![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
why Harvey matters (assuming you think anything about Batman comics matters at all)
Oh, one more thing, for the Bat-nerds out there, especially my fellow Harvey fans.
In his essay, "How Jason Todd Went Wrong a Second Time", the blogger MightyGodKing starts by talking about how Jason is so obviously a sucky suck-ass character, but that having him brought back to life didn't have to end up sucking like it did. Quoth MGK:
There’s a good reason for it: “what if Jason Todd came back” was a really good idea. Forcing Batman to relive his greatest failure - and the implicit criticisms of his method that are inherent in Jason Todd’s presence - is goddamned great story fodder, because under normal circumstances Batman is a very difficult character to believably threaten or damage. He’s Batman: he’s the best at everything always. That’s why he’s Batman, but this makes it hard to create an antagonist who can really get to him. The Joker and Two-Face and all the rest can be external threats to Batman, but they really can’t get inside his head and make him doubt himself. Jason Todd, however, could do that.
At which point I stopped reading the essay entirely. I still haven't read the rest.
I plan to later, once I've rested up a bit and have time to kill, but for the time being, that was all I could stand to read before the wheels in my head started turning. I immediately went to the comments, curious to see if anyone else had touched upon what I could only barely begin to formulate, the kind of response that could take me a good hour to properly compose.
Of the 45 responses, only one discussed the topic in question. But the commenter, "BSD," did so in a manner that put to shame anything I could have come up with on my own, at least in my current state:
Two-Face is the Best Batman Villain because he DOES get inside of Batman’s head. He’s precisely what Alfred is scared of, what Bruce in his heart of heart really worries about, and simply by existing challenges the entire Bruce/Batman project (this is part of why Hush is stupid and boring: he’s completely redundant.) In fact, his purely internal challenge to Batman is twofold: First, he is the synthesis of the Batman/Joker thesis/antithesis, and second, he is a dangerous what-might-have-been for Bruce.
Joker is so important to Batman because he is his perfect inversion. No real identity, no real origin, he is devoted to and emblematic of an unjust, meaningless world, directly opposed to the core Batman idea that the world can be “cleaned up”. Two-face, then, as the synthesis of the opposites, is even more of a challenge, arguably a better Batman than Batman in that he accepts that the world is fundamentally random and chaotic, that events occur without meaning, but that once chaos has had its say, in the best Two-Face stories, he works with that, either building the best world he can from the world that exists, or destroying it as best he can (my favorite Two-Face story remains the one in which he’s cured, is back to being Harvey full time, but then claws off half of his own face).
He’s also a challenge to Batman in that he evokes a hypothetical “Alleyman” or “Two-Gun”, a vigilante who just hangs around alleys and shoots people. If anything, Two-Face’s origin would be more, not less, likely to produce a hero rather than a madman.
And every time they fight, Bruce has to ask himself about that.
Wow. I honestly don't think I could have said it better myself. I wanna find this person and buy him/her a beer.
How disappointingly typical that not a single person other than myself have even responded to his comment, or even MGK's throwaway dismissal about Harvey in the first place (not to mention the Joker, that one's not really true either; of ALL the Bat-villains to name-drop for characters who don't fuck around with Batman's head and heart, those two might just be the worst examples to make!) but it's so amazing to read someone else actually getting what I've spent the last three years and eight drafts trying to explore.
Now, more than ever, I want to get back to work on Draft Nine, start those massive overhauls of the second half. But no, I need to give the original HEFNER MONOLOGUES a script overhaul in of itself, plus get to work on two brand-new separate projects for my 2010 Fringe tour. I doubt I'll really be able to give the Harvey book the attention it needs until late Fall. Serious sadness, people.
But until then, here's hoping more people take BSD's astute observations to heart, as far too many writers have completely missed the point*. Because that, folks, that is why Harvey Dent is so vital to the Batman mythos to this very day, and why he's one of the most compelling and vibrant characters out there now. In my own humble opinion, naturally.
What think you, BatFans?
