There's a conspiracy going on in the DC Universe, and it's been right in front of our faces--well, half of our faces---for 75 years.

 Let's travel back to the very first appearance of Two-Face, in Detective Comics #66 (1942):

Yes, initially he was named Harvey Kent, not Dent. Yes, I've already done a post making him Superman's secret half-brother. But that's not the conspiracy here.

No, we need to go to the trial of Boss Moroni, where Batman is testifying against the gang leader...


Look at that panel very carefully. We'll come back to it in a minute...

By the way, I'm pretty sure that throwing acid at the prosecutor will in no way help you beat the rap.

Anyway...
"Vitriol" is olde-tyme talk for sulfuric acid.

Then we get a scene completely and totally ripping Tim Burton's Batman...

Surely they can fix it?

The only doctor who can do it is in a German concentration camp?  Well, that happens.

Finally, the big reveal:

WAIT WAIT WAIT.

One more time:

Harvey is very clearly hit ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HIS FACE with the acid...

 ...BUT IT'S THE LEFT SIDE THAT ENDS UP SCARRED!!!

What. The. Hell.

Sure, it'd be easy (and no doubt correct) to write this off as a simple error, at a time when comics were rushed out as quickly as possible with little time for actual editing. And all later retellings have been careful to show the acid hitting his left side:


BUT THAT'S THE CONSPIRACY!!! It a monumental cover-up!!

So what could it really mean?

1) Maybe some of the acid actually splashed over to the other side of his face?

NO. The doctor in the courtroom is very clear. "It only struck one side of his face."

2) It's Earth-Two, so chill.

NO. Well, yes, the WWII reference and the "Harvey Kent" make it pretty clear this is Earth-2 (as was confirmed in a Mr. & Mrs. Superman story (!)).

But even so...the laws of physics aren't that different on Earth-2. If you're hit with acid on the right side of your face, you don't scar on the left side.

3) Harvey is an alien.

YES. Maybe he was a Skrull/Durlan type, and yes, he was hit in the right side of his face--which is why that side is now paralyzed, locked in faux human form. The left, "evil" side is actually his true alien visage. Doomed to never be able to fully revert to his true appearance, poor Harvey went mad, believing himself truly a human, and inventing ridiculous backstories of abuse to justify his fractured psyche.

So why was a shape-shifting alien posing as a Gotham City prosecutor back in the day? Why was Two-Face never in the Batman '66 show? Why show the correct and true acid splashing the first time, and then cover it up by "correcting" it each time they trot out Harvey's origin?

Because DC is covering up the massive 1940s alien invasion of Earth. And we'll never know the full story...because DC today is clearly run by aliens.

How else would you explain having Darkseid join the Justice League?

Pop quiz: can you summarize the difference between Two-Face and other Batman villains in just four panels?

Or first contestants: Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, as one of Harvey's henchman wants to get proactive about Batman...




Ding ding I think we have a winner!!

Dammit, now I want to see a Batman/Shang-Chi team-up vs. Two-Face and Fu Manchu.

From Batman #397 (1986)

Two-Face has stolen an atom bomb (!) and is holding a joint session of Congress hostage for two billion dollars!!

Now, you'd think that was a pretty danged important crisis.

But despite the Dynamic Duo just having escaped from Harvey Dent's death-trap, Dick has other priorities:

Umm, OK, Robin. Preventing the whole of the Senate and the House of Representatives from being vaporized obviously takes a back seat to not missing Biology 135.

Then again, he might be right...

Still, come on, Dick--it's OK to cut class once in awhile if you're a hero.

From Batman #258 (1974)

Two-Face and gang have captured Batman and Robin!!

Now, you'd think the order Dent gave would have included unmasking them. And not just because of the usual "you idiot, they're unconscious, why don't you figure out their secret identities" trope.

Nope, you need to take their masks because of this:







Oh, so that's what those ears are for!!

Note to crooks: strip 'em naked when you put the Dynamic Duo into your cages and death-traps.

From Batman #258 (1974)

Surely you remember those great DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars from back in the day, right?





100 pages!! Just 50 cents!! What an insanely great deal!!

Well, it may be 40 years later, but the 100-Page Super Spectacular is back, baby!!

