After years of internal conflict, both halves of Harvey Dent have reached an uneasy peace. Now Harvey will use his skills as an attorney to resolve the conflicts of Gotham’s weirdest and most dangerous criminals, starting with Victor Zsasz. When Zsasz is accused of murdering a fellow member of Gotham’s underworld contingent, who better to prove a criminal’s innocence than someone who’s been on both sides of the law?
The very first issue of Two-Face’s very first solo series. It’s great to see the character return to the courtroom. Harvey Dent making a difference by holding court to settle disputes between criminal’s is such a fascinating story, and I can’t wait to devour each issue as they’re released!
I like the color scheme but that's really the best thing going for this introductory issue. The underworld trial is pretty lackluster, has no meat to it, and is resolved in the single issue. I'm sure there will be more but it's really just an unsatisfying execution of an interesting premise. I think Harvey Dent is a little too easy of a character to write sometimes and that makes him hard to write. You need a good understanding of the psychology behind this second personality and how a human being can operate like that. It's too easy to create a simple, unrealistic dichotomy between the personalities and base it on what serves the story better. I'm happy Two-Face is getting his own series and I'm hoping the story gets bigger and better as it goes on but I'm fairly disappointed in this opening.
“Welcome to the white church!” With Judge reaper presiding this is a place for the lowest of Gotham to come to a room of order to put their trust in the law of the unlawful. This is such peak two-face and is such a good story, plus I just finished Batman year 2 so it’s crazy seeing the reaper again, although I know this is not the original, no shot at that.
This series focuses on Harvey as he acts as a lawyer for the underworld. In this issue we saw him defend Victor Zsasz…yeah that’s hard to do. They are brought together by Jimmy the Thin, a sergeant in the Falcone family that claims Zsasz killed Anthony Reynolds the right hand man of the lieutenant of the Falcone family. Zsasz has a very “intimate” and specific style of killing, he likes to become one with all his victims. For each victim he marks a notch in his skin. But something that is a little less known is that Zsasz treats his kills like marriage, which means that a return notch is placed like a wedding band in the skin of the victim. In the middle of this proceeding Harvey rolled out the rotting bodies of Zsasz last confirmed victim and the accused victim. As he was about to show Zsasz as innocent as Reynolds doesn’t have a return notch in his skin that Zsasz would place, Zsasz stupidly reverted to his base instincts and revealed a hidden blade he had tucked in his skin that he used to slash at the bailiff (who has a mallet for a hand, lol), and then take a woman hostage. Harvey immediately talked him down and called him an idiot because he was about to be proven innocent. Harvey then goes to show there is no notch on Reynold’s body and the ring is missing…the same ring that the prosecution is wearing right now. The court room freaks out and the prosecutor mob member tries to kill Harvey. But bad Harvey shows himself and knocks the man down as the bailiff is able to get order in the court.
Harvey then pulls out his coin to decide judgement, as it lands on guilty…and he kills the man. Zsasz ran out in the confusion. Later in the judge’s chambers the reaper discusses the influx of cases involving disruptions in the hierarchy of Gotham, they are suspecting someone of moving the strings behind the scenes. Later as Harvey is leaving he runs into the woman who Zsasz took hostage as she wanted it thank him for saving her. Her name is Lake Cantwell, and Harvey was only following the rules of the white church. She then asks if he can help her with a career change from running drugs to being smart and useful like him. Harvey doesn’t seem interested, but then she mentions how interesting his coin is…and Harvey perks up and realizes he has a job for her. Harvey is needed in court so he can’t be everywhere, he needs eyes and ears elsewhere. But it seems Zsasz has also set his eyes on Lake and wants to join with her.
But even more shocking is when we get back to Harvey’s as he starts to argue with bad Harvey. It turns out what is so special about his coin…is both sides are guilty. Harvey is in complete control and is taking the bad side of himself that he has now locked away and is delivering his own sense of Justice in the streets. Part of him believes that the attorneys office will welcome him back when he shows them all he has done, but I agree with bad Harvey…for everything he has done that’s insane. And as bad Harvey creeps in his mind, looking for the chance to break out and fully take over, the next issue deals with the divide of the kind and queen of hearts. Royal flush gang???!!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is a dark, somewhat fresh take on the character, though I can't say I've read a ton of his appearances. I'm not sure how I feel about the underground courtroom being called the "White Church," but it is a fascinating idea to see the criminals holding their own judicial system. Victor Zsasz is his usual creepy self, and I'm intrigued by the Lake Cantwell character. I'm not sure how long I want to read this title, since I'm trying to get away from some of the darker stuff, but for the moment, I think my curiosity is piqued.
This was a fantastic issue 1, it's sets up a lot of interesting ideas to go forward with while also delivering a satisfying single issue story. Its a side of gotham you dont get to see often, im glad with this Poison Ivy and The Penguin their seeing the villains' perspective of gotham has a lot of untold stories in it. The art and colouring is top notch.
Love the fact that TwoFace has his own title. Happy to see Victor Zsasz is back in comics. He is seldom used. He is a cool character that has been in the dark for too long. The book is cool. Can't wait to read chapter 2!
Enjoyed TwoFace’s arc in RamV’s run on detective comics and this feels like a continuation of the depth of the character. Harvey is in control but is still doing things very TwoFace like. Really enjoyed the art work, and the criminal court.