Two-Face

As long as they were basing this design on the animated version, it's a shame they couldn't get Richard Moll to voice him, too. The capture of Two-Face brought an end to his reign of violence and terror on the streets of Gotham. Since his incarceration in Arkham City, he has used his persuasive influence to quickly rise to the top of the food chain. Two-Face is obsessed with duality, and determined to recruit half the population of Arkham City in preparation for a bloody war against the other gangs within Arkham City. But his strategy starts and ends with a flip of his coin, adding an element of randomness to his every move. No pun intended, but Two-Face is a second-tier villain in the Arkham games. You find his cell in the first one, but he's gone; he's mentioned at the end of the game, but just in passing. And while he does appear in Arkham City, it's just the tutorial/warm-up mission. Harvey gets no respect! His brief appearance in the game did at least earn him an action figure, so that's something, right? It's sculpted by Derek Miller, and while the individual details are nice, the overall presentation is unfortunately lacking. Let's take a look at what's what. To begin with, Arkham City Two-Face takes a cue from Dark Knight Rises, making his bifurcated suit a result of burns, not just two different styles of cloth stitched together. This is definitely a smart choice for "realistic" interpretations of the character - in the comics, we don't question the fact that Harvey is sitting in his lair, cutting clothes in half and then stitching them back together, but that would be too silly in the quote/unquote real world. So the detailing on the ravaged side is very nice (though it does still have a very straight, perfect seam conspicuously down the center). His left sleeve is torn away at the bicep, revealing that his entire arm is just as messed up as his face. Why? People know he got acid thrown in his face, right? So his face and maybe his hand should be scarred, not the entire side of his body. That's a feature directly from the game, though, not something made up for this toy. Heck, in the original concept art, his pantleg was ripped off, too, and his leg was as injured as the rest of him! So consider it a victory that we're only seeing his arm be inappropriately ruined. But now we get to the weird stuff. For some unknown reason, the shoulder on Two-Face's black side is a quarter inch higher than on his white side, as though he's got a Quasimodo-like hump. Huh? We'd say he's supposed to be leaning to the side, but why would he be leaning to the side? The separation line on his back curves to the right, which would seem to support this theory, but his suit doesn't bunch at the side like it would if he were bending, and the front (ie, his necktie, vest and lapels) is perfectly vertical. His right leg sticks further out to the side than the right, which would logically make that side shorter, but again: no sculptural cues to back that up. So he looks mildly deformed. Two-Face has a balljointed head, swivel/hinge shoulders, a swivel/hinge right elbow, swivel left bicep, hinged left elbow, swivel wrists, T-crotch, and hinged knees. There's no waist, though they definitely could have hidden one under his jacket, and if the ankles are anything other than square pegs glued in place, we can't tell. His left wrist bends in harshly, so if you want the hand to hang naturally, he has to hold his arm away from his body. Once again, a weird choice. There must be something we're missing - it would be really interesting to see some work-in-progress images of this sculpt, so we could figure out the true intention. Harv comes with two accessories: a gun (for to threaten Catwoman) and his coin. Yes, the coin is a separate piece that can be gingerly clutched in his curled right hand, so make sure you don't lose it. Best of luck with that. Two-Face has not been a major part of the Arkham storyline so far, but he's appeared in the Arkham Knight trailers since the beginning, so maybe he'll finally get something to do. But if Scarecrow is any indication, the potential action figure he may get for the new game won't be as good as this one. -- 06/11/15

Tweet