Oh, yeah!! I can hardly wait...

Damn you, DC Comics! Damn you to hell!!

Man, I hate living in the future sometimes...

Anyway...
80% of this is a Batman/Two-Face story that involves Harvey Dent going to the Catholic Church for redemption.

Actual Two-Face quote: "I know the catechism, Father: God is one, the Father almighty. But God is also three: the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. And what I want to know is how God can possibly understand what I've gone through when he's one and three but never just two."

So, yeah, there's that.

And of course someone murders a priest as part of some silly land sale rigamarole and frames Harvey for it and Batman investigates with a priest who distrusts him and whom he distrusts but they ultimately come to respect each other blah blah Batman steals Harvey's coin blah blah Bruce Wayne donates a ton of land to the poor blah blah.

It's a long, LONG but fairly boring mystery that reads like an infomercial for the Catholic Church. But at least you get 70+ pages of Tom Mandrake art, which ain't chopped liver. If only it were in service of a better story...

The second story involves Harley Quinn forcing Batman to let her psychoanalyze him. Not necessarily a bad premise--writers often forget that she used to have a day job--but spread out over 20 pages, there's not a lot there to be worth the space.

So worth $9.99? No way. 50¢? Just maybe...

From the letters column in Batman #258 (1974):
 
Ohs, nos.

This is fairly ironic, because Batman #258 was the issue that had the very first appearance of Arkham Asylum. Yes, the first--incredibly, Arkham didn't exist in comics prior to 1974!!

So this letter, calling for more stories featuring villains "consumed by their inner demons," literally appears at the dawn of the Arkhamization of Batman's rogues gallery.

Now, I'm not against complex villains. But does every villain have to be "consumed," and nuts? What's wrong with Batman fighting thieves and crooks and gangsters some of the time?

Well, Atone Perry thinks the villain is boring if they're not motivated by "deep emotional reasons." By this school of thought, every villain will end up tortured and complex and buried in Arkham, which will have to house all of Batman's villains and become a joke because then the only way Batman can fight someone is if they escape. This is the school of thought that transforms Joe Chill into the guy who eventually became the Joker.

So come on, DC editor, let your answer nip this in the bud!! Be firm (but polite) and suggest to Antone that there's room for all types of foes in the Batman Universe! Come on, tell him--

Oh, gods, don't put it up to the readers!! D'oh!!

And thus, we were doomed to the crazification of Gotham City. Thank you, Denny O'Neill and Atone Perry.

If you've ever wanted to see a Victorian era Two-Face kick Victorian era "celebrated criminologist" Bruce Wayne is the gonads...


....well, you've come to the right place!

(Also, if you want to see Victorian era Bruce Wayne take a chemical formula that gives him the strength to fight crime as Batman, but also periodically changes to into Mr. Hyde The Joker, well then, you're two for two with this story!)

From the Elseworlds one-shot Batman: Two Faces (1998)

Graffiti on the wall of a Gotham City alley in Birds Of Prey #2:

If you can't make out the "insane goth" font, it says:

So I'm reading a reprint of Detective Comics #66, the first appearance of Two-Face. So what do I find?

Picture a spit take here...Harvey KENT?? KENT!?! What, DC somehow botches a reprint of one of their classic stories?

Nope. For his first couple of appearances, Two-Face was actually named Harvey Kent...Wikipedia says his name was later changed "to prevent confusion with Clark Kent."

Well, I'll be damned. I didn't know that, and I'm supposed to know shit like that. And it's no big deal. Harvey Dent is a better name for Two-Face, regardless of potential Clark confusion. Let's just call it another Robert Bruce Banner thing.

But what if...what if his name really was Harvey Kent? What if he changed it soon after he arrived in Gotham? What if he was a relative of the Kents? A long-lost relative, a cousin or nephew? Or...

...what if Harvey Kent is Jonathan Kent's son from a previous marriage that he had told nobody about? Harvey Kent, embittered and unbalanced by this abandonment, changes his name and becomes Gotham City's District Attorney, but is primed for lunacy when that beaker of acid hits his face. OMG...what if Two-Face is Superman's step-half-brother!?!?!?!?!?!

Someone get me DiDio...I got a story to pitch!!!