WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Task Force Z #4, on sale now from DC Comics.
Two-Face is one of Batman’s greatest foes, having menaced the Dark Knight since his debut appearance over 80 years ago. Being one of Batman’s more sympathetic villains, the appeal of Two-Face lies in the heart of his tragic backstory and how he was once a force for good in the fight for justice in Gotham City, ultimately undone by a split-personality disorder triggered by his disfigurement that manifests in his villainous side taking over.
Task Force Z #4 (by Matthew Rosenberg, Eddy Barrows, Kieran McKeown, Eber Ferreira, Dexter Vines, Adriano Lucas, and Rob Leigh) sees a reformed Harvey Dent (the head of the Task Force) trying to persuade the team’s field leader, Jason Todd, that he is finally free from Two-Face’s grasp and is currently seeking a path towards redemption. This is in line with Harvey Dent as a character, as he is often in an inner struggle against his evil half, but previous attempts to rehabilitate him have often failed miserably.
Task Force Z #4 opened with Jason Todd confronting Dent after he found out Dent has been "Crispin" (a.k.a. the one running the shots at Task Force Z) all along, refusing to believe that he has fully rehabilitated from his life of crime. Their conversation got heated when Dent pointed out that he and Jason are alike in many ways, and that both men needed a second chance. Dent explained that he was desperate to make amends for his previous life and that acknowledges that he was “tainted”, but also reminds Jason that he was also once Gotham’s District Attorney and had been battling criminals years before his fall into villainy. After Jason left Dent's office, he went to meet Batman where the former Robin confirmed Batman’s suspicions that Dent was the leader of Task Force Z, but when Jason told Bruce he is going to continue working with the team, Bruce rebuffed him by quipping that he’s “too smart to seriously trust Harvey Dent.”
Bruce’s line is a significant denouncement of his troubled former ally for the fight for justice in Gotham City. While the two men once fought alongside each other to battle corruption and the mob in a city infested with crime, Two-Face would later become one of Batman’s greatest foes, an especially difficult battle given that Dent was someone he once greatly admired and respected. This line may seem a little out of character for Bruce, who has long held that Harvey can one day be redeemed, but his former ally has managed to be “reformed” multiple times, only to again succumb to his evil half.
Despite his past as a villain, Dent still possesses a thirst for justice and when he is rehabilitated, he often tried to rejoin the forces of good as either a hero or an antihero. A facial reconstruction during Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee saw Dent team up with Jim Gordon and Batman to take down the new villain and following that, 2007’s Face to Face (by James Robinson with art by Leonard Kirk, Andy Clarke, Don Kramer, Keith Champagne, Michael Bair, and Wayne Faucher), Dent was chosen by Batman to be Gotham’s protector whilst he and Robin (Tim Drake) were away traveling the world during the events of One Year Later. Batman: The Animated Series featured an episode of Two-Face also creating a third personality, known as “The Judge” who hunted down and terrorized Gotham’s criminals in lethal ways, showing how he still believes in the rule of law.
However, Harvey Dent’s psychology is naturally fractured, as can be seen in The Dark Knight Returns where both his facial disfigurement and psychological condition are meant to be fixed, but only result in the Two-Face personality becoming more dominant. Face to Face would also end with Dent scarring himself after he is falsely accused of murder, showing how fragile Dent’s sense of self really is. Despite his former belief that Dent can be cured Batman could be right in his thinking that perhaps Dent is too far gone for true redemption, especially considering the villainous persona returns once Dent finds himself under pressure. With events spiraling against him and Amanda Waller recently undermining his project, it seems like Two-Face may once again re-emerge when Dent crumbles under the stress, to which his evil half can easily take full advantage of.