BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #28-30
Matt Wagner gives a second opinion of Two-Face.

Writer: Matt Wagner
Artist: Matt Wagner
Colorist: Steve Oliff
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Three-issue story arc
Published by DC Comics 1992
$1.75 each

Reviewed by Gregory Dickens

Using a love-addled realtor and blackmail, Two-Face schemes to create a sovereign Deformity Nation, made up of sideshow freaks and grotesques.

The gist of the tale is cloaked in detective work and big money dealings as Batman follows Two-Face's serial murders. But the allure of this tale can be simplified further: Two-Face just can't get over his wounds. He's not just a scarred man, remember; he's a split personality.

You know what to expect from a story feauring the former district attorney Harvey Dent - the duality of his conscience, a devotion to fate, crimes commited with a dichotomy motive.

Unfortunately, Wagner piles the latter on too thickly in the first four pages. Dent escapes Arkham Asylum at 2:22 in the morning. Within three panels Batman reports, ‘for two days, two weeks, and two months, I searched in vain. Finally some informal business found me at a costume party ... two years to the day since Harvey's escape.’ Oy. All we need now is a double murder commited on Feb. 22 by two pairs of double-crossing twins who speak in the second-person.

We also have the murders of plastic surgeons, alluding to Dent's second(!) obsession: appearance. However, the murders are unconnected to the Deformity Nation plan, and seem to only offer readers further evidence of Dent's obsession with twos and appearances. I assume the surgeons were unable to fix Dent or merely represent the vanity of their patients to fix wrinkles and aging, countering the extreme abnormalities of Two-Face and his ‘freak show.’ Without any extrapolation, the murders are unnecessary to the story. Perhaps they are meant to inform new readers that Dent is a ruthless criminal. Maybe they are to give Batman something to do until the third issue's action. Let's all guess together.

"This is a Bats on par with those of David Mazzucchelli and Alex Toth."

There is also a major plot hole involved with the story's blackmail scheme. I won't give it away, but consider this: If a man can sell an island, can't he also get the best medical assistance money can buy? Once you consider that, the story sours.

So let's talk about the strength of this book: the art. Wagner draws one of the best renditions of Batman you'll lay eyes on. With simple lines, heavy, black spotting, and sharp depiction of movement, Batman here is the special effect that masks the weak script. The cape, the deco belt buckle, the blunt cowl ears -- this is a Bats on par with those of David Mazzucchelli and Alex Toth.

The page layouts are remarkably creative. One page in the first issue is a nine-panel grid framed by an indoor track shown in deep perspective. The word ballons move in the classic Z-shape. Wagner twice (!) uses a dotted-line movement shot, similar to the singel-panel adventures of Jeffy from Bil Keane's Family Circus. It's blasphemy to compare the two, I know, but that's what leaps to mind.

An extreme reaction by one character is communicated by exclamation points in his glass lenses. Batman's detective discipline is highlighted in a simple four-panel series of costumes. And there's a howlingly funny phallic imagery that has to be seen to believe during a seduction scene.

"‘Faces’ is a good short story spread thin."

Steve Oliff's colors are beguiling, added to the tone of Wagner's mutiple darks and filling negative space with muted gradations. A fight scene is underscored by flat pink, a traditionally passive color. But it counters the hues of Batman's costume so it works like a charm.

There's a great scene at the end of the story where the grotesques denounce the villain's criminal ways and his excuse that he's driven to it by fate's cruelty. One argues that while he may be a freak, he's not a monster. It's a great scene and it sheds a new light on Two-Face. Is his villainy a sign of true mental illness or violent bitterness? If it's the second option (and since we're talking about Two-face, how appropriate), it means he actually decries the same fate he obeys with every flip of the coin. More duplicity! Now I have a headache. I'm gonna lie down after this.

A question lingers after all the above notations of secondaries: Why wasn't this story a two-parter? That's not as smartass as you might think. ‘Faces’ is a good short story spread thin. Wagner's art helps the reader digest the weaknesses, but the strength of the tale is made up by a few great moments, not a sustained series of events.

Recommended (with reservations: Bat-eye candy for Batfans)

Gregory Dickens is a regular contributor to PopImage.

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