10 Times Comic Book Movies Departed From The Canon And It Was Great

3. The Dark Knight - The Joker Creates Two-Face

One thing that is pretty much a guarantee with a Batman story is great villains. The Caped Crusader has a rogue's gallery like no other, meaning that the Marvel Cinematic Universe problem of lacklustre antagonists is never going to be a problem. In fact, the writers and directors of Batman movies often have more trouble making sure that the hero doesn't become a supporting player in his own movie (a problem that especially occurs the more villains a story adds). When Batman Begins' sequel The Dark Knight announced that, on top of Heath Ledger's controversial casting as The Joker, the movie would also feature District Attorney turned schizophrenic villain Harvey "Two-Face" Dent and gang boss Sal Maroni, fans were right to fear that this might be another villain overload. It also served to imply that we were going to get the standard Two-Face backstory in which the crusading DA finally gets Maroni on the witness stand and the gangster throws acid in his face, leaving him physically and emotionally scarred. Plot details from the movie revolving around Dent teaming up with Batman and Commissioner Gordon to take down Maroni and his cronies only strengthened that probability. But that was not the story that we saw. Instead, Harvey became Two-Face thanks to The Joker's plans and deceptions. While Batman Begins made the right choice to go with the comics and make the insignificant Joe Chill, rather than Tim Burton's choice of The Joker, the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents, and thus the "maker" of Batman. Here the reverse choice of using The Joker as backstory instead of the largely anonymous minor villain also makes perfect sense. With Bruce already established in his Batman persona and The Joker an agent of chaos who gleefully enjoys his multiple choice backstory, Dent is the character that really has the main story and character arc in the movie and that needs to be connected to both Batman and The Joker's story elements to make the movie work. In order for the basically noble, heroic Dent to turn so thoroughly and quickly against Batman, the movie needed to create a scenario in which The Joker was able to manipulate him into hating and blaming Batman. The Rachel Dawes death, Two-Face disfigurement set-up achieves just that.