Harvey Dent (Two-Face) - a character in Batman films

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Harvey Dent is a negative character from Batman comics. The former prosecutor of the city of Gotham, whose face turned out to be disfigured, hates Batman with all his being and always opposes him. The character has appeared in many adaptations of the Batman story. How did the fate of Dent in the comics? Who played the supervillain in Hollywood movies?

Character Creation Story

Harvey Dent was created by creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Dent first appeared in 1942, in issue 66 of Detective Comics.

Mr. Dent was originally supposed to be Kent. However, the capitalization was later changed, since the name Kent already belonged to Superman.

Dent's story began as the principled and intelligent prosecutor of Gotham City, who selflessly fought crime. But everything in Dent's life changes when half of his face is disfigured by acid. Along with half his face, Dent also lost part of his sanity.

After this incident, Harvey gets the nicknameTwo-faced and turns into a sophisticated villain - the leader of one of Gotham's criminal gangs. The former prosecutor begins to use all his intelligence, leadership qualities, hand-to-hand combat and shooting skills for evil.

Harvey Dent, Gotham in the comics

After an accident that happened to Dent, the former prosecutor begins to terrorize Gotham. Harvey Dent goes up against Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, Spoiler, and Commissioner Gordon. But he cooperates with the villains Joker, the Riddler, Clayface and Poison Ivy.

When Dent finds his victim, he determines her fate with a silver coin disfigured like his face. If the dollar falls with the deformed side, the victim dies immediately, if the whole one, he dies anyway, but later.

Two-faced bears such a pseudonym not only because of the duality of his face, but also because of the duality of his nature: good and evil are constantly fighting in Harvey Dent.

One day, a villainous surgeon named Khash performed an operation on Dent to restore the other half of his face. After that, Dent regained his sanity. He surrendered to Commissioner Gordon without resistance and then served his sentence in prison.

After his release, Dent meets with the Dark Knight and he offers him to take his post as the city's defender. After much training, Harvey Dent took over as Batman, and Batman himself left town for a short time. A year later, the Dark Knight returns and Harvey Dent is out of work again.

Batman does not fully trust Harvey, so when in the citysomeone starts killing petty crooks, suspicion falls on the former Two-Face. Dent was so offended by the suspicion that he again doused half his face with acid and turned into the old villain.

When Batman dies, Harvey begins to compete for power in Gotham with Black Mask and the Penguin. But in the end, Manhunter manages to catch him.

Dent's abilities

Before getting the nickname Two-Face Dent, he was one of the best prosecutors Gotham has ever seen. They called him the White Knight of Gotham. Accordingly, Harvey had a deep knowledge of forensics and jurisprudence.

Dent managed to put many criminals behind bars. And during the exposure of one of them - Holiday - he gets injured and turns into Two-Face. Soon, Two-Face becomes the boss of one of Gotham's crime gangs thanks to his intelligence, skills in hand-to-hand combat and good use of weapons.

Batman: Billy Williams' Harvey Dent

In 1989, an action movie about the Dark Knight was released, which was directed by Tim Burton. The role of Batman was entrusted to actor Michael Keaton ("Birdman"). The entire film was dedicated to the confrontation between Batman and the Joker played by Jack Nicholson. In the episode, Harvey Dent also appears on the screen.

The actor who played the role of the prosecutor of Gotham is a black American Billy Dee Williams. Williams is also known to viewers for his role as Calrissian in George Lucas' Star Wars.

Harvey Dent in Tim Burton's film appears before the audience at that period of his life,when he was still a normal person and served in the prosecutor's office. Dent did not take a special part in the development of the plot.

Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film is credited as a major contributor to the superhero action genre.

Dent by Tommy Lee Jones

In 1995 Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever was released. The producer of this picture was Tim Burton, and Harvey Dent appears on the screens again. The film seems to be considered a continuation of Burton's previous films about the Dark Knight, but, unfortunately, the integrity of the series is violated by the fact that the role of Batman was constantly played by a new actor. So this time the main role went not to the usual Michael Keaton, but to Val Kilmer. Also featured are Jim Carrey as the Riddler, Chris O'Donnell as Robin, Drew Barrymore as Snowflake and Nicole Kidman as Dr. Meridian.

According to the plot, Harvey Dent blames Batman for the misfortune that happened to him: supposedly he could have saved him from Salvatore Maroni, but did not. Afterwards, Dent makes it his goal to destroy the Dark Knight. For this, he teams up with the Riddler. But in the final picture, Batman manages to outwit Dent, and the latter dies.

Tomy Lee Jones did a good job in his role. For the role of Dent, the actor was nominated for the MTV Movie Awards.

Aaron Eckhart and Two-Face

To date, the best films about Batman are those made by Christopher Nolan. In the 2008 film The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent (Two-Face) becomes one of the main charactersscript.

Christopher Nolan slightly changed the original story of Dent, described in the comics. In his film, Harvey works as a district attorney and allies himself with Commissioner Gordon and Batman to deal with crime in the city. But the psychopath Joker appears on the horizon, who kidnaps Dent and his bride, blackmailing Batman.

Batman doesn't have time to save both - only Dent. However, after the explosion arranged by the Joker, the prosecutor loses half of his face. After that, he begins to avenge the death of his bride to everyone who did not have time to save her. Trying to save Commissioner Gordon's family from revenge, Batman kills Dent. But in order not to break the faith of the inhabitants of Gotham in good, Batman takes on all the crimes of Two-Face, and Harvey is buried with full honors as a hero.

Nicholas D'Agosto as Harvey Dent

In 2014, the American Fox channel began broadcasting the television series "Gotham", which brings together all the heroes of superhero comics about Batman. The role of Harvey Dent went to Nicholas D'Agosto, the star of the series ER, House M. D., Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy.

The series touches on the period in the history of Gotham, when Bruce Wayne was still a teenager and experienced the death of his parents. The plot focuses on the activities of Commissioner Gordon and his partner. Harvey Dent in this series appears as a young idealist who dreams of completely cleaning the streets of the city from crime.

Two-faced in animated films

About the Gotham universe wasmany animated films have been released.

Harvey Dent featured in the 2011 animated film Batman: Year One. True, the character appears only in the episode.

In 2012, the two-part cartoon "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" was released, in which the fight between Harvey Dent and Batman is given the main place in the plot. Only Dent here does not suffer from his disfigured appearance, but makes a successful plastic surgery, while remaining a villain.