the entire world.
Well, have you? HAVE YOU?!
Man, even in the Golden Age, Dick doesn't give a damn when it comes to understanding Harvey. "Eh, he's just nuts! Let's go beat him up!" At the same time, Batman isn't written as showing any trace of sorrow nor disappointment in Harvey's return to crime. At first, I was wondering if Bill Finger had forgotten his own story, because I assumed that Bill Finger pretty much wrote every issue of Batman until he died in poverty and Bob Kane danced over his grave wearing a red devil costume. But no, from what I can find, this was supposedly written by David Vern Reed: creator of Deadshot, writer of the Sprang-era classic Joker's Millions (yes, the basis for the great TNBA episode) and several not-very-good Batman stories in the 70's, including the mini-epic (and possible inspiration for the TAS episode Almost Got 'Im?), Where Were YOU The Night Batman Was Killed?
If you haven't read that story, click the link to find more links that will let you do just that. It's a fascinating story, one which I dearly want to call one of the greatest Two-Face stories ever, but can't for reasons that become clear by the end. If that story was any indication, then Mr. Reed never really cared about having the Rogues act in character, as evidenced by Ra's al Ghul slumming with the rest. That would explain why Harvey's written so out of character here, and also why it's so entertaining regardless.
For further evidence of the small but vital difference between original Two-Face and this one, look at his hideout. No more is his lair a room split between beauty and ugliness, displaying the dichotomies of his own mind of good/evil, order/chaos, law/crime, etc. Now, it's just based around twos. Two phones, two lamps, two chairs, and the number two just slapped on his desk and floor, because he clearly ran out of ideas by that point.
That said, hopefully he won't notice that there are three "2's" there. And unless that's a coloring error, I'm not quite sure how the car is "two-toned." Hmmm... maybe Dick was on to something after all.
I'm already going over my scan limit, so I'm going to have to skip past the rest of the issue save for the very end. So you'll have to buy it in trade (links to follow at the end) if you want to see Batman and Robin dodging giant billiard balls in "Chicago Al's" oversized casino (in case you were wondering, his "other face" is a puh-puh-puh-poker face), as well as Harvey trying to rob a Japanese diplomate and deface the massive statue of some unnamed Japanese hero.
Why was the Japanese diplomat a target of Harvey's, you wonder? Because, as Robin tells us, "when an Oriental is disgraced, it is claimed that he 'lost face.'" If you think that's bad, don't even ask about Bruce Wayne being the next target because the Sioux nation decided to award him honorary status as a "Paleface Indian Chief." Oh, old comics.
Let's just fast-forward to the inevitable death trap climax, as promised by the cover. And yeah, once again we come back to Almost Got 'Im, as I dare say that scene HAD to be inspired by this. That said, just like that episode, the trap is rigged, and Two-Face's claims of it being "fifty-fifty" on the cover are false. This is the first example of Two-Face being written as a cheater, and sadly it was far from the last.
"Wait, you were fiddling with your belt radios? I thought you... erm, no, no, never mind. BLAST YOU, HEROES!" Also: oh, classic Batman: abandoning any sense of character or storytelling in favor of wacky pseudo science.
So yeah, there's no sense of tragedy nor loss with the capture of Two-Face. There's no "Maybe the doctors in prison will get you the help you'll need, Harvey" or even a "Poor Harvey, what a waste." Nope, instead, it's smiling Batman arresting the mean ol' cheating bad guy thanks to "science" and a happy ending for justice! It was very much an ending in keeping with the changing styles of the Golden Age on its march to the Silver.
And yet, it seems that even this campier, sillier Two-Face proved unsuitable for the next generation of Batman writers. Two-Face vanished entirely in the Silver Age, save for the one time when Batman was brainwashed into thinking that he was Two-Face. Why did Two-Face vanish? There's never been any explanation that I've yet found, only speculation that he was too gruesome, too dark, too tragic for the "New Look" era. It seems that Two-Face was yet another victim of Dr. Frederick Wertham.
But unlike Wertham's flesh-and-blood victims, many of whom lost their livelihoods and were never able to recover (here's a must-read book on the subject), Two-Face would eventually return to his former glory and beyond seventeen years later. However, the changes to the character from Two-Face Strikes Again would remain intact, right down to a panel-by-panel recreation by some new hotshot artist by the name of Neal Adams, solidifying the concept of Two-Face as a villain and cheater obsessed with the number two.
In some ways, he still has never fully recovered, but it's better fate than comic book limbo. I think.
If you'd like to read this story in full, you have SEVERAL options, as it's been reprinted in four different volumes: Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder: From the 30's to the 70's, Batman in the Fifties, The Greatest 1950's Stories Ever Told, and Batman VS Two-Face.
The scans from this post have been taken from the last collection, and I suspect those pages were recolored for either the 1950's or Fifties collections. If you'd like to see what the ORIGINAL printed pages and coloring looked like--including Harvey's original gray scarring--you can read them here. I recommend it, as the original coloring is what's going to be referenced in the next post, when we finally look at Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' Half an Evil.