Two-Face is one of Batman’s most tragic villains. While Batman does or doesn’t play a role in the creation of some of his villains depending on who’s telling the story, Batman and Two-Face are virtually always linked, from kid-friendly fare like Batman: The Animated Series to Christopher Nolan’s much more grounded The Dark Knight.
The essence of Two-Face is a pretty straightforward goal, but making him feel just right is a lot tougher.
Turn the Other Cheek
Two-Face measures approximately 9-inches tall including his base; for some reason, Diamond Select insists that he’s 12 inches tall, but he’s no more a foot tall than I am ready to join the NBA. What’s the point in a lie you can easily verify? The statue is built from plastic, with a design by Caesar and sculpt by Alterton. It retails at site like Amazon and Entertainment Earth for around $49.99.
Batman’s villains are as iconic as he is, and Two-Face is a standout as one of the most fascinating ones. I remember collecting Batman: The Animated Series figures as a kid and while I had my share of Batmen and Robins, Two-Face was the only villain I can remember owning. In other words, he’s a consistent favorite for me.
So what’s key in getting a character like this right? Of course, the good-evil, clean-gross dichotomy is key. His iconic coin, is important, too, as well as his link to his past as a lawyer.
Well, it’s all here, and it looks pretty good. But I can’t help but be a little disappointed.
Killer Croc says Hi
Of all the iterations Diamond Select could’ve gone with, they selected one of the less-interesting ones. It’s very much up to the individual artist what Two-Face looks like–on both sides. But the really important part is his evil side, where the artist gets to go a little wild. Here, the artist went with the version of Two-Face where his left half is relatively intact but twisted up. He has a complete face, it’s just green and scaly.
Is it ugly? Sure. But it’s not terribly interesting. It’s not the ghastly sort of look they used in The Dark Knight, but then it’s meant to capture a comic-book character, right? The gold standard is the version of Two-Face depicted in the Animated Series. Compared to the comics, he’s impressively terrifying. This Two-Face isn’t going to give anyone nightmares, unfortunately.
With that said, there are a lot of cool details. The two halves of his suit have very different textures, with the Two-Face half textured like hamburger and the Dent half with a sort of horizontal stitch look that catches light superbly. All kinds of little details bring the split home. Buttons on his collar and sleeves are black or white as appropriate, and even his shoes are inverted. The line between the two halves is clean up and down both sides, and even under his the split of his suit coat.
Heads & Tails
One of the hardest things to get right on a figure of this scale and cost is a small detail like Dent’s defaced coin. The coin is a flat silver-ish color, but if you look up close–closer than anyone is reasonably going to look–the top side of the coin is actually scratched. Impressive. Harv is also holding a gavel that has a Batarang stuck in it, because the two tenets of the DC Gallery are “bring the comics to life” and “stick Batarangs in things.” Unfortunately on my Two-Face, this Batarang is chipped and the inner material is visible.
One of the other disappointments I have with this character is one I don’t really blame Diamond Select for, and that’s the fact that the Dent half of the statue’s face is pretty boring and generic. But that’s the thing. Statues of Bruce Wayne are hard to find because he’s just a guy. Batman is the icon. Kotobukiya has a Bruce Wayne ArtFX statue, but you could pass that statue off as an action figure for ABC’s The Bachelor. Similarly, Harvey Dent isn’t terribly iconic. He generally has dark hair in the comics, but no one lost their minds over Aaron Eckhart the same way they did on Daniel Craig’s blonde James Bond.
The difference between Harvey and Bruce is that you can’t hide Harvey’s boring side. The best you can hope to do is put him in an eminently stylish cartoon like Batman: The Animated Series where everything looks great. This Two-Face looks a lot like a statue that I got with Max Payne 3 almost a decade ago. Just a brown-haired guy.
Two-Base
The base for Two-Face is pretty good. He’s standing on some steps that look like they’re probably from a courthouse or something like that–exactly the kind of place Two-Face likes to hole up–with a bag of money and some stacks of bills next to him. The bills are disappointingly blank; this could’ve been a really cool detail. The money bag looks great, with a golden dollar sign embossed onto the flat brown fabric. The base, too, has a few batarangs stuck into it.
Overall, this character is just fine. Thinking through the qualities of the character for this review shows what a tough job the sculptors had in bringing Two-Face to life. Scarecrow looks like a scarecrow, and that’s always spooky on its own. Penguin has lots of little canonical details like his beak, monocle, and fancy tailcoat. Because Harvey Dent is just a handsome guy, though, the sculptors are left without many interesting options for the Dent side.
All told, they did a fine job with what they had. I really would’ve liked a more disturbing left half, and the chipped batarang is not great. But for the going rate, this is still a pretty solid figure, but not a must-have like Bane or Penguin.
The Two-Face statue is available from Amazon and Entertainment Earth.
Disclaimer: Diamond Select provided us with the Tw0-Face statue for the purposes of this review.
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