Batman: The Animated Series – Rogues Gallery, Part 1 / Characters

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Catwoman

Catwoman (Selina Kyle)

^{Click here to see her as a civilian}

^{Click here to see her human-cat-hybrid form}

^{Click here to see her redesign}

^{Click here to see her civilian redesign}

Voiced by: Adrienne Barbeau (English), Véronique Augereau (French)

Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series | The New Batman Adventures | Gotham Girls

"I am the cat who walks by herself."

She is an animal rights activist with a thing for cat burglaries on the side. Selina doesn't outright oppose Batman but the two don't see eye to eye due to her hobby. In times of mutual crisis, Catwoman has been known to assist Batman for the shared greater good.

Adaptation Dye-Job: Literal example according to the tie-in comics. In Batman: The Animated Series she's blonde instead of her usual black hair, imitating Batman Returns. This Catwoman’s hair color is back to being black by the time of The New Batman Adventures and the blonde color is stated to have been bleach all along in an issue of Gotham Adventures.
Affably Evil: When she actually is a villain. She seems to have a soft spot for both Batman and Batgirl.
All There in the Manual: Gotham Adventures #4 explains the Art Evolution of Catwoman and why Catwoman cut all ties to the Bat-Family between Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, and the Art Evolution: Batman saw her disfigure a Rich Bitch cosmetic entrepreneur for using Animal Testing. The catch is that Catwoman doesn't feel so bad about that until she realizes someone like the Batman would never forgive such an act.
Amazonian Beauty: Climbing the buildings of Gotham has given her quite the toned, broad-shouldered, and gorgeous physique, which her skintight Catwoman costume quite genrously highlights. She loses this muscle tone in her redesign, though.
Animal Lover: This adaptation of her makes her an animal rights activist.
Anti-Hero: After being released on parole, she becomes what is essentially a female Batman for a little while via helping out Batman or trying to stop various criminals on her own. Unfortunately, it doesn't stick and she goes back to being a Classy Cat-Burglar Anti-Villain.
Anti-Villain: She doesn't steal from anyone that she doesn't think deserves it, and despite trending towards personal vendettas does good deeds for the homeless (as seen in a tie-in comic) and endangered wildlife.
Art Evolution: When Batman: The Animated Series was retooled into The New Batman Adventures, Catwoman's design underwent some major changes through the fact that her outfit changed from dark gray with black gloves and boots to entirely black, the mask (its eyeholes replaced by white lenses) only revealed her mouth and the area around it, and she now wears blue-ish white makeup on the exposed area of her face.
- Selina Kyle's look changed as well through the fact that her hair changed from long and blonde to short and dark. This was explained in a tie-in comic, where she stopped dyeing her hair after finding out the company that made the dye she'd been using experimented on animals.
The Bad Guy Wins: Her final appearance in "Cult of the Cat" ends with her succeeding in pulling off the grand heist she always dreamed of before retiring in Paris with Batman deciding to let her go.
Bound and Gagged: She gets captured multiple times in the series and is frequently trussed up, luckily Batman manages to save her skin in the nick of time.
Boyish Short Hair: Gets it for her redesign's civilian identity.
Caltrops: She has them in the shape of cats, naturally. She uses them in "The Cat and the Claw" to stop Red Claw's men from pursuing her through a ventilation duct.
Cat Girl: Taken to extremes in "Tyger Tyger", where Dr. Dorian kidnaps Selina Kyle and mutates her into an actual catwoman.
Classy Cat-Burglar: Emphasis on "cat".
Clear My Name: In "Batgirl Returns".
Compressed Hair: She sports long, flowing blonde hair, all of which she somehow tucks underneath her mask. Averted with the redesign, where she is given Boyish Short Hair.
Damsel in Distress: She gets rescued by Batman more than three times in the series.
Dating Catwoman: She is the Trope Namer.
Deadpan Snarker: She has her moments.
Defiant Captive: Happens in "Batgirl Returns", although both she and Batgirl are tied up and held at gunpoint by Roland Daggett and his henchmen, she mouths off to them and is able to break her bonds and fight back.
Designated Girl Fight: In "The Cat and the Claw" two-parter, it is she, not Batman, who fights Red Claw hand to hand.
Designated Victim: Occasionally, like in "Almost Got 'Im" when Harley Quinn tries to mince her into cat food.
Enemy Mine: Teams up with Batman when she's in over her head.
Even Evil Has Standards: She will only steal from those she thinks deserves it. And at least in her initial appearances, her crimes had the aim of promoting animal welfare, not private gain.
Even the Girls Want Her: Veronica Vreeland describes her as Bruce's "Attractive date".
Forceful Kiss: She gives a few of these.
- In "Cat and Claw Part 1", after Batman catches her while falling off a roof she thanks him by kissing him while he is carrying her, but it takes him awhile to even notice it and gently pushes her off him once they safely land.
- In "Cult of the Cat", she grabs Batman and kisses him as "thanks" when he agrees to help her reform while she fakes repentance. Also counts as a "Shut Up" Kiss since she did it while he was talking to her.
- An example without Batman in "You Scratch My Back", when after she reveals to Nightwing how she was using him to find and reobtain the Cat's Eye Emerald she originally stole, she offers to split the money with him before suddenly leaping forward and forcing a kiss on him.
- She finds herself on the receiving end in the "Chase Me" short. After Batman has her cornered she notices he was hurt during their chase and leans in to kiss him, only for him to push her off him. She looks down in disappointment at being rejected, only for Batman to suddenly pull her into a deep kiss himself. Despite the surprise, Catwoman immediately returns the affection.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Often goes from Batman's enemy to his friend, then to his enemy again in record time.
If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Literally invoked by Batgirl when Catwoman is about to drop Roland Daggett into a vat of acid. Selina doesn't buy it, however.
Batgirl: No! If you let him fall, then you're no better than he is!
Selina: Oh, grow up. [Smiles sweetly and lets go of Daggett]
Kiss of Distraction: She suffers from this in the animated short "Chase Me" for Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman after she is cornered by Batman after a chase through Gotham. He suddenly sweeps her into a passionate kiss until the police arrive. Batman takes the money she robbed back and leaves and Catwoman thinks he is letting her off until she realizes she has been handcuffed to the fence, leaving her to be arrested.
Live Mink Coat: In her first appearance, she is carrying her cat, Isis, around her neck in order to help in one of her thefts.
Lovable Rogue: She steals with charm and wit and has clear principles about it.
Love at First Sight: When she first encounters Batman when he shows himself to her during one of her late night thefts, she just says "Magnificent" in complete awe of him. Everything that happens afterwards, with him proving he can keep up with her in his chase after her, holding his all against her in a fight, and saving the life of her cat Isis, only serve to enforce her feelings for him.
Loves My Alter Ego: She loves Batman, but only considers Bruce a friend. He knows both her identities and, according to the "perfect world" illusion created by the Mad Hatter, would marry her if Batman and Catwoman were out of the equation. Batman Beyond implies that they did eventually hook up later, but Bruces' obsession with his mission drove them apart anyway.
Motive Decay: In her first appearances, she robs to help her animal rights charities. In "Almost Got 'Em", she teams up with Batman to stop The Joker for seemingly no gain whatsoever other than, perhaps, just liking the idea of hanging out with Batman. In the final seasons, however, she becomes motivated by thrill-seeking, revenge, and greed and generally becomes more selfish. Incidentally, she also appears with Batman less and less, instead crossing swords with other heroes and villains, which might have something to do with it.
Ms. Fanservice: She's a very beautiful woman with a voluptuous yet toned figure who wears a very form-fitting costume and speaks in a flirtatious, sultry voice.
Mrs. Robinson: She's this towards Nightwing in "You Scratch My Back."
Noble Demon: While she becomes increasingly ruthless over time, she never loses her sense of morality entirely. As manipulative as she becomes towards the Batfamily, she staunchly refuses to kill any of them and does do her best to help them even while stringing them along for her own ends.
Non-Humans Lack Attributes: When she's turned into a literal Catwoman in "Tyger, Tyger", her fur conveniently gives her Barbie Doll Anatomy.
Out-Gambitted: In "You Scratch My Back", she should have known better that to try and play Nightwing, Batman's protege. He has after all been taught by the best.
Pay Evil unto Evil: She was willing to painfully kill Roland Daggett as revenge for his crimes against herself and her friends. Also didn't exactly try to help Red Claw when the latter was attacked by a lion. Both villains survived, though no thanks to Selina.
- The Red Claw case is mitigated by the fact that she spotted Batman nearby and knew he'd probably help her even if she didn't. However, earlier in the same episode she left one of the generic Red Claw terrorists Bound and Gagged alone with a wild lion. We never saw what happened to him...
- Also, she did "kill" Scarface, though this case is obviously a little different.
Pragmatic Villainy: This is how Batman knows that she's not posing as the mysterious Batwoman. Will Selina kill crooks? Yes, but she always has a reason. Would she kill recklessly? No.
Right-Hand Cat: Isis, her pet cat, though unlike most examples Isis is used more to humanize Selina and bring out her sympathetic side.
Sadist / Cats Are Mean: She toys with her victims before striking them. At "Catwalk" she destroyed Scarface only to torment the Ventriloquist before using her Wolverine Claws on him. Batman stopped her, but if you see All There in the Manual, you will see how cruel she can be.
Sexy Cat Person: Her Cat Folk form in "Tyger, Tyger" keeps her feminine figure and breasts while adding a layer of golden fur.
Snow Means Love: In "Cat Scratch Fever", Batman meets her in the snow, and she has to ask, "Are you getting soft on criminals, or just on me?"
Spy Catsuit: She wears a very form-fitting bodysuit that is complete with cat ears.
Took a Level in Jerkass: She gets steadily more manipulative and selfish as the series goes on. Her last few appearances involve trying to trick Batgirl and later Nightwing into unwittingly helping her rob other crooks of their already ill-gotten gains, she flat-out tries to kill some of the (admittedly unpleasant) criminals she runs into, and she goes after innocent civilian Veronica Vreeland out of petty jealously that someone else is trying to help animal rights. She also increasingly talks condescendingly about others behind their backs and her motives become more and more about thrill seeking and greed. ^note
Villain: Exit, Stage Left: At the end of "Batgirl Returns", as the police cart her off, Catwoman somehow forces them out of the squadcar and drives away herself. Robin tries to give chase, but Batgirl grabs him by the cape, reasoning that they'd encounter her again sometime.
- Her final appearance ("Cult of Cat") has the episode ending with her landing the big score she wanted during the whole series. And this time Batman doesn't go after her.
Villainous Valor: She takes pride in hardly ever getting scared - and, being a Combat Pragmatist, can physically get the best of men twice her size when she really wants to.
Violently Protective Girlfriend: She is this to Batman in "Almost Got 'Im" and saves him from the Joker.
Wall Crawl: Catwoman does it by digging in with the Wolverine Claws in her suit.
We Can Rule Together: To Batgirl in "Batgirl Returns". Batgirl's response is not exactly unexpected. There's hints of this in her famous dynamic with Batman.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Her burglary is half pleasure, half raising money to save endangered cats.
Wild Card: She could be on any end of the moral spectrum in any given episode.
Will They or Won't They?: With Batman. They don't. ^note
Wolverine Claws: Catwoman has sharp steel claws incorporated into her costume's gloves, which she sometimes uses for close-quarters fighting (At "Catwalk", she used them to torment the Ventriloquist) as well as for climbing.
Woman Scorned: After she is saved by Batman she plants a deep kiss on him. He responds by gently pushing her away and trying to unamsk her. When Catwoman tries to convince him there is something between them, Batman says she's right, and it's the law. She turns away sadly at this, and when Batman tries to comfort her she grabs him and throws him off the roof in anger. She leaves him dangling, but despite this outburst of anger she still remains in love with him.
Catwoman: Never trifle with the affections of a woman! Until next time.

Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)

See here for more into about her.

Joker

The Joker

See here for more info about him.

Penguin

The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot)

"Fellow miscreants, we've been had!"

^{Click here to see his redesign}

Voiced in English by: Paul Williams (Batman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, and Superman: The Animated Series), David Ogden Stiers (Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman)
Voiced in French by: Philippe Peythieu
Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series | Superman: The Animated Series | The New Batman Adventures | Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman

"Sorry about the intrusion, sir, but at least you were ransacked by a man of impeccable taste."

A short, chubby, well-dressed man, who fancies himself a classic Gentleman Thief, but his manners leave much to be desired. Has a penchant for using birds to aid in his crimes.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: In "Birds of a Feather" and "The Mechanic", he had a hideout in one.
Acrofatic: He's pretty quick for someone so round.
Accidental Misnaming: When he's Mayor of Gotham City in the 2003 Batman Adventures comic, he has a habit of addressing people by bird-related words that are close to the person's actual name (like calling a Mr. Talbot "Mr. Talon").
Added Alliterative Appeal: As part of his Wicked Cultured nature, he likes to make his words sound as poetic as possible, which means this trope. Examples include "What brings such a dainty dove to this dismal den?" and calling his fellow supervillains "mundane miscreants" with "middling machinations."
Affably Evil: He's nothing less than polite and amicable, doing his best to come across as a cultured gentleman. He'll think nothing of killing anyone in his way - including children - but he'll never be rude about it and he can be sincerely kind at times.
All of the Other Reindeer: Penguin finds himself to be both too sophisticated to fit in with his fellow criminals and too uncouth to be accepted by the upper class he idolizes.
Animal Lover: For as bad as Penguin is, he always treats his pet birds well even if he does train them to attack his enemies. Him doting on his latest attack bird is a common sight.
Antiquated Linguistics: To cultivate a gentlemanly image, he speaks with this sort of flowery language to sell how cultured he is.
Apologetic Attacker: While preparing to have Roxie Rocket killed, he apologizes to her, telling her that while he regrets it he can't have her recklessness exposing his operation.
Art Evolution: The Penguin received a drastic redesign when Batman: TAS was revamped into TNBA through the fact that his appearance was altered to be more human resembling his classic comic book appearance. He was also given normal human hands, rather than flippers.
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: His name fits well with his pudgy, short body, slippered hands, and sense of dress.
Bad Boss: He's prone to insulting his underlings, and he murders Arnold Rundle in "The Mechanic" after he outlived his usefulness. He also ordered Roxie Rocket killed so she wouldn't expose his operation, though he admittedly apologizes to her prior.
Badass Normal: Some of the other supervillains in the show have genuine superpowers, while others derive some of their skill from their insanity. Penguin, though, is perfectly sane and lacks any special talent, but he makes up for it with a genius intellect, knack for inventing things, and some impressive hand-to-hand combat abilities.
Being Good Sucks: He genuinely tries to reform in "Birds of a Feather", but after all it gets him is a life of loneliness and being humiliated by Veronica Vreeland and her friend Pierce, he returns back to his criminal ways.
Big Bad: In Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
The Beastmaster: Of sorts. Oswald has an affinity for birds and, as depicted in "Almost Got 'Im", he's managed to train a variety of fowl to be uncharacteristically aggressive.
Beware the Silly Ones: Though he is usually eclipsed by other villains like the Joker or Ra's Al Ghul in the threat stakes, Penguin is actually a surprisingly successful villain all things considered. For one, he has managed to destroy both the Batmobile and the Batwing, and he once (accidentally) left Bruce Wayne blind for days, meaning he has effectively crippled Batman. In later seasons, he further managed to avoid being sent back to jail by becoming a Villain with Good Publicity, via establishing a shady nightclub where he manages his criminal enterprises with enough finesse to not be caught... for a good while, anyway.
Bodyguard Babes: Jay, Lark, and Raven.
Character Development: He goes from a typical rogue with delusional aspirations of joining the upper class to a member of said upper class and the only member of the rogues gallery to make the transition to more traditional organized crime. He even manages to become a Villain with Good Publicity.
Characterization Marches On: He was originally a Wicked Pretentious, grotesque Large Ham with animalistic behavior. After his revamp in The New Batman Adventures, he became a more classy Villain with Good Publicity.
Chronic Villainy: Chose to abandon crime one day when he was released from Stonegate, deciding that he never wanted to return to jail again, but when he learned that the woman he began to fall in love with was only spending time with him to mock his uncultured ways he relapsed into villainy. However, unlike the other villains, he does manage to stay out of jail in The New Batman Adventures. He didn't really reform and uses his nightclub as a front for shady deals, but he does a much better job of ensuring his legal safety. Batman is well-aware that Penguin hasn't changed, but keeps him around because he is just as often a good source of information about other, more dangerous criminals.
Composite Character: His mannerisms and character for the most part were based on his comic version while his first design was a carbon copy of Danny Devito's portrayal in Batman Returns.
Cultured Badass: While somewhat Wicked Pretentious, Oswald genuinely appreciates the finer things in life and the high arts such as paintings and opera. He's also a very cunning opponent and surprisingly capable in a fight.
Deadpan Snarker: He is The Snark Knight when he deals with the lower classes (prison guards, bus drivers, Batman). When he at last deals with the upper classes, he becomes a Stepford Snarker.
Depending on the Writer: Whether he's genuinely Affably Evil or Faux Affably Evil tends to waffle depending on the episode.
Dirty Old Man: Has dipped his flippers into this from time to time.
- He addresses Poison Ivy as a "dainty dove" in "Almost Got 'Im."
- Becomes very smitten with Veronica Vreeland, before things sour.
- Openly flirted with Roxy Rocket, which she playfully rebuffed.
- That's not even getting into whatever might be going on with his three aides.
Disabled in the Adaptation: Much like the Batman Returns version, he's shown with fused fingers in Batman: TAS. While the transition to The New Batman Adventures would see him with normal hands, it's unknown if this was merely an artistic choice or if the Penguin got a corrective operation to fix his hands.
Doomy Dooms of Doom: Once tried calling a trap he'd set for Batman in a zoo as his "aviary of doom". The other villains he tells the story to are bemused, at best.
The Penguin: (narrating) Welcome, my ebon-winged adversary. You have taken the bait, just as I knew you would. Now, prepare to meet your end within my Aviary of Doom!
Poison Ivy: (interrupting the story) Aviary of what?...
The Joker: Sheesh, Pengers. How corny can you get?
The Penguin: Fah! Just because you mundane miscreants have no drama in your souls!... Anyway, there he was in my Av... * Sigh* ... My "big birdhouse"...
Entertainingly Wrong: While the rogues discuss their theories about Batman, Penguin comes within striking distance of the truth. He correctly deduces that Batman is motivated by some sort of crime-related trauma at a young age, and offhandedly guesses it involved a mugger... though he believes that the mugger shot half of his face off, hence the mask.
Et Tu, Brute?: A rather depressing example. In the episode "Birds of a Feather", he is released from prison and declares that he's reformed and will become a model member of high society. A group of snobbish aristocrats decide to bring him into their social circle so that they can laugh at his social ineptitude and appearance. He generally doesn't care how life had gotten him down through the rest of the episode, but when he overhears the woman whom he had fallen in love with talking about this plot, he loses it. The real slap in the face is that he had genuinely reformed until this happened.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- He's aghast when Batman accuses him of having kidnapped Two-Face during his surgery in "Second Chance". Penguin says that he'd never kidnap an enemy on their sickbed and if he were to go after them he'd go after them head-on.
- He's horrified when Joker reveals he plans to grind Catwoman into mulch in "Almost Got 'Im".
Evil Is Not a Toy: In "Birds of a Feather", Veronica Vreeland brings him into her social circle as a publicity stunt. He eventually finds out he's being used, and in his true flamboyantly villainous fashion, kidnaps and tries to kill her.
Falsely Reformed Villain: Actually worked better for him when he was faking it.
The Family for the Whole Family: In his first appearance, he and his henchmen are continuously foiled by the local children who have Batman in their basement. This is one of the reasons that the production team does not think very highly of this episode, since they were hoping the series would avoid kid heroes and bumbling villains.
Fat Bastard: It's always been a staple of the Penguin to be overweight and unpleasant.
Faux Affably Evil: He verges into this on occasion, particularly in "I've Got Batman in My Basement" and "The Mechanic" which have him at his most ruthless and murderous.
Feathered Fiend: Has a collection of deadly birds ranging from poison-billed hummingbirds to trained attack-cassowaries.
Friendly Enemy: "Birds of a Feather" has him walk up to the owner of a bank he robbed and advise him to improve his security since he had a rather easy time doing so.
Gadgeteer Genius: It's implied that he designs and builds all of his trick umbrellas himself. Their functions range from gas-shooters to machine guns to miniature helicopters able to support his weight enough to fly, so he's clearly a master of mechanical engineering.
Gentleman Snarker: Most of his snarking come with a veil of sophistication.
Gentleman Thief: He invokes this trope, without success due to being Wicked Pretentious and much more ruthless than the average example.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Always has a cigarette holder in his mouth.
The Grotesque: Similar to the Burton films, the Penguin is almost this trope played straight. He's nowhere near as evil as, say, The Joker, but then again he's not even all that ugly. It's implied that deep down he really wants to go straight, but he just likes stealing priceless artifacts too much — and he just can't keep from lashing out at people who make fun of him when he does try to reform.
Has a Type: Beautiful, young redheads.
Hates Their Parent: In the 29th issue of Gotham Adventures, Robin remarks to him that he'd give up his own mother. The Penguin replies "I wasn't going to jail for that witch".
Hidden Depths:
- As Veronica Vreeland discovered, if you can stand his Sad Clown jokes, his Jabba Table Manners and his Small Name, Big Ego attitude, Oswald can be quite The Charmer in a Large Ham way.
