A really, really in-depth, thinking-too-much critique of "Joker's Asylum: Two-Face"

[about_faces]

I’ve been putting off reviewing Joker's Asylum: Two-Face--by David Hine and Andy Clarke--for almost three years now. The story is just that maddeningly frustrating to me, as is the fact that many people love the ending.

I was cautiously optimistic a few months before the issue’s release, when I read an interview with Hine (the same one wherein he

Comments

[box_in_the_box]

Given what (admittedly little) I've seen of Hine's output, I think you might be misdiagnosing the source of his shallowness, because when you couple this with the fatalistic narratives and impotent "heroes" he's written in Civil War: X-Men and X-Men: The 198, I'm wondering if this isn't instead the result of a Bendis-style nihilistic authorial outlook that comes from working in third-rate noir for too long ... which is to say, just as Bendis' "heroes" never truly succeed, and instead merely survive, and THAT'S as close as they come to "victory," perhaps Two-Face's rigged test is indicative of Hine's own actual beliefs, IE. that you'll lose no matter what you do. As such, it's not so much that he misunderstands Two-Face as that he misunderstands superheroes in general, which is depressingly common in an industry populated by creators who think that Todd Solondz is some great speaker of truth.

[thehefner]

I want to be fair to the man as much as possible, since I haven't read enough of his work to really judge... although I certainly haven't been a fan of his current Arkham trilogy, which introduced a new ribbon-haired doctor named Alyce Sinner who couldn't POSSIBLY turn out to be evil in the twist. I remember reading and not liking The 198 and the Quicksilver mini he did--which decided to take the "Pietro is EEEEVIL" thing and run with it in ways that Bendis hadn't even dreamed of doing--but I can't really remember anything specific about either series beyond that.

I've heard good things about The Bulletproof Coffin, which leads me to suspect that Hine might be one of those writers better suited to original characters

[surrealname]

Don't have much to say about harvey in this, because there isn't much to say about him. He's just evil. Evil and petty. Like you said

[lego_joker]

Agreed. I've always seen Freeze as the guy that unwillingly gets busted out every other week by a bunch of idiot terrorists/small-time hoods that want him to make them freeze guns.

And now that a 2000s comic has been juxtaposed against 80s comics, I instantly find the 80s comics preferable on art alone. No cheesy "realistic" art that looks stiff and lifeless as wax - the characters look ALIVE.

I also find the original TKJ coloring preferable on how surreal it makes everything look - it's like at any moment, Batman/Joker/Gordon could just wake up in a cold sweat and find that it was all just a dream.

And really, TKJ does seem more like a dream than a story - note how the first half seems less like a progressing plot and more like a disjointed series of events. Then, everything just blends together into a horrific rollercoaster ride.

Good stuff.

[surrealname]

I think i gave you my rant about how i see Victor as a character in the middle of an even longer over all rant about the bat criminals, so I will spare you it, and get right down to discussing the killing joke

Rant ahead. Warning: I've had beer.

[about_faces]

Y'know what's really sad? I'd forgotten that I entirely agree with you on Freeze, because no one has written the character like that since... what, the episode with evil Walt Disney? The Sub-Zero movie? At that point, you had Freeze as this amazingly tragic character who was cold but never needlessly cruel. At least, not to those who didn't wrong him first, or didn't otherwise deserve it. Even while the Freeze in the comics was still a murderous, remorseless madman, the animated Freeze was superior.

Then, something happened. I don't know if it was Dini's Freeze origin for the comics, which killed Nora outright (by Freeze's own accidental hand), thus irrevocably turning him into a sadistic killer bent on destroying Batman. Or maybe it was the episode where he was revealed to be just a head now, wherein he was destroying things precious to people just to make them suffer. Either way, "causing suffering" became the core of the character in both TV and comics. It was said so outright in Gotham Central, thanks to Rucka and Brubaker. That

[abqreviews]

Can't disagree with anything you've said. Total gimmick story, and not a very good one. Hell, the impact of the gimmick is nullified by having both outcomes on one page. It would have worked better if it had been on two pages, and we wouldn't be able to see what the bad outcome was at first, leaving us to assume the bad outcome could have been him accepting Harvey's philosophy. To be fair though, that would probably have expanded the page count

[about_faces]

I barely remember the Clayface story. I recall being disappointed in where they went with it, because while I too was gratified to see someone remember the Basil Karlo that was, the story with his followers didn't really work for me. That said, while I'm not a Kelley Jones fan, I so dearly want him to draw Clayface again. That one panel where his "human" face is splitting in two, like something out of The Blob, was truly horrific.

[prof_pig]

While I understand what Hine was trying to do with this arc (and I think he presented a couple of ideas that COULD have been interesting) I overall comply with the review. I'm sick of Two-Face being written as a cheap hood. Sure, it's fun to watch him be a bad-ass (since that's one thing at least this interpretation is) but with a character that has so much potential and character it comes across as a gigantic waste. I'll just keep crossing my fingers that Tony Daniel does him justice (though that's unlikely) and continue with the characterization Winnick used in Long Shadows (which I loved). Maybe Morrison will tackle the guy in one of his batman books. I'd love to see his modern interpretation of the character. Which reminds me, has this blog done a looksee into the Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth Harvey scenes yet? I'd like to know what was made of those.

[about_faces]

The fun aspect is pretty much the only plus side this version of Two-Face has. I imagine many people would prefer that to all the angst and tragedy, which I could see being a downer. But feh to those people anyway!

Glad to hear you loved Long Shadows! I adore it, but it seems to get ignored or looked down upon, usually by fans of Grant Morrison's Batman. Compared to what Grant's doing, they consider Winick's story to be old-hat and "same old, same old." That version of Harvey is also, you may already know, one of my favorite takes

[ext_262094]

Joker's Asylum: Two-Face is one of my favs, even using that setup in my Batman Beyond fanfic on Terry Mcginnis :p