Thursday, September 20, 2007

Two-Faced (for Ricë)

Re: Saying Goodbye to Gabe's Super Hero Action Figures

Your favorite is two face, Batman's foe. Once upon a time he was the stunningly handsome district attorney Harvey Dent. A horrible accident disfigured half of his body, and he's had two personalities since then. On the one hand, half of him is still the handsome D.A. (dapper suit and all). On the other hand, he is a horrible monster, and wears purple and acid green (I'm making no judgments there, actually in the comic he usually wears a plaid suit on that side, since plaid is evil).

When he is being villainous he can sometimes be talked back into the handsome Harvey Dent persona, and vice versa. He typically carries a coin with him, one side is flawless, the other scratched. Often he flips it to decide whether he'll do something horribly wicked (even more wicked than wearing plaid, mwah-haha) or something fairly decent.

In the first Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, Billy Dee Willians played Harvey Dent, and scuttlebut was that he had a contract to eventually play Two Face. But many cool rumory things like that--John Malkovich rumored as the Riddler, Patrick Stewart rumored as Mr. Freeze, a Catwoman feature with Michelle Pfeiffer reprising and continuing the role--never were to be after Tim Burton no longer helmed the franchise following Batman Returns. Seems that the ungodly amount of money Returns made was not commensurate with the ungodly amount of money the first film made, so they gave the third film to Joel Schumacher (sp?) who is not a favorite director of mine, and he put bat-nipples on the costumes. He also did really silly things with Batgirl, who is one of my favorite heroes on the feminine side of things, and very nearly my favorite given both genders.

They've already redone the franchise, with Batman Returns starring Christian Bale. Believe it or not, I still haven't seen it. But the sequel is coming soon enough, with Heath Ledger as a very scary Joker. And I don't think they're going to Brokeback Mountain.

Alas, though, Billy Dee Williams we may never see as Two-Face. We will have to settle for Lando Calrissian.

1 comment:

Ricë said...

i have to tell you--just in case you didn't know already--that i didn't understand a word of this but am strangely--strangely!--happy that i actually know someone who does.

if i'm ever on that game show where you need to call a friend for the answer to some question, i'll be sooooo glad i have The IPhone of Gabriel on speeddial. . . .