- He tends to be one of the more insightful rogues, not that it's a high bar. Whereas most of the other rogues stay stagnant and never change their methods, Penguin is much more reflective. "Birds of a Feather" has him realize Being Evil Sucks and decide to reform, and by The New Batman Adventures he realizes that being a Villain with Good Publicity is more profitable. He also comes the closest out of the rogues to figure out Batman's identity and motivation in "Almost Got 'Im".
High-Class Glass: Kept from the comics (despite being absent from the movie).
Honor Among Thieves: Best shown in "Second Chance". He'll kill his fellow crooks if they anger him, but he'll always do it face-to-face rather than relying on sneak attacks.
Humble Goal: "Birds of a Feather" reveals that deep down, for all his posturing, what Oswald really wants is a genuine friendship and connection with someone.
I Just Want to Have Friends: As mentioned above, and most blatantly seen in Birds of a Feather, In that episode he was hoping that any of Gotham's supervillains would welcome his release from prison, and the entire episode revolves around a budding friendship and entry into Gotham's elite. Even outside of that, prior to The New Adventures, Penguin at the very least respected other villains even if he was feuding with them, even going so far as to serve as mediator between Two-Face and the Joker in The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne.
I Reject Your Reality: A rather tragic case. Penguin deludes himself about his place in the world constantly, convincing himself he's much more well-liked and sophisticated than he actually is. He's even convinced himself he's a member of Gotham's upper-class despite the fact they view him as a curiosity at best. He does seem aware of the reality of the situation, but still clings to his delusions.
Impoverished Patrician: Implied. He claims to to have been a member of the upper class at some point in "Birds of a Feather", although it's possible it's another example of Oswald deluding himself.
Improbable Weapon User: Umbrellas. Some of them even have live rounds.
Inferiority Superiority Complex: Oswald has a massive inferiority complex, but he covers it up by playing the part of a Gentleman Thief and with his Wicked Cultured affectations.
Information Broker: By The New Adventures, Penguin's running the Iceberg Lounge, a fancy nightclub, as a semi-legitimate enterprise. Batman begrudgingly allows him to continue operating because of this trope: Cobblepot has access to a vast network of underworld contacts and connections, so he's quite knowledgeable about upcoing schemes and is willing to share that information with the Caped Crusader for the right price.
Jabba Table Manners: As seen in "Birds of a Feather", he eats very messily and uses hands rather than utensils.
Just Got Out of Jail: He did try to live a honest life and among Gotham's elites (which he thought possible thanks to Veronica Vreeland). While she cleared a misunderstanding when Batman wrongly thought the Penguin was one of the muggers robbing her, it was eventually revealed to him she just wanted someone to be made a fool of at a party. He was so revolted he returned to a life of crime.
Karma Houdini: Most of his appearances in The New Batman Adventures have him getting away with his crimes and successfully keeping the image of being a law-abiding socialite. He is severely injured in "Judgement Day", but even then he's able to recover and has his underworld dealings stay secret from the public.
Kick the Dog: He takes a lot of joy in threatening Earl's daughter in "The Mechanic", and in the same episode murders Arnold Rundle the second he outlives his usefulness.
Large Ham: He's very dramatic soul prone to Antiquated Linguistics and grandiose proclamations. It's implied to be an affectation to make himself look more cultured and sophisticated than he really is. It's lampshaded in "Almost Got 'Im", where his fellow villains tease him for naming a Death Trap his "aviary of doom".
Penguin: Just because you mundane miscreants have no drama in your souls...!
Man of Wealth and Taste: Always wears a formal tuxedo, stylistically similar to actual penguins (who look like they're wearing one).
Mugging the Monster: In "Birds of a Feather", a reformed Penguin is out on a lunch date with socialite Veronica Vreeland when a group of muggers (completely unaware of who he is) decide to rob them. Cobblepot may be a short, middle-aged fat guy, but he also frequently crosses parasols with Batman. Even without any trick umbrellas at his disposal, he easily schools them and likely would have driven them off completely without Batman's intervention.
Mysterious Past: Thanks to never having a proper introductory episode like most of the other rogues, Penguin's origin is never elaborated on. There are hints he could have his Batman Returns origin, but nothing concrete is ever stated.
Noble Demon: Depending on the Writer, he'll be one. He's a ruthless criminal, but he values bravery and Honor Among Thieves very highly and he makes it a point to only go after his adversaries face-to-face. Some episodes have him as much more openly malevolent, such as "The Mechanic" and "I've Got Batman in My Basement".
Not-So-Harmless Villain: He's often depicted as a rather comical figure, and his introductory episode "I've Got Batman in My Basement" portrays him as a bumbling joke. Later episodes make it clear he's actually very dangerous; he comes very close to killing Batman several times and he murders a man onscreen in "The Mechanic".
Only Sane Man: This is carried over from the comics. He's one of the few Batman villains who goes to jail rather than Arkham. He also sometimes grows annoyed with the other rogues' "eccentricities" when forced to work with them.
Origins Episode: Averted and given the series, the aversion is notable. Almost every other recurring villain gets a backstory in the show and in most cases this leads to their first clash with Batman. Penguin however is one of the very few villains- along with the Joker- who has already clashed with Batman by the time of his first appearance, and the only recurring nemesis ^note who isn't given a background of what he was like before he became a supervillain.
Orphaned Punchline: He has one in "Birds of a Feather": "—and I said, 'But, warden—those aren't my pants!"
Paid Harem: Jay, Raven, and Lark. Considering his previous attempt at dating with Veronica Vreeland backfired, he may prefer it this way.
Parasol of Pain: His parasols can have anything from toxic gas to actual bullets.
- Parasol Parachute: One of its uses.
The Rat: The only reason why Batman lets him operate his nightclub.
Redemption Failure: This happens to him in "Birds of a Feather". He tries to reform, but after finding out Veronica Vreeland was manipulating him and using him as a joke he snaps and returns to form.
Reformed, but Rejected: This also happens to him in "Birds of a Feather". He genuinely wants to reform and become a good person, but no one - not even Batman - genuinely believes he's changed.
Remember the New Guy?: Much like the Joker, the Penguin is also the only other super villain that Batman faced prior to the series with "I've Got Batman in My Basement", much like "Christmas with the Joker" for the Joker, presented as just Bruce's latest fight with Oswald.
Sad Clown: His delusions of being a Gentleman Thief and his Small Name, Big Ego are his way to cope with his crushing loneliness. He is insecure at heart and keeps on running his mouth to fool himself into thinking he's confident or to get people to like him and tends to make jokes at inappropriate times to cope.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: To make himself sound more sophisticated then he actually is. Comes back to bite him in a tie-in comic, where he doesn't know what a word means and makes something up to avoid looking stupid.
Signature Headgear: His ever present top hat.
Sinister Schnoz: His nose has the appearance of a penguin beak.
The Snark Knight: He deals with aggression primarily through sarcasm.
Small Name, Big Ego: Despite overwhelming evidence on the contrary, the Penguin really believes he is well liked by the rich Gotham elite ("Birds of a Feather") and fancies himself as a ladies' man (he hits on Roxie Rocket on "The Ultimate Thrill"). Those things didn't end well for him.
Smug Snake: He's a pretty arrogant bastard.
Society Is to Blame: In "Birds of a Feather", he looks to go straight once he's gotten out of prison, but when resident Rich Bitch Veronica Vreeland and her snobby friends decide to make him the butt of an exceptionally cruel joke, he reverts to his criminal ways to exact revenge. In the end, he muses, "I guess it's true; society is to blame. High society." At least Vreeland had the decency to feel bad about her role in it by the end though.
Stout Strength: Downplayed. Penguin is short and pudgy, and thus relies on weaponry rather than fisticuffs, but he's still strong enough to break a license plate in two with his bare hands.
Terrible Trio: He was part of one with Jay and Raven before leading two sets: one of males then one of females.
- He also formed one with Two-Face and Joker when Hugo Strange invited them all to his auction for Batman's identity.
Then Let Me Be Evil: He could put up with Batman not believing he really reformed, but Veronica Vreeland shouldn't have used him for a pig at a pig party.
Tragic Hero: In "Birds of a Feather", at least. He wants to reform and join Gotham's elite, but he's viewed with scorn and derision and eventually returns to form when Veronica betrays him.
Villain Ball Magnet: He is this in "Birds of a Feather".
Villainous Crush: We've seen him openly crush on Veronica Vreeland and Roxy Rocket. He was ready to genuinely reform in the former case, though.
Villainous Valor: In "Birds of a Feather" at least, he is a courageous fighter, beating back a gang of bullies who are trying to mug him using only his umbrella. In "Second Chance", when Batman is accusing him of having Two-Face kidnapped, the Penguin declares that he were ever going to mess with another villain, he'd do it the honorable way: face to face.
Villainous Breakdown: Played for Laughs in "The Mechanic". After being sent to Stonegate Prison once again and making license plates as prison labor, he picks up a plate that reads "1BAT4U". Penguin promptly loses it and breaks it in two.
Who's Laughing Now?: To Veronica Vreeland and her Upper-Class Twit friend Pierce in "Birds of a Feather".
Wicked Cultured: As always, he most certainly qualifies for this trope more than most of Batman's rogues, which irks him to no end.
"Bah! Just because you mundane miscreants have no drama in your souls!"
Wicked Pretentious: Penguin appears charming and sophisticated compared to the rest of Gotham's criminal element but to the city's actual social elite, he's anything but. Veronica Vreeland is unable to spend time with him without cringing at his bad manners, with her friend, Pierce Chapman, laughing at him from afar. At a party Vreeland invited Oswald to as part of a prank, Penguin repeatedly makes jokes at the other guests' expense, thinking he's witty and clever whereas everyone else is appalled by his lack of tact. Once Cobblepot finds out he's been played for a fool, thanks to eavesdropping on Pierce once again mocking his manners, fashion sense and appearance, he instantly attacks them and kidnaps Veronica out of sheer rage and humiliation, and goes back to being a kingpin. In the New Adventures of Batman, Coppblepot grows out of this, becoming a genuinely refined socialite.
Pierce Chapman: He's beautiful! Can you imagine tomorrow's papers? There's not enough ink to print all this faux pas!
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Arnold Rundle helps him locate where the Batmobile is repaired, Penguin thanks him by writing him a $400,000 check - and then sending him on a boat ride to a whirlpool that drowns him.
You Have Failed Me: He orders Roxie Rocket killed because her recklessness and active attempts to get Batman to go after her are threatening to expose his operation.

