In his comic book appearances, Two-Face is the alter ego of Harvey Dent, Gotham City's former district attorney who becomes a criminal mastermind obsessed with duality and the number two.

The Modern Age of Comic Books portrays the character as having dissociative identity disorder, with Two-Face being an alternate personality that developed as a result of childhood abuse.

The character has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in film by Billy Dee Williams in Batman (1989), Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (1995), Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight (2008), and Harry Lawtey in Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), in television by Nicholas D'Agosto in the Fox series Gotham, and Misha Collins in The CW series Gotham Knights.

[4][10] In July 1971, during the Bronze Age of Comic Books,[11] Two-Face was brought back by writer Dennis O'Neil and former DC editor Julius Schwartz in the story "Half an Evil" (Batman #234).

[14][15][16] After his reintroduction, Two-Face was featured in several DC comics, such as The Brave and The Bold, Justice League of America, and Teen Titans, and became one of Batman's most popular enemies.

[18][9] Later in 1990, Two-Face was given a revised origin by Andrew Helfer in 1990's "The Eye of the Beholder" (Batman Annual #14) which established Harvey Dent as having dissociative identity disorder effected by the psychological trauma from his past of childhood abuse dealt by his father, with Two-Face being a second personality state, and cemented Dent as being formerly part of an alliance with Batman and Commissioner James Gordon against crime in Gotham City.

[19][20][5] 1995's Batman/Two-Face: Crime and Punishment by writer J. M. DeMatteis and artist Scott McDaniel built on "Eye of the Beholder" and explored Dent's psyche and childhood with his abusive father.

[46][47] Before his transformation into Two-Face, Harvey Dent had a successful career as Gotham's district attorney, driven to bring an end to the city's epidemic of organized crime.

Two-Face is a genius in criminal planning and has an exceptional character, which allows him, among other things, to stoically endure pain and recover from smudging injuries in a short time.

Harvey Dent has kept himself in peak physical conditions, even before his transformation into Two-Face and had exercise equipment in his office when he was an assistant district attorney.

[52] Their friendship goes back to Harvey's first appearance in Detective Comics, in which Batman refers to him as his friend and emotionally asks him to give up his life of crime.

[50] This one-sided love would turn into an unhealthy obsession with her, which would lead to her professional and personal ruin;[59] in the five-part Gotham Central story arc Half a Life, Two-Face attempts to destroy Renee's life by framing her for murder, outing her as a lesbian, and orchestrating a prison escape to make her a fugitive, so she would have nothing to keep her from returning his love.

Kent, driven insane by society's repulsion and his wife's nonacceptance of his new appearance, destroys his wife's sculpture of him to resemble his disfigurement and scars one side of Maroni's two-headed coin to symbolize his appearance's duality of beauty and ugliness, then flips the coin to decide whether to become a criminal or wait for the only plastic surgeon able to fix Kent's face, who was caught in a concentration camp in Germany, to arrive.

With the coin landing on the unscarred side, Two-Face returns to the ship to rescue the old man, then sees Batman had escaped his restraints.

[78][79] Two-Face changes his face through plastic surgery as well as his identity to Carl Ternion in Batman's 328-329th issues, and reunites with Gilda Dent to make her happy after her former husband, Dave Stevens, died.

Two-Face allies with Batman villain Black Mask's former lover Circe who convinces him to steal a pharaoh's death mask concealed within a sarcophagus which she states to be imbued with magic that could restore his good side; this plan is revealed to be conceived by Batman, who is working with Circe to trick Two-Face into having his good side restored and have him rehabilitated.

[84][85][86][87] The Post-Crisis and followed up in The Long Halloween established this version of Two-Face is depicted as having had an unhappy childhood; his father was a mentally ill alcoholic who beat him regularly, often deciding whether or not to brutalize his son based on a flip of his lucky coin.

Eventually, Two-Face takes his revenge on Falcone, Fields and Maroni, but is captured by Batman, leading to his incarceration in Arkham Asylum.

This story reveals that, despite his apparent hatred for his father, Dent still supports him, paying for an expensive home rather than allowing him to live in a slum.

Dent proves Two-Face wrong, choosing to jump off a building and commit suicide just to put a stop to his alter ego's crime spree.

Dent takes the law into his own hands twice: once by using his ability to manipulate the legal system to free the Joker, and then again by shooting the serial killer Hush.

Although Batman later uncovers evidence that exonerates Dent for the murders, establishing that he was framed as revenge for his efforts against new crime boss Warren White, a.k.a.

Prompted by resentment and a paranoid reaction to Batman's questioning, Dent scars half his face with nitric acid and a scalpel, becoming Two-Face once again.

Harvey Dent is a successful defense attorney whose clientele includes twin sisters from the McKillen crime family, Shannon and Erin.

The Gordons survive the attempt on their lives, but Dent, bound by attorney-client confidentiality, is unable to dissuade the McKillens from continuing their lethal vendetta.

The violent attempt on the Gordons' lives prompts Bruce Wayne to initiate and fund Dent's campaign for district attorney.

Several years later, Erin McKillen returns to Gotham City to kill Two-Face, and thus reassert her control of her family's criminal operations.

In this incarnation, Sloan is an actor who had been hired by Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Killer Moth to take Two-Face's place in a scheme to kill Batman.

Driven insane and deprived of fear, Sloan becomes Charlatan where he becomes obsessed with both getting revenge on the criminals who hired him and completing his mission to kill Batman.

Furthermore, his makeup is worn on the opposite side of his face to Harvey Dent or Paul Sloane, which easily enabled Batman to identify him as an impostor.