"Two-Face: Year One," The Hefner Cut

[about_faces]

Two-Face: Year One was a mess.

I don't know any other way to describe the most recent retelling of Harvey's origin, released to coincide with the release of The Dark Knight. The odds were against it from the start, as the main problem with retelling origins is that you've got to interest people in reading a story they already know, or at least

Comments

[abqreviews]

Agreed on all accounts, the needless dickery of Bruce to Harvey, the incoherent story structure, the pointless references, all add up to make an unsatisfying mess of a story. At least the complete monster depiction of Two-Face in DARK VICTORY had the redeeming quality of being an utter badass.

The only things I like about this story is the sheer brazen balls it must have took to use such a stereotypically jewish name for a greedy lawyer, as well as all the in-character verdicts of the villains at Weinstein's trial: "I like my meat raw, but what the hell, fry him".

Anyway thanks, this is a nice birthday present.

[thehefner]

While I have several problems with Loeb and Sale's Bat-work, you're quite right, he really was rather badass in DV. It did kinda help make up for the lack of humanity.

I suppose one could say the stereotypical Jewish villain was counterbalanced by the inclusion of Detective Cohen, whose Jewishness was made explicit every time he opened his mouth? Maybe?

Happy birthday! Wow, glad you like it, then, because I would have felt bad posting this troublesome story on your birthday otherwise!

[ext_241751]

The inclusion of the other Bat-rogues and their general misuse in the story was another black mark against this book, as well as wasting time with the completely uninteresting introduction of Gordan's new task force. As TV Tropes would say, they wasted a perfectly good story.

And I'm going to disagree and say that Scarecrow: Year One was just as misguided as its sister story, but in different ways.

[thehefner]

I suspect he wanted to expand on that bit from Long Halloween/Dark Victory, wherein Two-Face somehow became King of the Crazy People.

I had less of a problem with Scarecrow simply because most Scarecrow comics I've read have been not very good, depicting him as a weird, mincing, giggling, ridiculous creation, when I think he's more interesting as a cold, clinical Man 'O Science. To that extent, I thought the story was a nod in the right direction.

[lego_joker]

Meh, the concept of Scarecrow as a character, IMO, is definitely worthy of Batman's rogues gallery, but the execution's always been... lacking

[thehefner]

Hell, I grew up on Moench and Grant's Bat-stories, including their Scarecrow, which is one reason why I didn't care for him until very recently. For one thing, why did they always have him laugh by going "Harrooo hrraaa!"? These days, whenever I read a Moench/Grant Scarecrow, I always hear Futurama's Richard Nixon in my head. "I'm Jonathan Crane, the masssster of fear! Harrrroooo!"

"Absolute Terror"? Oh good god, I don't think I've read that one! It ran alongside another issue or two that have gone uncollected! While it's not perfect from the sounds of it, I simply must track that one down. I think it's important to have writers explore Crane terrorizing people without gas. For science!

Here's my thing with Scarecrow, and what finally got me to appreciate him. My Henchgirl and her best friend are two of the net's preeminent Batman fanfic authors, particularly for the CATverse series which mainly focuses on three henchgirls working for the Scarecrow. They (the real life Henchgirl in my life, and the girls in the story) constantly

[ext_262094]

I also noticed that Two-Face is wearing a glove to cover his scarred hand, what's up with that?

[thehefner]

He was wearing the glove in Long Halloween as well, since pretty much the entire costume is copied. It's been rather fashionable in recent years to have him wear a gloved on his scarred hand.

[ext_262094]

Well in Long Halloween, Harvey's hand when he became Two-Face was never scarred.

[thehefner]

I don't recall if we ever saw his hand ungloved, so for all we know, it was scarred when he reached for his burning face (which we did see him do).

[lego_joker]

And the worst part about this story? Joker's outfit! I mean, everyone knows that he's got an orange waistcoat and a green shirt underneath, not the other way around! :P

This is truly the greatest of this subpar story's sins.

[yaseen101]

Hey! It's been a while. I was focusing on my writings so I haven't been able to post much

[thehefner]

As I've spent the last four years going through eight drafts of a Harvey origin novel, I've given this matter an awful lot of thought (and it's still evolving even today, which is why I'm on draft nine). So yes, what you're saying absolutely makes sense, and you're quite right: that's exactly what you'd have to do. The relationships are key to making his story a compellingly tragic one.

Medication certainly makes sense for someone with Harvey's history of mental illness. Would he have stopped? If so, why?

[yaseen101]

I'll send you a copy my thoughts. :) Unfortunately I haven't been able to dedicate much time to it, mostly it's just an outline and few scenes patched but for now, I think it's the final one. Believe it or not I too have been working on it for some time now, I think I have been at it for more than four years now.

As for Medications, I had him use it upon the recommendations of his therapist around the time he was entering college. At this point, he is trying to move away from his parents shadow and build his own life but is suffering from anger management issues. He quits around the time he finishes Law School and creating his own practice, he's dating Gilda around this time, currently I'm considering the idea that one day he manages to function without it for a few days and stops completely after a period of an year but it might change once I do more research on Anti-Psychotics and repressed anger.