The Two Faces of Harvey Dent: An Analysis of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns Page Six

[00:00:00]Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, page six, with inks by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley. So, it's interesting that this is page six because the number six keeps showing up and and we're at Arkham Home for the Emotionally Troubled, formerly Arkham Asylum. All the demons, all the evil creatures of Batman's world are temporarily held held prisoner. One thing I want to note, looking at the page numbers on this book, it's page 15 that if you've been noticing the page numbers in the corner, it's not sort of comics page numbering where it's, you know, 1 2 3 4. It's book page numbering.

[00:00:35]So, Miller has kind of accounted for the introductory pages and things like that in the same way that a novel would have. They usually account for pages of introductions and prefaces and and and things. So, just an interesting thing to note.

[00:00:51]We will continue to refer to these pages as, you know, sort of page 6 7 8 and 9 just just to make things a little easier. Arkham Home for the Emotionally Troubled. So, we're going to a new era.

[00:01:00]And also, you know, it's it's the future, but it's also in Miller's mind Batman was this character from his childhood and and and even before, you know, a character from from the '40s and and and maybe the '50s, maybe the '60s with the Adam West, whatever Miller's personal touchstone was with for this character. So, part of what he's doing here is let's bring Batman into the '80s. And so, changing Arkham Asylum into Arkham Home for the Emotionally Troubled is kind of fits with this idea of, you know, the '80s being this more touchy-feely era where we're a little more sensitive about things. And a lot of this stuff, it's interesting viewing the '80s, which we probably each have our own associations with what we think the '80s are about, but seeing it through the lens of somebody who's who's living at that time and and how they perceive it and in all different ways. And that'll that'll pop up throughout this. And you have this little no smoking sign in a Frank Miller comic where everybody's got like a cigarette or a cigar in their mouth. Think about all the cigarette smoke in in Daredevil. But again, it's a hospital, it's a it's a more sensitive area. Water's out in my building, too.

[00:02:02]Couldn't even take a shower this morning. You know what I hate the most about the heat? It's the way your underwear sticks to Shut up. Let's look at the Joker. And again, Joker, these big sort of psychotic eyes, but mouth shut. He doesn't have his rictus grin.

[00:02:15]The only way I really know it's the Joker is just from having read this before. That it's all it's very subtle.

[00:02:19]It's very subtle green in his hair.

[00:02:22]Maybe just enough to pick it up. I mean, we have red and we have a tiny bit of green. Maybe uh I don't know, maybe I did pick it up, but it seems pretty subtle here. And he's just, you know, looking out of the window, 601. So, uh we you know, the number six keeps popping up. Uh you know, 666 and he's you know, Joker's number one of of Batman's ultimate evil adversaries.

[00:02:42]Yeah, well, you don't see him sweating.

[00:02:43]Just look at him. You look at him. He makes me sick. And the way these guys are dressed and the guy's holding a chart Sounds like these These are two doctors. So, uh very very sort of cynical presentation. Uh you you know, the the of of this kind of coarse chitchat. Yeah, well, guess being crazy has its moments.

[00:03:01]It's been a long time since any of these guys had moments. The Joker's so crazy, so divorced from reality that that he doesn't even know. Uh you know, he doesn't even feel this this intense heat that everybody's dealing with. Uh he's not sweating. When I came here, they said I could never be cured. And then we have 602 and we see the split in the panel and this is Two-Face. Again, represented in a very subtle way. We've had this pretty rigid grid up to this point and to sort of split it further.

[00:03:25]If you you can't imagine these panels getting any smaller, but split right down the middle to depict two faces' split nature. And of course, it makes sense that he'd be in room 602. We know what they said, Harvey, but that's history. Surgical procedures have improved, as have psychiatric. You're fit to return to society, no matter what our septuagenarian police commissioner says. The panel is divided right in the middle of Harvey Dent, his face covered, wrapped up in these bandages. And he's sort of uh you know, film noir trope. On each side are two uh aspects of of this this cure that that's happened for for Harvey Dent. On the left is his plastic surgeon who's created the physical transformation. And on the right, we have Dr. Wolper who, you know, becomes sort of a a big character in the story being his psychiatrist who's helped him with his mental transformation. Maybe Gordon is right about me. The split's down the middle. It It This is working really nicely. Form meeting function.

[00:04:20]Nonsense. Gordon's just gone senile. Dr. Willing isn't qualified to judge that, but I concur. Gordon is suspicious of this Harvey Dent transformation. His doctor's sort of saying, "Gordon's gone senile." It's kind of unprofessional as Wolper reminds him, "That's That's outside of your specialty. That's my specialty. Leave that to me." Thank you, Dr. Wolper. And now, Harvey Dent, meet Harvey Dent. The idea of Harvey Dent meeting Harvey Dent, he's got this split nature, these two faces, and that he can meet himself. Oh my god. The face is covered. We don't know what he's seeing.

[00:04:53]We're to assume he's excited about what he's seeing, but maybe he's horrified.

[00:04:56]The way that it's obscured makes you think he's looking at something horrible. And then on the next page, what can I say? He He pulls it down and we see, "Oh, he The scarred half of his face has been healed." And he's crying and what can I say? And it'll be interesting to remember this moment later on in this chapter. It plays really nicely. Again, the structure of this whole story, the way things are woven through it, the way moments are foreshadowed and called back to again, uh completely foreign to the comic book medium up to this point. The only person doing anything remotely in this neighborhood would be Frank Miller's idol, Will Eisner. I'm Tom Scioli, author of Space Opera Zantaffdax Across the Unknown Dimensions of the Galaxy from Image Comics.