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley)

See here for more into about her.

Ra's al Ghul

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e2073369012a4b5484b4df456b955acf.png

Voiced by: David Warner

Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series | Superman: The Animated Series | Batman Beyond

"Well done, detective. You are worthy of your reputation."

A centuries-old man who is the head of a vast network of henchmen and wealth. His schemes, some way or another, seek to save the environment from mankind or further his life so he can continue his efforts with the former. The Joker may be Batman's Arch-Enemy, but due to his power, agenda, and clever mind, Batman considers Ra's a dangerous foe.

Adaptational Jerkass: He maintains some small, sympathetic qualities, including eventually coming back for his son Duvall and has his respect for Batman as a Worthy Opponent. However, his more sympathetic comic backstory where he was seriously wronged by a Sultan and his evil son is not adapted and he ends his tenure in the DCAU crossing a line that Bruce considered unforgivable. Compared to his comic book counterpart who in modern times showed more introspection and self-reflection to eventually turn himself in to atone for his crimes, Ra's al Ghul in the DCAU comes off as being a villain whose good manners towards Batman are more of a veneer and a smokescreen than anything else.^note
Affably Evil: Ra's may be a genocidal Knight Templar, but he's always polite, refined, and respectful even to his enemies. As his past encounter with Jonah Hex showed, his good manners aren't only reserved for Batman.
Animal Wrongs Group: He intends to return Earth to a more stable ecosystem so nature can persevere, but his plans often involve lots of destruction and massive human casualties.
Art Evolution: Averted. After the revamp of Batman: TAS into The New Batman Adventures, Ra's did not receive any drastic change in his appearance or a color alteration. However, his only appearance during this time in the DCAU was in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Demon Reborn".
Badass Cape: He has an imposing, regal-looking cape.
Badass in a Nice Suit: He's almost always impeccably well-dressed and he's no slouch in a fight despite his physical weaknesses.
Beard of Evil: He sports a beard and while he does have his fair share of redeeming qualities, Ra's is still ruthless and genocidal.
Benevolent Boss: Makes clear to Arkady Duvall that as important as it is to complete their armored airship, success shouldn't come at the expense of good treatment of their workforce.
Body Surf: Batman Beyond reveals that after the Pit was no longer able to heal him, he took Talia's body for his own.
Boring, but Practical: He admits to Batman he figured out his identity not because Talia unmasked him, but because he had figured out Batman would need to be a literal billionaire to afford his many gadgets and checked to see which one fit the right build to be the vigilante.
Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. Batman never looked up to Ra's, seeing him as pretentious and haughty even before he found about his genocidal plans, but he did come to respect him as a Worthy Opponent and allowed him to reunite with his long-lost son. He's absolutely shattered and angry at the man Ra's becomes by the time of Batman Beyond.
Bruce Wayne: Whatever was in there died years ago.
Came Back Wrong: The Lazarus Pit revives the dying, but at the cost of temporarily being driven violently insane. The Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Demon Reborn" also demonstrates that each usage has diminishing returns.
The Chessmaster: His first meeting and apparent teamup with Batman was just an elaborate way of testing him.
Cultured Badass: He's always classy no matter the circumstances.
Disturbing Statistic: He doesn't even blink as he drops one of these on Batman:
Batman: But that will cost countless lives!
Ra's al Ghul: Actually, Detective, we have counted: Two billion, fifty-six million, nine hundred and eighty-six thousand!
Eco-Terrorist: He's an even greater one than Poison Ivy. Whereas her plots are never larger than offing a few billionaires or affecting a regional area, his plans involve the mass genocide of almost half the human race to save the Earth from pollution.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- He's disgusted by the cruelty that his son Arkady Duvall shows towards underlings.
- According to Talia, Ra's expelled Count Vertigo from the Society of Shadows after realizing how cruel and corrupt he was.
Evil Brit: Even though English is almost certainly not his first language, he has a British accent. Presumably justified, since he most likely learned his upper-class-coded Queen's English well before American accents were prominent in the world.
Evil Old Folks: He's centuries old and quite ruthless, with most of his plans involving massive amounts of casualties for the sake of his environmentalist goals.
Eviler than Thou: Batman describes him as being more dangerous than Lex Luthor and the Joker put together to Superman.
Face Death with Dignity: At the end of "The Demon's Head, Pt 2", Ra's recognizes he's been beaten and lets himself plummet into the Lazarus Pit with the intention of dying. He manages to survive, but he still fully intended on dying.
Ra's: Perhaps it is time I become one with the planet I so love!
Friendly Enemy:
- One-sided. He genuinely likes Bruce and wants him as his heir. Batman disagrees, and as a result, Ra's will use deadly force on him if necessary.
- The respect seems to be somewhat mutual as evidenced in "Showdown". It turns out the old man Ra's "kidnapped" is his son. Batman allows them to leave without a fight.
Gaia's Vengeance: He believes himself to be its harbinger, with his plans revolving around either killing off enough of mankind to prevent further ecological destruction or extending his life further so he can continue to make said plans.
Graceful Loser: At the climax of "The Demon's Head, Pt. 2", Ra's accepts that his plans have been ruined, congratulates Batman on his victory, and chooses to let himself fall into the Lazarus Pit to his apparent death all the while grinning - thought he does survive.
Grand Theft Me: It is eventually revealed in Batman Beyond that Ra's took over his daughter's body after his finally decayed beyond all use.
Heir Club for Men: He's very interested in making Batman his successor, but he never once considers letting Talia take the role with the implication being it's because she is a woman. He does have standards, having dismissed Arkady for the role due to his needless brutality.
High-Class Glass: He wore one in 1883, although he's abandoned it by the present day.
Immortals Fear Death: Ra's fears dying before his plans are completed, though Batman accuses him of using it as an excuse to cover for his fear of death in Batman Beyond.
Immortality: He can live forever with the aid of the Lazarus pits...
Immortality Immorality:...But each time he goes in it drives him just a little bit crazier and more extreme.
Immortality Seeker: Ra's is terrified of death, and many of his plans revolt around continuing his immortality as the Pits prove increasingly ineffective. By Batman Beyond, his fear of death has pushed him to become much more monstrous and evil.
Kick the Dog: In Batman Beyond, he sacrificed his own daughter by taking over her body. He justified it by claiming that he was still needed until his work was completed, but Batman charged that he was simply afraid of death and willing to cling to life at any price.
Knight Templar: He seeks to save the world by killing most of the human population.
Meaningful Name: His name is arabic for "The Demon's Head."
Misanthrope Supreme: He has nothing but contempt for most of mankind, with the exception of his allies and Batman.
Mysterious Watcher: His first appearance at the end of "Off Balance" has him analyzing Batman's actions from in his lair while communicating with Talia from a telecom.
Noble Demon: Ra's is a genocidal Knight Templar, but he's a deeply honorable man who believes in respecting his adversaries and treating his underlings with respect and decency.
Offing the Offspring: By the time of Beyond, he's placed his mind in Talia's body, destroying her old personality.
Ominous Opera Cape: He sports a high-collar Badass Cape, fitting with his ancient and sophisticated nature.
Really 700 Years Old: Ra's looks like a middle-aged man, but he's really centuries old from his use of the Lazarus Pit and he's an accomplished fencer to boot.
Shirtless Scene: Ra's always takes off his shirt before bathing in the pits, and he chooses to engage Batman in a sword fight at the climax of "The Demon's Head" two-parter completely shirtless.
Showing Off the New Body: In Talia's body he changed her outfit and clearly flaunts her body around Terry and Bruce.
Sinister Scimitar: He wields one against Batman during their Sword Fight at the climax of "The Demon's Head, Pt. 2".
Sinister Surveillance: In his first appearance, he is introduced as a Diabolical Mastermind supervising his operations on a gargantuan screen at his mountain base.
The Sociopath: Terry calls him one in Batman Beyond, and in that story, he acts like one. Grandiosity aside, in previous appearances he was more of a Noble Demon, though with a touch of Knight Templar.
Storyboarding the Apocalypse: When he lays out his plan to destroy humanity, it is accompanied by a series of detailed stills showing the world being saturated by the Lazarus Pits, in chaos, and finally at "a blessed peace."
Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: Downplayed, since he was always a villain, but he is much worse in the Batman Beyond sequel series than in his original appearances.
Sword Fight: In the middle of a desert.
Unexplained Accent: Ra's has an Arabic name, but speaks with a RP British accent all the same.
Unexplained Recovery: It's stated that a Lazarus Pit will kill any healthy person it comes into contact with, but despite being at full strength when he falls into it at the climax of "The Demon's Head, Pt. 2" Ra's still survives.
Utopia Justifies the Means: And fully aware of it, too. He himself projects 2,056,986,000 casualties as a result of his plan in "The Demon's Quest"—and considers it worth it, if it will bring world peace and an ecologically sustainable future.
Villain Respect: He has a deep respect for Batman, always referring to him as "detective" and viewing him as a Worthy Opponent.
Villainous Valor: Despite being insufferably pompous, self-righteous, megalomaniacal, and a genocidal lunatic, he is a brave man, exposing himself to danger even though most of the time he is a frail old man; he refuses to see himself as a victim, and won't tolerate anyone else thinking that, either. When rejuvenated by a chemical pool called the Lazarus Pit, he becomes strong and athletic and is willing to fight anyone. When he challenges Batman to a sword fight in "The Demon's Quest (Part II)" he demands: "Are you man enough to face your better?" — and is immensely pleased that Batman is just that.
We Can Rule Together: He offers Batman a position as The Dragon, several times.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: He views his actions as a necessary evil to help repair the damage to the planet that mankind has caused.
Worthy Opponent: He views Batman as this, as with most versions.

Talia al Ghul

^{Click here to see her redesign}

Voiced by: Helen Slater (Batman: The Animated Series), Olivia Hussey (Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond)

Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series | Superman: The Animated Series | Batman Beyond

"You must understand, beloved. I share my father's vision and seek the same ends but I do not choose his means to those ends."

Talia al Ghul is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul. She doesn't always see eye to eye with him.

