The Grace of Gilda, Part 3: Alice Dent of the 1990 Newspaper Comics

[about_faces]

Note: This is the third part of my retrospective of Gilda, a  complete history of the oft-overlooked woman who loved and lost Harvey Dent. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here, and subsequent installments will be released weekly.

Comments

[ext_5799348]

It is interesting that they turned a fairly obscure and villain-specific character into a close member of Batman's supporting cast. Considering how very sociable Bruce Wayne is, you'd think he'd have more civilian friends - I mean, I know he plays a twit and hangs out with a lot of twits, but there are always diamonds in the rough in any crowd. You'd think that by now, he'd have acquired a few 'day friends' who he has lunch with and such, instead of just always palling around with Lucius Fox and (sometimes) Commissioner Gordon - I mean, the whole 'pals with Harvey' thing isn't even from the comics; it's kind of made its way in there, but it's still primarily Batman who has the connection with our Mr. Dent, scarred or unscarred. Kind of a missed opportunity, really.

[about_faces]

I can only imagine that Messner-Loebs remembered that Batman and Harvey were considered friends (even if just "work friends"), and wanted to work with that. However, he couldn't since Max Allan Collins had already established an adversarial relationship between Dent and Batman. If Loebs hadn't intended it as an update of a classic dynamic, then his decision to make them friends is especially inspired

[ext_5799348]

I think it depends on which era you're talking about. Back in the '90's, I think DC was actually doing pretty well in that regard - the Superman comics of the time featured a large supporting cast for him, and a fair amount of them were just work buddies of Clark Kent and/or people who had friendly connections with one or both of his identities. Also, I seem to recall Kyle Rayner being all right in that regard as well, though I could be wrong about that; it was just an impression

[akselavshalom]

I so wanna say something on this one, but you just about covered everything about it so well that I have no idea what to add, I can just sit here and nod, and that's the worst feedback! That's non-feedback! Although I do have something to say now that part four is out, so I'll reserve some thoughts until then.

What I can say is that the panel of Batman unmasked comforting a kneeling, sobbing Harvey haunts me, to this day.
Also, I never really noticed it when you first posted about the strip before, but that may actually in some ways be one of the more realistic depictions I've seen of facial acid scars if you can look past the color; even if it struck only half his face, his ENTIRE face twists as a consequence of it. He doesn't just look completely normal on one side and all bad on the other like someone's been photoshopping two different pictures together, it twists into the scarred side when you see him from the front, as such it looks like his facial expressions are directly affected by it.