*Including great writers like Chuck Dixon. He wrote one of the all-time greatest Joker stories in BATMAN: DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, but his take on Harvey is one of the most glaring examples of Two-Face-Fail out there, particularly as shown in BATMAN: PRODIGAL and ROBIN: YEAR ONE.
Dixon's sneeringly evil Harvey will happily screw with the coin's outcome and essentially cheat to make the odds work in his favor, which right there just turns him into a one-note madman with a gimmick who also beat the shit out of a child with a baseball bat. Not that the Robin beating isn't great in its way, but damn, what I'd give to see (or write) a proper retake on that whole sequence.
In his essay, "How Jason Todd Went Wrong a Second Time", the blogger MightyGodKing starts by talking about how Jason is so obviously a sucky suck-ass character, but that having him brought back to life didn't have to end up sucking like it did. Quoth MGK:
There’s a good reason for it: “what if Jason Todd came back” was a really good idea. Forcing Batman to relive his greatest failure - and the implicit criticisms of his method that are inherent in Jason Todd’s presence - is goddamned great story fodder, because under normal circumstances Batman is a very difficult character to believably threaten or damage. He’s Batman: he’s the best at everything always. That’s why he’s Batman, but this makes it hard to create an antagonist who can really get to him. The Joker and Two-Face and all the rest can be external threats to Batman, but they really can’t get inside his head and make him doubt himself. Jason Todd, however, could do that.
At which point I stopped reading the essay entirely. I still haven't read the rest.
I plan to later, once I've rested up a bit and have time to kill, but for the time being, that was all I could stand to read before the wheels in my head started turning. I immediately went to the comments, curious to see if anyone else had touched upon what I could only barely begin to formulate, the kind of response that could take me a good hour to properly compose.
Of the 45 responses, only one discussed the topic in question. But the commenter, "BSD," did so in a manner that put to shame anything I could have come up with on my own, at least in my current state:
Two-Face is the Best Batman Villain because he DOES get inside of Batman’s head. He’s precisely what Alfred is scared of, what Bruce in his heart of heart really worries about, and simply by existing challenges the entire Bruce/Batman project (this is part of why Hush is stupid and boring: he’s completely redundant.) In fact, his purely internal challenge to Batman is twofold: First, he is the synthesis of the Batman/Joker thesis/antithesis, and second, he is a dangerous what-might-have-been for Bruce.
Joker is so important to Batman because he is his perfect inversion. No real identity, no real origin, he is devoted to and emblematic of an unjust, meaningless world, directly opposed to the core Batman idea that the world can be “cleaned up”. Two-face, then, as the synthesis of the opposites, is even more of a challenge, arguably a better Batman than Batman in that he accepts that the world is fundamentally random and chaotic, that events occur without meaning, but that once chaos has had its say, in the best Two-Face stories, he works with that, either building the best world he can from the world that exists, or destroying it as best he can (my favorite Two-Face story remains the one in which he’s cured, is back to being Harvey full time, but then claws off half of his own face).
He’s also a challenge to Batman in that he evokes a hypothetical “Alleyman” or “Two-Gun”, a vigilante who just hangs around alleys and shoots people. If anything, Two-Face’s origin would be more, not less, likely to produce a hero rather than a madman.
And every time they fight, Bruce has to ask himself about that.
Wow. I honestly don't think I could have said it better myself. I wanna find this person and buy him/her a beer.
How disappointingly typical that not a single person other than myself have even responded to his comment, or even MGK's throwaway dismissal about Harvey in the first place (not to mention the Joker, that one's not really true either; of ALL the Bat-villains to name-drop for characters who don't fuck around with Batman's head and heart, those two might just be the worst examples to make!) but it's so amazing to read someone else actually getting what I've spent the last three years and eight drafts trying to explore.
Now, more than ever, I want to get back to work on Draft Nine, start those massive overhauls of the second half. But no, I need to give the original HEFNER MONOLOGUES a script overhaul in of itself, plus get to work on two brand-new separate projects for my 2010 Fringe tour. I doubt I'll really be able to give the Harvey book the attention it needs until late Fall. Serious sadness, people.