Affably Evil: She's a polite, genuinely warm woman who sincerely cares about Bruce, but is unfortunately loyal to her genocidal megalomaniac of a father despite her misgivings.
Anti-Villain: Talia sincerely cares about Bruce and has misgivings about Ra's' methods, but unfortunately her loyalty to her father almost always wins out,
Art Evolution: Downplayed. When Batman: TAS was revamped into The New Batman Adventures, Talia did not receive a drastic redesign in her physical appearance, simply being reanimated to match the new style and her purple catsuit was changed to black. (although her only appearance during this time in the DCAU was in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Demon Reborn".)
Characterization Marches On: In her first appearance from "Off Balance", her relationship with Batman is not that dissimilar to the one he shared with Catwoman, being very civil and impressed with him despite being willing to betray him. In her second appearance onward, she never refers to him as Batman, only "Beloved", and she's much sweeter to him and only ever turns on him if it involves her father.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She truly cares about both Ra's and Bruce, which leads to her ping-ponging between them due to her Conflicting Loyalty.
Cleavage Window: She has one in the outfit she wore in "The Demon's Quest".
Conflicting Loyalty: She's torn between her desire to stay loyal to her father or be with her lover Batman.
Daddy's Girl: Despite everything, she's ultimately dedicated to her father Ra's in spite of his shoddy treatment of her. She even gives her life so that he can survive by stealing her body.
Daddy's Little Villain: She's the loyal right-hand woman of her genocidal Knight Templar of a father.
Dark Action Girl: She's the loyal right-hand woman of her father and an extremely competent fighter, although she's still one of the more sympathetic rogues.
Dating Catwoman: She ends up being one of Batman's primary love interests.
Death of Personality: Courtesy of her father's Grand Theft Me, Talia's mind is long dead by her appearance in Batman Beyond.
Decoy Damsel: In "Demon Reborn" she disguises herself as Lois Lane and puts herself in danger, knowing that Superman will find out and come to save her so she can lure him into a trap and capture hm. She also has a bit of fun messing with Superman once she reveals herself to him as he is carrying her in his arms.
Superman: I've got you Lois.
Talia: (moving her hair out of her face) The name's Talia.
Superman: (recognizing her from the train robbery) You!
Talia: (as she cuddles up to Superman seductively) Sorry for the theatrics, but I needed to get your attention.
Dropped a Bridge on Her: She got hit pretty bad between Superman: TAS and Batman Beyond. She lost her body to her father and what's left got destroyed, ensuring she's not coming back like her father.
Enemy Mine: She teamed twice with Batman, only to choose her father over him at the end.
Enigmatic Minion: You can never tell if she's on Batman's side or her father's.
Even Evil Has Standards: When she discovers that her father's scheme will result in over two billion casualties, she's just as shocked as Batman.
Evil All Along: Her first appearance presents her as a straightforward ally of Batman trying to stop Vertigo, only for her to reveal herself as one of the true leaders of the Society of Shadows and hoping to steal the sonic cannon he'd stolen for her own ends.
Femme Fatale: Batman knows getting involved with her is a bad idea every time it happens, but he can't help himself.
Foe Romance Subtext: Although she serves as one of Batman's primary love interests, she also flirted with Superman a bit during their brief encounters. She blows him a goodbye kiss before making her escape in their first encounter while telling him they will meet again, and later dresses up as Lois Lane, his love interest, and puts herself in danger so he will save her. After Superman catches her in a Bridal Carry and is flying her to safety, she reveals her true identify to him and cuddles with him as he carries her, leaning her head against his briefly, and gently whispering her apologies to him for the theatrics and that she needed his attention while giving him a seductive look.
Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Ra's al Ghul is in Ax-Crazy mode after using the Lazarus Pit to revive himself, she slaps him to snap him back to his senses.
Grand Theft Me: Her body is eventually taken over by her father by the time of Batman Beyond, erasing her mind and effectively killing her.
Inconsistent Coloring: Her eyes were blue in "Off Balance", but were changed to green for her remaining BTAS appearances. In Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, she has black eyes.
Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Her father is Ra's al Ghul, after all.
Ms. Fanservice: Like with Batman's other femme fatales, she's a very well-endowed woman with shapely hips, large breasts, and wears a Spy Catsuit with a Cleavage Window. This is especially obvious in "The Demon's Quest", where she dressed like a Bedlah Babe.
Noble Demon: Much like Ra's, Talia is well-intentioned in her goals, is repulsed by some of her father's more unethical methods, and is undyingly loyal to those she cares about. Unfortunately, she proves time and again to be more loyal to Ra's than she is Bruce.
One True Love: Possibly to Bruce. When Terry suggests she was the woman Bruce truly loved, Bruce simply pushes him away, but makes no attempt to actively deny the claim^note.
Spy Catsuit: As with most versions, Talia tends to wear a form-fitting catsuit.
Sultry Bangs: Talia's long brown hair covers her eye. She's a Femme Fatale Daddy's Little Villain who seduces and then betrays Bruce.
"Take That!" Kiss: During her first encounter with Superman she gives him a Sadistic Choice to either stop her and let the train they are on crash or stop the train and let her escape, with him choosing the latter. As she makes her escape, she flies her vehicle right next to Superman as he is struggling to hold back the train and taunts him "Till we meet again!" before blowing him a goodbye kiss before escaping.

Two-Face

Two-Face (Harvey Dent)

"THE LAW?! Here's the only law! The law of averages! The great equalizer!"

^{Click here to see his redesign}

^{Click here to see him his third personality WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS}

Voiced by: Richard Moll

Appearances: Batman: The Animated Series | The New Batman Adventures | Justice League | Justice League vs. The Fatal Five

"Chance is everything. Whether you're born or not, whether you live or die, whether you're good or bad. It's all arbitrary."

The district attorney of Gotham City with a dark side he's repressed for years. Once a powerful ally of Batman's war on crime, an explosion at a chemical plant caused by Rupert Thorne destroyed the left side of his face with hideous scarring as well as pulled his dark side (called "Big Bad Harv") into the forefront of his mind. He always makes decisions based on chance, flipping a two-headed coin (where one side is scratched up) before acting.

