DCAU #87: Good Face Bad Face

 IN THIS ONE... Two-Face escapes and plans two prison breakouts to assemble his new gang.

CREDITS: Written by Kelley Puckett; art by Mike Parobeck and Rick Burchett.

REVIEW: As far as Two-Face schemes, it's not the best (break people out of the same prison... twice?), but the story is actually more about Batman figuring out how to psychologically disarm Harvey Dent, who he obviously still considers a friend, lost in illness. We see Bruce clearly losing sleep over the situation, and defeating Two-Face by taking away his coin, reasoning that since a man is defined by his decisions, it's Harvey that refuses to make choices and forces Two-Face to leave them to chance. A good theory, with with heart and a nice helping of hope, hope that Harvey Dent can be rescued from his broken psyche.

The plot has a couple of good moments, like Two-Face opening the cells to give inmates a chance to take their revenge on Batman. An oldie but a goodie. And the way he gets into the prison each time is pretty good. But there's also some padding, like the Joker cameo that goes on too long, and the subplot with the boat found by the cops. Why did we need that. And that's perhaps my main criticism of this series as written by Kelley Puckett: He seems to waste time on certain things and fails to develop others, so his one-off stories are often unbalanced.

IN THE MAINSTREAM COMICS: Among the jailbirds freed by Two-Face are references to people who work on the show (Tim Bruce for Bruce Timm, Kirk Boydland for Boyd Kirkland, etc.) but also some of comics writers who penned scripts for it (Pasty Marko for Marty Pasko, Marv "The Wolf" Mannheimer for Marv Wolfman).

REREADABILITY: Medium - Solid character moments in search of a stronger plot.