10 Things Every DC Comics Fan Forgets About Two-Face
1. Two-Face Suffers From Real World Mental Disorders
While the concepts behind Two-Face are placed firmly in the pages of comic books, many of the issues that torture the mind of Harvey Dent are all too real. Dent grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father who would flip a coin to give the boy a chance to skip a beating. He never won. This caused Dent to grow up with severe paranoia and anger issues.
When Dent was scarred, he had a full psychotic break and developed dissociative identity disorder. The disease manifests when two or more distinct personalities exist in one person. The Disorder usually accompanies memory gaps between the times that the individual personalities are in control. The foundation of the Disorder in Dent can be traced directly back to his childhood abuse.
Two-Face is Dent’s alter or second distinct personality that seems to share at least partial, if not equal space, in Dent’s psyche. The split is so complete that Dent and Two-Face have occasionally been seen have arguments with himself. Only the coin seems to keep a balance between the brilliant and noble Dent and the evil and insane Two-Face.