Above Good and Evil: Two-Face views everything in life as being based purely on chance, and bases his morality off of such by making his decisions with his coin. He views conventional morality and everything else in life as simply arbitrary.
Two-Face: This is my world now, Grace. A dichotomy of order and chaos, just like me.
Grace: Harvey, what's happened to your mind? Your feelings? You used to listen to your feelings.
Two-Face: [flips his coin] This is what I listen to now: chance, Grace. Chance is everything. Whether you're born or not. Whether you live or die. Whether you're good or bad. It's all arbitrary.
Abusive Parents: The 2nd issue of Batman: Gotham Adventures has him try to get back at his abusive father Lester when the latter is about to win a fortune on a game show. Harvey bitterly recalls how his dad had a habit of gambling away the family's money and took his anger out on Harvey and Mrs. Dent whenever he lost.
Adaptational Backstory Change: Harvey doesn't get scarred with acid here; instead, he loses half his face in a chemical plant explosion.
Adaptational Sympathy: The series goes the extra mile to showcase the tragedy that made Harvey into Two-Face, hammering the struggles he faced with his Split Personality being made manifest, while also placing emphasis on his relationship with Grace and his friendship with Bruce in the two episodes that saw him transformed into his villainous alter-ego.
All Crimes Are Equal: The Judge views all crimes as deserving of death, whether it be armed robbery to corruption to even interfering in his attempted vigilante executions.
All There in the Manual: Gotham Adventures explains his fatalistic outlook to a greater degree than the series. Harvey's abusive father taught him that luck was the only thing that mattered, and to prove this would flip a coin to decide whether or not to beat Harvey, which had a profound impact on his outlook on the world.
Alliterative Name: Not his actual name, but the media gives him the nickname "Handsome Harvey". He also gains another one after Big Bad Harv publicly assaults one of Thorne's goons, "Hothead Harvey", much to his consternation.
Angry Eyebrows: During his origin story, they present Harvey Dent getting pushed to the brink by Thorne... and then entering a Tranquil Fury as his Split Personality, Big Bad Harv, comes out to play.
Ambiguously Brown: This version of Two-Face looks to be a lighter-skinned black man, with fuller lips while not as dark-skinned as other characters like Lucius Fox. Apparently, he was supposed to be Italian-American (specifically, Sicilian, which explains the darker skin) and appears to be based on actor Humphrey Bogart. This may also be due to two factors- the initial treatment of the show was following closely on the Tim Burton films, where Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent. Al Pacino was also the initial casting choice for Harvey Dent in the series before being replaced by Richard Moll.
Amoral Attorney: Averted. Harvey was an incredibly honest and forthright district attorney; it was only after he had been drummed out of the position - in addition to several other traumas - that he became evil. It's played straight in "Trial", where he serves as the prosecutor for Batman's trial.
And I'm the Queen of Sheba: He's incredulous when Hugo Strange rightly accuses Batman of being Bruce Wayne and defends him from the accusation.
Two-Face: That's absurd! I know Bruce Wayne! If he's Batman, I'm the king of England!
Anti-Villain: He's one of the more sympathetic of the rogues gallery. He suffers from severe mental illness and Harvey Dent is still somewhere inside him, and even Two-Face is capable of doing the right thing if only because of his coin.
Arc Hero: After being a supporting character in prior episodes, the "Two-Face" two-parter has him as the main protagonist and centers on his transformation into Two-Face.
Arch-Enemy:
- Harvey is kidnapped by his in "Second Chance," shortly before he was due to undergo an operation to restore his face and, hopefully, his sanity. The culprit? Two-Face, enraged at Harvey's attempt to destroy him.
- Rupert Thorne also counts as one. Even before Harvey became Two-Face, the two had a rather personal rivalry. Harvey despised Thorne for his corruption and being responsible for most of Gotham's organized crime, and Thore ruining his life and turning him into Two-Face gave Dent an even bigger vendetta against him.
- He also has just as much a claim to being this to Batman as the Joker. Where the Joker's obsession with Batman is mostly one-sided, he takes Two-Face's fall from grace the most personally out of all his enemies and tries repeatedly to help him. Meanwhile, Two-Face despises Batman for wanting to give Harvey control of the body again.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: After he finishes his story in "Almost Got 'Im", he's more annoyed by the police letting Batman keep the giant coin he tried to kill him with than the fact Batman escaped.
Art Evolution: His left hand is undamaged in his first post-acid appearance and scarred in all subsequent appearances, but otherwise subverted, as Two-Face was one of the few characters to go relatively unchanged when Batman: The Animated Series was revamped as The New Batman Adventures. His new look was crisper and more in-line with the rest of the DC Animated Universe (having been given more squared-off shoulders and sharper lines on his suit), but other than that, he remained virtually the same.
Ax-Crazy: He becomes this when enraged or when in danger of losing his coin thanks to his Hair-Trigger Temper. And even with the coin he falls into this, as he can go from doing something heroic to committing murder without batting an eye.
Bad Boss: He treats his henchmen rather poorly, frequently insulting them and even hitting them when they anger him. He's also rather non-plussed when two of his henchmen are killed by his misfiring Death Trap in "Almost Got 'Im".
Badass Normal: He is one of the few supercriminals in Gotham who doesn't have any powers or even use sophisticated weaponry. He's even able to injure Batman with a particularly nasty punch.
The Bad Guy Wins: Two-Face succeeds in masterminding Thorne's downfall in "Shadow of the Bat", which was one of his main motivations from even before his Face–Heel Turn.
Bandaged Face: Right after his accident, his face was entirely covered in bandages.
Beauty to Beast: Prior to his accident, he was quite handsome and attractive to the point the media nicknamed him "Handsome Harvey". The explosion horrifically burned half his body, leaving half his face disfigured and covered in lumps.
Became Their Own Antithesis: Harvey Dent was a noble man who crusaded against Gotham's gangs to make the city a safer place. As Two-Face, he's become one of the same gangsters he fought against in the first place. It's strikingly demonstrated in "Shadow of the Bat, Pt. 2", where he snarlingly calls Gil Mason "pretty boy" - the same insult Frankie had hurled at him all the way back in "Two-Face, Pt. 1".
Beneath the Mask: Harvey's first appearances depict him as a charming and friendly Reasonable Authority Figure, but his origin story reveals he struggles with dissociative identity disorder and deep-rooted self-loathing. It all boils over when he's disfigured, leading to Big Bad Harv - a personality entirely composed of Harvey's anger and self-hatred - taking over.
Berserk Button:
- Two-Face hates being called Harvey, with the usual response being That Man Is Dead. He even throttles Mason for calling him that.
- Being laughed at or mocked sets him off as well. Throughout "Two-Face, Pt. 1", Big Bad Harv is brought to the surface when Harvey is laughed at, and even afterwards he takes very poorly to jokes being made at his expense.
- He hates being betrayed, or as he puts it, two-timed. The only time he ever gets angry at Grace (albeit mildly) is when he thinks she's sold him out to Rupert Thorne, and even his henchmen know that double-crossing him is a terrible idea.
BFS: He wields a massive one - or rather, his third Split Personality The Judge does.
Big "NEVER!": When he's hanging for his life off the edge of a skyscraper with the only thing standing between him and death is his own refusal to let go of his coin to grab Batman's other hand, Harvey's personality surfaces enough to let it go and reach for safety...and then Two-Face comes roaring back to the surface shouting "Never!" and punches Batman, almost tumbling to his doom were it not for Batman recovering and him and Robin swooping down after him.
Black-and-White Insanity: Implied. Some of Two-Face's comments imply he views good and bad as innate and determined by chance. It's why he relies on the coin, since in his mind half of him is good and half is bad, then why shouldn't what kind of decision he makes be based on random chance?
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Two-Face still has Harvey's passion for the law, but it's become twisted into revolving entirely around random chance. He believes that everything is determined by simple luck, and bases his decisions around his coin because he's genuinely convinced even a person's morality is determined by chance. He'll also actively ignore his best interest if the coin dictates otherwise; when offered a 100K bribe, Two-Face turns it down on the grounds the coin already told him to kill the briber.
Body Horror: Half his body has been horrifically burned by the explosion. Among other things, his skin has turned pale blue, his body and face is covered in misshapen lumps, and his lips and some of his eyelid have been burned off. It's noted that he could have it fixed with plastic surgery, but Two-Face fears the operation would destroy him and leave Harvey the sole personality.
Broken Ace: Before he becomes Two-Face. A handsome, successful district attorney engaged to a beautiful fiancé. But he also suffers from dissociative identity disorder which he tries desperately to keep under wraps.
Chekhov's Gunman: Harvey Dent appears twice as a heroic character before becoming Two Face, and in his first appearance he is even shown flipping a coin.
The Chessmaster: Two-Face is surprisingly good at running long, complicated plans and obscuring that he's the one behind it. The only clue to it being him is the fact that it's always a two-part plan due to his obsession with the number two. He's even able to throw off Batman for a while in "Second Chance" and "Shadow of the Bat, Pt. 2".
Chronic Villainy: Makes several attempts at reforming. Sadly, it takes more than just plastic surgery to cure his problems, especially when his evil personality sees such reformation as effectively dying.
Color Motifs: Black and white, to symbolize how he's split between (and obsessed by the divide of) good and evil. he's also associated with red, the color littering most of his lairs and being used as Mood Lighting whenever Two-Face takes over, symbolizing Big Bad Harv's nature as the embodiment of Harvey's rage.
Combat Pragmatist: Two-Face isn't above taking cheap shots or using Improvised Weapons to win a fight. He'll generally take full advantage of his surroundings to beat his opponent and he's notably been able to severely injure Batman on two separate occasions because of it, even nearly killing him the second time.
Companion Cube: Two-Face genuinely views his coin as sentient to a degree and believes it gives him actual advice. During his Villainous Breakdown in "Second Chance", he outright states he doesn't know what to do without the coin "telling" him.
Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: He's not particularly enthused when Batman infiltrates his lair to save him from the Judge, not least because it involves arresting him before the murderous vigilante can get to him. He is admittedly thankful when Batman rescues him when the Judge does attack, but still knocks him out to escape.
Batman: Easy, Harvey. It's the good cop. I figured I'd better get to you before the Judge did.
Two-Face: Don't do me any favors.
Consulting Mister Puppet: Downplayed and Played for Drama. It isn't as obvious as it is with the Ventriloquist and Scarface, but Two-Face seems to view his coin as being somehow able to give him advice. He repeatedly proves unable to function without it telling him what to do, and he values it just as much - if not over - his own life.
Crazy Jealous Guy: In the comic spin-off issue "Two Timer", the Joker plants the idea that his ex-fiance Grace might be cheating on him with Bruce, with the Joker even having Harley take a picture of Bruce and Grace hanging out together and release it to the press. This sends Two-Face over the edge and he breaks out of Arkham, takes Grace and Dick Grayson hostage, and tries to kill Bruce out of spite. This act causes Grace to finally see that Harvey is Beyond Redemption.
Crazy-Prepared: He reveals in "Shadow of the Bat" he rigged his subway with explosives just in case, which he uses in an attempt to kill Batman.
Create Your Own Hero: Two-Face's actions wind up leading to the creation of Batgirl and the second Robin. In the former's case, his attempt to frame Gordon caused Barbara to don the costume, and in the latter's Two-Face's pursuit of Tim's father and attempt to murder Tim led to him becoming Robin.
Create Your Own Villain: Thorne's attempt to blackmail Harvey with his mental illness leads to him becoming Two-Face and subsequently waging an extra-legal war on Thorne's organization. Cyanide even lampshades it.
Frankie: I thought we got rid of this guy.
Candice: Are you kidding? We created him.
Crusading Lawyer: During his time as D.A., Harvey fought against the crime and corruption in Gotham and particularly Rupert Thorne in order to make the city a better place.
Dark Is Evil: Two-Face dresses in primarily black and white clothing, with the black representing his evil side.
Death of Personality: Harvey Dent is totally submerged by the Two-Face personality after his disfigurement. Although Two-Face adopts some of Harvey's traits and Harvey does emerge every once in a while, Two-Face is almost always calling the shots and Harvey is only able to appear for brief periods of time.
Diabolical Mastermind: He's one of the most strategic members of the rogues gallery and has a penchant for running long, elaborate plans that hide his involvement. He's able to successfully fool Batman twice, and in the"Shadow of the Bat" two-parter he nearly takes over both the GCPD and Gotham's underworld through a lengthy gambit.