But until then, here's hoping more people take BSD's astute observations to heart, as far too many writers have completely missed the point*. Because that, folks, that is why Harvey Dent is so vital to the Batman mythos to this very day, and why he's one of the most compelling and vibrant characters out there now. In my own humble opinion, naturally.
What think you, BatFans?
*Including great writers like Chuck Dixon. He wrote one of the all-time greatest Joker stories in BATMAN: DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, but his take on Harvey is one of the most glaring examples of Two-Face-Fail out there, particularly as shown in BATMAN: PRODIGAL and ROBIN: YEAR ONE.
Dixon's sneeringly evil Harvey will happily screw with the coin's outcome and essentially cheat to make the odds work in his favor, which right there just turns him into a one-note madman with a gimmick who also beat the shit out of a child with a baseball bat. Not that the Robin beating isn't great in its way, but damn, what I'd give to see (or write) a proper retake on that whole sequence.
no subject
I do believe that Jason's role and impact on the Batfamily could be his best asset, and the thing that makes him fundamentally different than Harvey, especially now, is that effect he has on the Batfamily as a whole. He's not just Bruce's personal hobgoblin, he's Dick and Tim's too. When they're forced to deal with him they're all stuck with this bizarre mishmash of fear, contempt, anger and an almost fraternal desire to pull him back into the fold. Tim and Damian in particular aren't really invested in Harvey (except in the abstract way all of Gotham is), but Jason...yeah. He's the Dark Robin, the fallen son. He's a family tragedy, the kind of dark thing that lurks in most clans. Harvey is something else, he belonged to the city, not just the Batfamily. When Harvey falters, when he commits wicked deeds, Gotham should tremble for its own fallen son. Harvey is bigger than Jason, but I'd argue Jason can (or should) cut deeper.
I certainly agree that it's bizarre to state that Harvey and the Joker can't get inside of Bruce's head, but considering neither of them show any particular interest in doing so lately, whereas Jason is all about personal vendettas and proving the Bat's methods wrong, it's not hard to see why MGK would feel that the character has the unique ability and, more importantly, the DRIVE, to do so. Harvey passively messes with Bruce's head by merely existing, the Joker can only be arsed to attack Batman in a meaningful way a quarter of the time, usually he's too busy acting like a wild animal or a cartoon character (not necessarily a bad thing, that makes those rare direct attacks that much more discombobulating). Jason, when (if ever?) written well, would always be an explicit attack on the family and on the bat-method. There's no murky 'Does Batman encourage and create his villains...?' with Jason, the answer is obvious, Jason Todd is a costumed villain because of Batman. Batman did this. He created this. He started the process that turned a child into a costumed villain. That's a father's anxiety. It's also a brother's anxiety, when one falls the possibility of others following the same path seems that much more likely. It's different than what Batman can (should) have with Harvey, and MUCH different than how he struggles mentally with the Joker.
ETA: This was a pre-coffee rant, so it's a little...all over the place. Despite what I said I actually don't think a character needs to act in a stated 'I'm messing with your heeeeaaaaad' way (which seems to be Hush's MO) to actually prove an effective mental and emotional hurdle for Batman. The Joker and Harvey cause Batman to question himself, his mission and so forth even when they're not dealing directly with him. I just think that Jason's more direct and personal approach is probably what motivated MGK to make that statement.
Also, typos. They're everywhere.
no subject
Because I strongly feel that Harvey was the proto-Robin in a number of ways. The youngest D.A. in Gotham history was Batman's very earliest non-Alfred ally, before even Jim Gordon joined up (in post-Crisis DCU and even some pre-Crisis ones as well?). If the Robins are Bruce's sons, Harvey is his brother. As such, it's been a pretty perfect accident that Wacky Uncle Harv has ended up being the Trial By Fire for Dick, Jason, and Tim in their earliest outings. Harvey's the lost member of the Batfamily, and Bruce's first great failure.
This one's probably all over the place too. Sorry, I just got back from a long and very distressing drive, so my brain is not quite in place yet either.