There Will Be Order In This Court! — Reviewing ‘Two-Face’ #4

For years, a brutal war has raged within the mind, body, and soul of the man known as Harvey Dent. The two sides of Dent’s personality, a man and his shadow, fight for dominance while occasionally finding common ground.

What seemingly began with a courtroom and a vial of acid has roots far deeper than ever suspected. History stands revealed as the trial of Harvey Dent beings. Witnesses for the court are Christian Ward, Fábio Veras, Ivan Plascencia, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Damn, this book just keeps getting better.

Two-Face is one of those characters I probably knew the least about. I only really know the bare basics of who he was as Dent, the acid, the lost life, the coin, and all that jazz. You know, the usual stuff that comes with the comic stories and other adaptations. Here, we get so much more than that.

We get the origin story that’s been lacking in many cases. It takes this scarred being and fleshes out the circumstances that led to things ending up the way they did. It gives the “Bad Harvey/Scarvey” a deeper reason for being. Beyond the split personality caused by the acid incident, there’s a whole dissociated persona created by Harvey to deal with childhood traumas.

Flashbacks told through a trial, the whole thing that Dent knows best, was kind of brilliant. It’s a great framing device that adds more to the story and keeps it from just being a pure series of past moments. Instead, they are given some context of both good and bad lived experiences, as they are thrown in Harvey’s proverbial face. This shows that the bad version of Harvey is not exactly fully what we presumed him to be.

This format gives Veras so much room to keep doing what he does best. He crafts a very vividly distinct world and space for the title character to inhabit. Everything feels light but heavy at the same time. The action and conversations flow from panel to panel with such ease, never missing a beat, creating a visual language that steps beyond what many similar comic books would dare.

A sense of motion is really key here, as panels fluidly lead right into the next. A great example of this is showcasing “Bad” Harvey’s descent into darkness following childhood. The despair, pain, and depression can be felt in that moment. It screams off the page, despite it just being a field of black and a lone figure.

Darkness pervades so much of what is happening here. There is also a lot of very vibrant flashy otherworldly color palette choices. Plascencia really goes all out in this book to tap into the weird and different, meeting the script and art in the middle and running alongside them both all the way.

A light effect is used everywhere. Even the darkest pages feel like there is levity to them, coming to a ‘neutral space’ with the darker elements.

Each Harvey is distinct, from their appearances to their presence in the spaces around them, to their voices. Otsmane-Elhaou adds to that final example. He’s a master at choosing fonts, bubble styles, colors, and more to enhance the words the characters speak. This ability gives that visual flair needed to stand apart from the more ‘normal’ voices that can be found. These characters (and their worlds) are larger than life, and should feel that way always.

When you tap one of the best letterers around, you can be sure that is always the case.

Two-Face #4 is now available from DC Comics.