Dice Roll Death: This is part of his M.O. Two-Face lets his coin determine everything, including whether or not to murder people, so surviving an encounter with him often depends on simple luck.
Disease Bleach: After being disfigured in an explosion, the hair on the right side of his head - the half of his body that was disfigured - turned white.
Distressed Dude: "Pretty Poison" and "Two-Face, Pt. 1" revolve around Batman trying to save Harvey from Poison Ivy and Rupert Thorne respectively. The first time he succeeds, the second time... not so much.
Do Not Adjust Your Set: He doesn't actually make a broadcast, but he references this in a quip while robbing one of Thorne's gambling dens after shooting several TV sets.
"Don't bother adjusting the picture. For the next five minutes, I'm in control!"
Do Not Call Me "Paul": After his transformation, Harvey Dent is very clear that he is now Two-Face, even to his fiancé.
Don't Look At Me: He tries to hide his disfigurement when Grace comes to see him and gets mad when she removes the cloth covering half his face.
Dub Name Change: In the Venezuelan dub, he is called between Doble-Cara and Dos Caras (The first being a literal translation, the second his official name in most spanish translations) depending of the episode.
Enemy Mine: While both Two-Face and Harvey are generally at odds, both of them equally hate Poison Ivy for nearly killing them in "Pretty Poison". The tie-in comics also has both personalities be in complete agreement about going after his abusive father.
Enemy Within: Big Bad Harv started as this before being given control over the body, only appearing when Harvey was sufficiently angered. The Judge also serves as one to Two-Face, taking over his body to attack other criminals and even trying to kill Two-Face himself at one point.
Entertainingly Wrong: When the rogues discuss their theories on Batman, Two-Face claims that Batman is actually a Collective Identity of police officers who pose as one man to keep Batman Shrouded in Myth. Penguin accuses him of letting his Number Obsession run away with him rather than it being anything plausible.
Et Tu, Brute?: He feels betrayed when Grace accidentally leads Thorne to him, and the fact that she had thought she was leading the police to him doesn't help. He still loses it when Thorne threatens to kill her and nearly guns him down on the spot before Batman stops him.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- He's horrified in "Almost Got 'Im" when Joker reveals he intends to grind Catwoman into mulch to get back at Batman.
- He's unimpressed when he sees Penguin openly cheat Killer Croc out of his fair pay in "Judgement Day" and not even bother to hide it from Croc.
Two-Face: And I thought I was two-faced.
- He will always follow what the coin says, even if he doesn't personally like the outcome. It means he can help Batman as often as he'll battle him, though due to Rule of Drama it generally comes up on the bad side.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Despite Two-Face once shouting that "Harvey's friends are no friends of mine!" he does care about his/their fiancé Grace.
- It's less clear with Bruce since they don't get many scenes together after Harvey's transformation (and Big Bad Harv did threaten to bodily harm Bruce during one of his rages before then), but noticeably in "Second Chance" he muses in his more lucid moments fondly about their past friendship and during their actual encounter at the end he seems genuinely touched on some level Bruce still hasn't given up on him.
- In the second issue of Gotham Adventures, Two-Face notes that the reason he wants revenge on his abusive father isn't because of his constant torment of his family, but because he broke Harvey's mother's heart by abandoning them.
Evil Former Friend: To Bruce Wayne socially, and, as District Attorney, to Batman as well. He's also one to Gordon, as the two seemed to be in good terms prior to Harvey's scarring. However, Two-Face shows no hesitation about going after Batman or Gordon, though he genuinely likes Bruce.
Evil Sounds Deep: His evil personality is accented with a very gravelly, deep voice. Noticeably, the moments where Harvey takes control are usually marked by the roughness going away and his voice lightening.
Evil Sounds Raspy: The Big Bad Harv personality speaks with a harsh, raspy voice in contrast to Harvey's smooth baritone. This becomes his normal voice after he becomes Two=Face, due to Harv now being the dominant personality.
Excellent Judge of Character: When Batman in his Matches Malone disguise approaches Two-Face for a job, he's almost instinctively able to tell there's something off about "Malone".
Two-Face: Matches Malone, huh? Never heard of ya. But there's something about you I don't like. Nothin' I can put my finger on, but I trust my hunches. Kinda like second sight, you know?
Eye Scream: The explosion that disfigured him burned away most of the skin covering his right eye, and "Second Chance" shows that it can't close properly anymore (although this is Depending on the Artist).
Face–Heel Turn: While not an ally of Batman, Harvey is a good man who crusades against crime and is Bruce's best friend. After his scarring, however, he becomes one of Gotham's worst criminals himself and one of Batman's greatest enemies.
Face-Revealing Turn: When Grace visits him in the hospital after his accident.
Facial Horror: He lost half his face to an explosion, and it's left gruesomely disfigured in the aftermath. It could be fixed easily with plastic surgery, but Two-Face balks at the possibility since he views reformation as meaning that he will be destroyed in favor of Harvey.
Fair-Play Villain: He believes his coin-toss is the fairest form of justice there is, and he'll flip to decide everything. However, it's generally a toss-up as to how "fair" he'll be any given day and he'll occasionally look for loopholes in his own logic for an excuse to carry out his schemes.
Fallen Hero: He used to be a morally upright and hard hitting District Attorney until his scarring occurred. Now he's one of Gotham's most notorious gangsters.
Fashionable Asymmetry: He wears a suit split down the middle between black and white. His original lair also sported a room with the same coloration; he views both as representing the "dichotomy of order and chaos" within him.
Fatal Flaw:
- His reliance on the coin. Even setting aside the way it causes him to go into a breakdown, his reliance on it also leads to his downfall. He obviously wanted to reunite with Grace during his six month crime spree, but wouldn't because the coin said no. If he had just done that reunion before Candace had the idea of giving Grace the tracking device, who knows how things would have ended? It's certainly less likely that Grace would have unwittingly led Thorne to Two-Face, at least.
- Harvey's refusal to deal with his mental illness and his fear of its exposure plays a large part in causing him to become Two-Face. While he understandably feels that the public learning would ruin his career, the fact he dealt with it all his life by repressing his Split Personality and his refusal to be interred at a psych ward only results in his dissociative identity disorder getting worse. And when Thorne blackmails him about it, he chooses to meet with him rather than inform anyone due to his sense of shame over it.
The Fatalist: He believes that the only real governing force in the world is random chance, and he relies entirely on his coin because he genuinely believes it's the only fair thing in the world.
Faux Affably Evil: Whenever he bothers with niceties, Two-Face acts rather calm and even-handed all the while still threatening people with murder.
The Fettered: A twisted example. Two-Face is devoted to his bizarre moral code based off of chance, even when breaking from it could save his life. He's perfectly willing to commit murder just as much as he is saving Batman's life simply because he's that convinced of letting his coin govern his decisions.
Fighting from the Inside: There are brief moments where Harvey is able to take control of the body, most notably in "Second Chance", but Two-Face always reasserts control.
Foregone Conclusion: It's clear to anyone familiar with the comics that Harvey being Bruce's best friend and an ally of Batman won't last, and that eventually he'll become the villainous Two-Face. And indeed, that's just what happens.
Fourth-Date Marriage: Harvey popped the question to Poison Ivy within a week of dating her. Bruce warns him about doing it so soon, and sure enough it was all just a ruse for Ivy to poison him.
Freudian Excuse: Harvey has repressed his anger all his life due to having believed he had hospitalized a childhood bully after punching him, as well as having been abused by his father. His Suppressed Rage eventually formed a Split Personality, Big Bad Harv, who unfortunately wound up taking over permanently when Harvey was disfigured.
Freudian Trio: In "Judgement Day", Two-Face gains a third personality, making him a one-man Freudian Trio. Harvey Dent is the good-natured Ego, "Big Bad Harv" is the villainous and short-tempered id, and the Judge is the well-intentioned but ruthless superego.
Friendly Enemy: Played With. Two-Face hates Batman, but he genuinely views Bruce as a friend and appreciates that he's never given up on him, even if he views reformation as essentially being death.
Genius Bruiser: He was a highly skilled attorney prior to becoming a super-villain, and he's able to fight Batman on an even field.
Genre Savvy: He's as prone to Bond Villain Stupidity just as much as the other rogues, but Two-Face knows how Batman will inevitably escape whatever Death Trap he's put in and always tries to take precautions. He'll almost always take away Batman's utility belt, and in "Trial" he admits he told the other rogues they should just shoot Batman on the spot instead of putting him in a Kangaroo Court he'll certainly escape from.
Good Old Fisticuffs: Unlike most of Batman's rogues gallery, Two-Face doesn't rely on elaborate traps or superpowers to keep his opponents at bay, but on his fists. He's not particularly well-trained, he's just strong enough to viciously beat his enemies to a pulp.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: While Big Bad Harv was already gaining strength, Harvey only turned to crime after having half his face horrifically disfigured. The camera also tends to focus on Harvey's unscarred half to indicate that he's the one speaking, and his deformed side to indicate that Harv is talking instead.
Grayscale of Evil: His suit was designed to be half-white, half-black.
Gross-Up Close-Up: A rare, non-comedic fashion^note considering its use in Batman: TAS when he is unmasked after his surgery
Guns Akimbo: He needs two of everything, including guns.
Gut Feeling: When Batman - in his "Matches Malone" disguise - attempts to join Two-Face's gang as a mole, Two-Face is instinctively able to tell he's untrustworthy by gut feeling alone.
Hair-Trigger Temper: This is what he had before actually becoming Two-Face. His anger is a separate personality that can take even the slightest trigger to incite (such as getting mud kicked onto his jacket by a thug, which almost saw the DA candidate punch someone on live television).
He Who Fights Monsters: His efforts to take down Rupert Thorne lead to him becoming Two-Face, a gangster essentially no different from Thorne who eventually becomes one of Gotham's most powerful mobsters.
Heads, Tails, Edge: "Second Chance" has Batman switch Two-Face's coin with one that always lands on edge. The main result is not so much an inability to make a decision as the fact that the coin rolls away, and he freaks right out and has to chase after it.
Heel–Face Door-Slam: In "Second Chance," Harvey has undergone a great deal of therapy and is preparing to get surgery to begin repairing his damaged face when mysterious masked gangsters burst into the operating room and kidnap him. Batman ultimately confronts the culprit, calling him Harvey's worst enemy, someone who hates him and would do anything to destroy him.
Two-Face: stepping out of the shadows And why not?! He was trying to destroy me!
Hello, Attorney!: Harvey was very handsome prior to his accident, with Frankie even derisively calling him "pretty boy" and the media nicknaming him "Handsome Harvey".
Helpless Good Side: Harvey after being disfigured was almost totally subsumed by the Big Bad Harv personality, who now has near-total control of the body. Harvey does occasionally resurface, but by and large Harv is the one calling the shots.
Hidden Depths: While Two-Face hates his Harvey personality, it's implied he looks back fondly on Harvey's personal life fondly. He still loves Grace and he looks at his friendship with Bruce fondly; while he doesn't want to reform, he still appreciates that Bruce hasn't given up on him.
His Own Worst Enemy: As lampshaded in "Second Chance", where he agrees when Batman calls Two-Face Harvey Dent's worst enemy. If he can't make a decision without his coin, he's practically helpless.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Two-Face's suppression of Harvey ultimately leads to the creation of a third personality, the Judge, a Knight Templar who eventually traps Two-Face inside a mental trial and leaving him only able to murmur the word "guilty".
Hyde Plays Jekyll: The twist of "Second Chance" reveals Two-Face had been masquerading as Harvey at the start of the episode, so he could break out of custody and prevent himself from being destroyed.
I Control My Minions Through...: Material Benefits and Fear. The "Two-Face" two-parter establishes he seeks out ex-convicts with the offer of a big score, and his henchmen are terrified of betraying him because treachery is a major Berserk Button for him.
Idiosyncrazy: Always commits crimes relating to the number two, like stealing two million dollars in two-dollar coins in "Almost Got 'Im". He also bases most decisions on the outcome of a flip of his coin even though it's extremely impractical, and he completely loses it whenever someone manages to steal it from him. In a clever case of Foreshadowing, he also appears in two episodes prior to his transformation, and said transformation occurs in a two-part episode.
Ignored Epiphany:
