It’s hard to imagine a world without such iconic figures as Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman and even harder to imagine them with different origins than those that have been ‘on the books’ for the past seventy years. Yet, DC Comics’ wildly popular Elseworlds series asks you to do just that. Back in the late eighties, at the capable hands of Mike Mignola, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, a Victorian era graphic novel that took the well-known world of Gotham and set it back in time a hundred years, sparked the idea that there were new ways to tell stories about the same old heroes. What followed was the creation of DC Elseworlds.
As every Elseworlds book declares: In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places--some that have existed or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.
Never is that more true than in the Victorian era Batman: Two Faces.
Picture Gotham City, Circa 1886...
Close your eyes and imagine a world where Police Commissioner James Gordon meets with newspaperman Perry White at a gentleman’s club and they trade ‘war stories’ over a glass of brandy. A world where Bruce Wayne is a well known amateur Sherlock Holmes and Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent is the equivalent of a highway robber. This is the set-up for the events that unfold in Batman: Two Faces.
The story opens with the Commissioner offering to spin the most fantastic, outrageous and tragic tale he’s ever known to the ever eager journalist White. Cue flashback sequence.
At a gathering being held by the Botanical Institute of Gotham City, the rare Twilight Orchid, a dual natured plant that is beautiful by day and hideous by night, is being exhibited thanks to millionaire tycoon and celebrated criminologist Bruce Wayne. He had the precious flower shipped to the United States from the far east where it originated in hopes of using its properties to find a cure for the split personality disorder of Harvey Dent.
Of course, the exhibition proves to be too tempting for the criminal to ignore and he drops in (quite literally--he and his men crash through the skylight) uninvited to steal the prized plant. In the course of the heist, Two-Face treats the gentlemanly and rather weak Bruce Wayne to a round of fisticuffs and then takes Pamela Isely hostage, killing her but losing the orchid in the process.
Wracked with guilt because he was unable to save her, Bruce throws himself headlong into research, working day and night for weeks on end to try and create a formula to restore Two-Face’s sanity from the orchid. Eventually, at a dead end, he experiments on himself, resulting in gaining strength and agility. It’s this transformation that gives him the courage to create the masked alter ego of the Bat-Man.
Shortly after Bat-Man’s first appearance, though, a new criminal starts wreaking havoc, murdering prostitutes (all of whom are under the care of madam Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman) in ways that would make Jack the Ripper cringe. The rogue’s moniker? The Joker.
What follows is a fast paced and utterly fascinating story that has a twist so sharp that you never see it coming, making Batman: Two Faces a shining example of just how great an alternate universe can be at keeping the audience on its toes.
Tech Specs and Final Verdict
Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning do an admirable job of uprooting and transplanting the inhabitants of the Batman universe into a Victorian Gotham. The characterizations are virtually the same, yet the old world flavor is never lost. The illusion remains intact and you buy the possibility of a Bat-Man running around in the eighteen hundreds without much trouble at all. That total suspension of belief is a hallmark of talented writers and without a doubt, Abnett and Lanning fit the bill.
The art by Anthony Williams is sharp and stylish, his depiction of the Joker especially unsettling but very fitting to the universe the writers constructed for him to live in. The almost steam punk style that Batman himself sports has enough of the modern version of the character in it to be recognizable, but is also believable within the story’s framework.
The entire book has an almost tongue-in-cheek tone about it, art-wise, as if the artist is giving us a little wink and nod with every subtle reference to the ‘regular’ Batman universe. The sight of Detective Harvey Bullock is a special delight in this regard--he’s half Harvey Bullock, half Chief O’Hara from the old Batman television series.
The only flaw that Batman: Two Faces suffers from is to be found in the language that the writers opted to use. It’s very, very old fashioned in that it sticks to the old adage ‘anything that can be said in five words can just as easily be said in fifteen‘. For those who dislike high brow and somewhat awkward language, Batman: Two Faces is going to be hard to get through, but the story itself makes up for any passages that you might get the urge to skip.
Since this is the only problem that the book really has trouble with, though, it can be forgiven. The story, dialogue and art are solid gold.
If the Batman universe, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde and the gory history of Jack the Ripper were shoved in a blender, Batman: Two Faces would invariably be the outcome--and it’s a brilliant concoction, at that.
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