Yikes!) The story is otherwise notable, with an obvious nod to the subtitle, for delving into the bleak psychological backgrounds of both Bruce Wayne / Batman and Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent. and that's just in the middle section of this volume. (A concerned detective at a crime scene remarks to Commissioner Gordon "Forty-seven people. Two-Face, after explosively escaping from Arkham Asylum, is in cahoots with a questionable local physician, and they're secretly dosing average and random Gotham citizens with a drug that sends their impulses into homicidal / suicidal overdrive. "I've gotta go explain to the mayor why Gotham's fairest and finest are popping their corks like so many bottles of cheap champagne." - Gotham's District Attorney, to Commissioner Jim Gordonīrutal and horrific little Dark Knight story (accent on the dark part) with the crime-fighter pursuing a supremely unhinged Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent. I’d say it’s worth checking out for Batman fans for that last one alone. Two-Face is not a superhero, he’s an ordinary human - his head should’ve splattered on the ground like a tomato! Not even a broken bone? Come on.īatman: Jekyll and Hyde is a flawed comic with a weak story and some plot holes but it has awesome artwork throughout and arguably the best characterisation of Two-Face ever. Also, at one point Harvey falls off a building and lands on his head, but gets up moments later with an “Uhhh”, as if he’s hungover. And the reason why some scientist was working on a serum to bring out a person’s dark side was contrived and unmemorable. Such a great-looking comic!īut the overall story that all of this hangs on? Meh. And Phillips’ noir sensibilities work really well here too. Even though Lee overdoes Batman’s cape to the point where it looks like he’s wearing a parachute, his gothic visuals lends the dark story the chill it needs. ![]() ![]() Here, Harvey is like John Doe in Se7en, utterly insane and evil, torturing people sadistically as well as murdering them – he’s a more serious villain than he’s normally written.Īlso Batman has some great scenes with Alfred and Gordon and, again appropriately (possibly deliberately?), the book is drawn by not one but two fantastic artists: Jae Lee draws the first half, Sean Phillips the second. Jenkins also made him really, really intense and disturbed at the same time, more so than any other version of Two-Face I’ve ever seen. I like that Jenkins took us to a place I don’t think anyone’s really taken us with Two-Face before, and makes a compelling case for his fractured state of mind. Paul Jenkins takes us deep into the mind of Harvey Dent to expose his hidden demons and show us where Two-Face really came from…īatman: Jekyll and Hyde is, appropriately enough, a book split down the middle of good and bad quality. Everyone knows how Harvey Dent physically became Two-Face - acid to the face, thrown at him by a mobster in a courtroom - but psychologically? There’s the rub because physical deformity wouldn’t instantly split someone’s psyche in two.
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