Warning! Spoilers for Batman: The Long Halloween!
The epic twist from the finale of Batman: The Long Halloween is getting new life now that Two-Face is coming to the twisted world of Flashpoint Beyond. It won’t be Harvey Dent as the duality-themed villain, but fans of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s classic story may see a connection to the new version of the Batman rogue.
The dark world of Flashpoint introduced a different version of Harvey who became a respected judge instead of Two-Face and remained married to his wife, Gilda. Together the two had a pair of twins, but after a tragedy involving the Joker, their daughter took her own life, haunted by the experience. Things have only gotten worse for the family, with Harvey murdered in a car bombing and Gilda Dent being institutionalized at Arkham Asylum over her family’s many tragedies.
And thanks to the dark timeline of Flashpoint, it looks like things are only going to get worse for Mrs. Dent. DC’s solicitations for its upcoming August releases revealed a variant cover for Flashpoint Beyond #4. The cover by artist Xermánico shows Gilda Dent sitting in a prison cell with facial scars similar to that of the Prime Earth Two-Face. Bloody bandages lying to her right indicate that the wounds are still fresh. In her hands, she holds a scratched out poker chip instead of a coin, possibly because of her husband’s connections with casino businessman Thomas Wayne. The cover falls in line with the issue’s synopsis, which says that Harvey and Gilda’s son, Dexter, aims to break his mother out of Arkham Asylum.
It’s sad to see Gilda continue the downswing of tragedy that has befallen her family in the Flashpoint world. The idea of Two-Face coming about in such a radically different way is odd, but not completely out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s very similar to how Martha Wayne became the Joker of Flashpoint, with both gender-swapped villains having their origins rooted in the deaths of their families. But what’s very interesting about Gilda becoming Two-Face is that it builds on one of the most notable endings in Batman canon.
Gilda Dent in Batman: The Long Halloween was revealed at the end to be the Holiday killer (at least, one of them). While she took on the role to bring Harvey’s work prosecuting the mob to a close, it was a stunning ending that showed what someone like Gilda was really capable of. Though she’s only been portrayed as a victim of the Flashpoint timeline so far, an alternate version of her has proven that she has the steely resolve to take a life. Becoming a full-fledged villain in Flashpoint Beyond may unlock the potential only hinted at in Batman: the Long Halloween and have her become one of the deadliest variants of Two-Face.
