Batman: One Bad Day--Two-Face #1 // Review
Harvey Dent is having a birthday party. He’s turning 88 years old. Harvey Dent has received a cryptic threat regarding the birthday party. One of them is retired, and the other one is a District Attorney who had also been one of Gotham City’s most notorious criminals. He turns to the only person he trusts--a former enemy in Batman: One Bad Day--Two-Face #1. Writer Mariko Tamaki plays with some clever dichotomies in a story brought to shadowy life by artist Javier Fernandez and colorist Jordie Bellaire. Once again, one of Batman’s villains is shown to be quite a lot more interesting than he is in a very appealing story.
Gotham City’s mayor took a huge risk by appointing Harvey Dent as District Attorney. Even if he HAS been fully reformed, the guy has a very, very complicated past. A lot of enemies. And so when his father’s 88th birthday is threatened, he turns to Batman to help him keep things from going crazy. The note threatening the life of Harvey Dent Sr. doesn’t provide any clues as to who might have issued it. Batman is wise to note that nearly everyone he works with under the mask would have a reason for threatening Two-Face (including himself).
Tamaki has a lot of fun with the dichotomies of Two-Face. She is clever to add some spotlight on an elder Harvey Dent who helped to form the man who was to become two people. There are overlapping echoes, reflections, and shadows as Batman, Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent Sr., Harvey Dent Jr., and Two-Face all slide around each other, trying to find out who is threatening the life of a gruff 88-year-old man. Tamaki’s scripting of the story is so tight that she even manages to work in the most predictable ending imaginable and still make it feel like a revelation.
Fernandez’s art feels substantially like a skewed reflection of some of the work of Frank Miller. There’s a darkness filtering through every splash of ink on the page. The contrast between an upscale party and a dark rooftop doesn’t have quite as much intensity as it should. That being said, drama and action hit the page with an occasionally impressive impact that keeps the pages turning from beginning to end. Bellaire matches Fernandez’s mood perfectly in dark colors that bleed out from around his heavy inks.
A great deal more could be said about the dichotomy between killer and hero. A lot more has been said about it in the past, and a lot more has been said about it in the past with Batman and Two-Face. Tamaki and company find a very specific niche for the action that sheds just a bit more light on both Batman and Two-Face while allowing a bit more insight into a couple of the Batgirls as well. The stories have been evolving over the decades. Tamaki makes her impression on one of DC’s most memorable villains.