- During "Two-Face, Pt. 2", Batman and Grace are able to nearly get through to Two-Face and get him to stand down, but both times they're interrupted and the progress they made is undone.
- In "Second Chance", Two-Face is left hanging over a ledge and needs Batman to pull him up, but refuses to grab his hand because he risks dropping the coin. Despite Batman revealing the coin was a fake and Two-Face dropping it and even reaching his hand up to Batman's, he's unable to bring himself to make a decision without the coin and punches Batman.
Insane Equals Violent: Harvey is gentle and kind, but his Split Personality Two-Face is violent and flies off the handle at the slightest provocation. The Judge, their third personality, is also rather violent and ruthless, albeit more well-meaning than Two-Face.
Jekyll & Hyde: Harvey Dent and Two-Face. In "Judgement Day", the third personality, called "The Judge", is established.
Jerkass: Very much so. He's blunt, short-tempered, gruff, and easily set off into violence. While even the Joker at least puts on an act of amiability, Two-Face can barely be bothered to do that - and the mask slips easily when he does.
Jerkass Ball: While Two-Face generally isn't a nice guy, "Sins of the Father" has him at his absolute worst. He threatens to murder Tim Drake numerous times, and attempts to kill all of Gotham by releasing a Deadly Gas after giving them only two minutes to pay his ransom. Even in his only other appearance in The New Batman Adventures he never reaches this level of cruelty again.
Judge, Jury, and Executioner: He becomes one of these under the guise of the Judge. He tries to execute several super-villains, including himself, as a result of a third personality developing because of Harvey's former sense of justice, despising that he had become Two-Face. It ends with Two-Face sitting in a cell, and his third voice demanding what he pleads. "Guilty. Guilty. Guilty".
Kick the Dog: He interrogates and beats a captive Tim Drake - who at this point was still an ordinary if crafty kid - in "Sins of the Father", and orders him killed when his coin lands on its bad side.
Kick the Morality Pet: In the comic spin-off "Two Timer", after Joker plants the idea that Bruce and Grace might be having an affair, Two-Face takes the latter hostage while trying to kill the former. This act causes Grace to realize that Harvey might be well Beyond Redemption.
Knight Templar: The Judge personality wants to help clean up crime in Gotham much like Batman, but he's perfectly willing to kill to get the job done.
Large and in Charge: Harvey is a pretty big guy (as tall as Bruce and just as built) before his Split Personality starts to take over... which comes in handy when Big Bad Harv (and later Two-Face) wants to get his hands dirty. He's strong enough to heave obese mob boss Rupert Thorne over his head and fling him across the room!
Lip Losses: Half his lips were burned off in the explosion that scarred him.
Light Is Good/Light Is Not Good: Zig-Zagged between the two. He dresses in primarily black and white clothing and he's a vicious gangster, but the white is supposed to represent Two-Face's good half.
Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: Prior to his accident, Harvey saw Bruce Wayne as his best friend but was somewhat ambivalent towards Batman until he saved his life in "Pretty Poison". Two-Face on the other hand hates Batman and wants him dead, but does seem touched by Bruce refusing to give up on him.
Locked into Strangeness: The hair on the "bad" half of his face is snow-white as a result of his accident.
Madness Mantra: At the end of "Judgment Day", after the Judge takes over and subjects Two-Face to a mental trial, he's left only able to say his plea: guilty.
Two-Face: Guilty...guilty...guilty...
Man of Wealth and Taste: He wears a symbolically split two-tone suit.
Made of Iron: He survives being crushed by a giant metal coin in "Shadow of the Bat, Pt 2." without a scratch, and similarly is unharmed by being dropped off a large metal statue at the climax of "Judgement Day".
Many Spirits Inside of One: During the final episode of The New Batman Adventures, he developed a third persona: the Judge, a ruthless vigilante who was punishing criminals. Both the Harvey Dent and Two-Face personas were unaware of the Judge's existence. It also seems the Judge didn't know he shared a body with them, since he was ruining Two-Face's plans and tried to kill him.
The Mentally Disturbed: Unlike many of Batman's rogues, Two-Face is severely mentally ill, on top of having split personalities, he's so dependent on a coin to make decisions for him it takes over any other priority, he nearly dies chasing the coin as it goes to the edge of a building.
Moral Myopia: Big Bad Harv views Harvey taking over as essentially death for him, but has no qualms about doing the same to Harvey due to viewing him as weak.
Morality Chain: His fiancee, Grace, tries to be this, but Harvey eventually strays too far down the path of darkness.
Morality Pet: Two-Face is generally cold, short-tempered, and ruthless, but he shows a lot of uncharacteristic kindness and tenderness towards Grace and Bruce. For all his hatred of Harvey, he still views them in high regard for never giving up on him.
My Greatest Failure: Harvey's downfall is this for Batman, who still has hope that he can save his old friend.
Mysterious Past: Aside from the childhood bully affair which was the starting point of Harvey's split personality, the show never divulges anything else about his pre-series life. Gotham Adventures reveals he had an abusive father who would flip a coin before beating him, which explains his fatalistic outlook after his accident.
Nice Guy: Harvey himself is a genuinely nice guy; polite, friendly, and soft-spoken. It's deconstructed to a degree, as part of it is caused by the fact he's spent his entire life repressing his anger until it boiled into a Split Personality.
No-Nonsense Nemesis: Downplayed. Two-Face is just as prone to Bond Villain Stupidity as his fellow rogues, but he tends to be more pragmatic and take more precautions. He's notably one of the few to be able to injure Batman without using any sort of enhancements just by being smart enough to attack while he's distracted, he's quick to take Batman's utility belt away, and in "Trial" he admits he would've shot him on the spot if he hadn't lost the coin toss.
Noble Demon: On his good days, Two-Face, while a ruthless criminal, still has scruples and a code of honor. It all generally depends on what the coin tells him to do, so it's generally a toss-up how noble he'll be sat any particular moment.
Not So Above It All: While Harvey's good side is exactly that, "Almost Got 'Im" reveals that both sides of him fantasize about revenge on Ivy for almost killing him in "Pretty Poison".
Numerological Motif: He has a predilection for all things binary. (Translation: He likes things in twos.)
Number Obsession: He's obsessed with the number two and duality itself, with all of his crimes involving it one way or the other.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the spin-off Gotham Adventures comic, one storyline saw Two-Face going after his abusive father when the man was about to win 2.2 million dollars on a television game show; when one of his gang asked if he wanted to flip his coin before the heist, Two-Face stated that he wasn't because every part of him wanted to do this. Even when Batman stops Two-Face killing his father, Two-Face's plan accounted for the possibility of the coin-toss going the other way by setting it up so that his father's winnings would be destroyed, ensuring that his father would either be dead or lose the money.
Pet the Dog: In Justice League vs. The Fatal Five, he befriends Thomas Kallor aka. Star Boy during Kallor's stint in Arkham. Two-Face acts as something of a mentor/protector to Thomas.
Pop-Cultured Badass: He's able to take on Batman in a hand-to-hand fight and be evenly matched with him. He also makes a reference to The Outer Limits during a robbery by quoting the series's opening narration.
Two-Face: Don't bother to adjust the picture! For the next five minutes, I'm in control!
Power Born of Madness: He seems to have this. In the episodes when he snaps and transitions to "Big Bad Harv," he is strong enough to lift Rupert Thorne (an obese crime boss) clean off the ground and hurl him into three other thugs. He does something similar in the next episode as Two-Face with yet another thug. Considering this interpretation of Two-Face seems mostly based on being consumed by rage, maybe it is more "Power Born of Being Really Mad."
Protagonist Journey to Villain: He's the main protagonist of the "Two-Face" two-parter, which chronicles how he goes from a well-respected lawman and local hero into a vengeful, ruthless gangster.
Pungeon Master: Downplayed, especially in comparison to some of his campier incarnations. Still, Two-Face frequently makes puns based around the number two and often reminds his allies never to "two-time" him.
Rage Breaking Point: Throughout "Two-Face, Pt. 1", Harvey struggles with keeping Big Bad Harv repressed and has brief periods where Harv will take over. It's when Thorne tries to blackmail him and smugly mocks him alongside his men that Harvey snaps and lets Harv take over.
Harvey: There's just one problem.
Thorne: Oh, yeah? What's that?
Harvey: You're talking to the wrong Harvey.
Rage Against the Reflection: Upon awakening after getting caught in an explosion, Harvey Dent demands a mirror. When he sees the grotesque scarring of half his face, he screams with horror and anger, and his transformation into the villain Two-Face becomes complete (except for the occasional Hope Spot that keeps Batman tormented that his old friend might be saved).
"Ray of Hope" Ending: Even though the Judge takes over his body, making him try to kill Two-Face, there is hope that the Judge will lead Harvey back to sanity. After all, a villain is less likely to escape from Arkham if he thinks he belongs there. Justice League Vs The Fatal Five even shows him having mellowed out, though still prone to bouts of anger.
Reasonable Authority Figure: As D.A., Harvey was dedicated to serving the law and fought against corruption.
Red Is Violent: Big Bad Harv's takeovers throughout "Two-Face, Pt. 1" are accompanied by the background turning red, symbolizing his nature as the embodiment of Harvey's repressed anger and violent tendencies.
Redemption Rejection: Two-Face generally spits on any offers to stand down and get help, as he knows that doing so would result in him being either suppressed or destroyed in favor of Harvey being brought to the surface.
Reluctant Psycho: Harvey genuinely wants to overcome his mental illness and reform - unfortunately, Two-Face views this as essentially death for himself and thus pulls out all the stops to make sure Harvey won't do so.
Revenge Before Reason: It's noted he could have had his face repaired soon after his disfigurement and he could easily have found work elsewhere, but Two-Face instead pursues revenge against Throne despite clearly yearning for his old life. "Second Chance" reveals he's terrified this would lead to Harvey taking over, which he views as essentially death for himself.
Role-Ending Misdemeanour: invoked Albeit mainly due to the stigma towards mental illness than a personal failure. After his Dissociative Identity Disorder is publicized by Thorne and he's disfigured, Harvey's career as District Attorney is ruined and he's forced to drop out of the election. This ultimately results in him fully embracing his new life as Two-Face, with Big Bad Harv mostly calling the shots.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Against Thorne. His main goal in "Two-Face, Pt. 2" is to punish Thorne for ruining his life, and even after that he still takes any opportunity to screw him over. He even masterminds his downfall in "Shadow of the Bat".
Rules Lawyer: Uses this to his advantage in the Gotham Adventures spin-off comic series when he goes after his abusive father; when the man was about to win 2.2 million dollars, Two-Face destroys the money before he can officially claim it, thus ensuring that insurance won't cover the money as it wasn't technically his father's when it was destroyed and the few remaining thousand dollars of it left have to be bagged as evidence.
Running Both Sides: His plan in the "Shadow of the Bat" two-parter is to take over Gotham's mobs by arranging the arrests of their leaders and consolidating the remaining gangs, and then replace Commissioner Gordon with a loyal stooge so he'd have control of the police as well.
Sadistic Choice: His idea of "fairness" sometimes verges into this. In "Almost Got 'Im", he claims he's given Batman a fair chance after tying him to a giant coin; depending on how the coin lands, he'll either be crushed or "just" break every bone in his body.
Sanity Has Advantages: It's not his fault that he has to let a coin flip make his decisions for him, so that, if you toss a ton of coins in as he flips, he can't make a choice anymore! Honest, it's not!!! Naturally, Batman exploits this in "Second Chance" where he replaces Two-Face's coin with a trick one that always lands on its side. The ploy backfires on Batman when the coin keeps bouncing towards the edge of the derelict skyscraper.
- Additionally (as shown in the tie-in comics), his therapist gives him a weighted coin that is more likely to land on the good heads which prompts Harvey to make good choices. As a result, Harvey begins to take a lot of heroic actions, such as stopping muggers or turning in members of his old gang. But only after giving them a chance to shoot or attack him first.
Sanity Slippage: "Two-Face Pt. 1" focuses on Harvey's dissociative identity disorder gradually worsening and becoming increasingly out of control, until Big Bad Harv finally takes over.
Shadow Archetype:
- To Batman, or rather his secret identity as Bruce Wayne. Both Bruce and Harvey are good men who hide a darker, separate persona behind their public faces. However, where Batman is a heroic, decent man, Two-Face is a villainous Enemy Within composed of Harvey's negative emotions. And while these personas wind up consuming both of them, Batman never becomes a criminal as Two-Face does.
- The Judge is one in turn to the Batman identity. He has the same goals as Batman and has numerous gadgets and a menacing, darkly-clad costume as he does. The only difference is that the Judge doesn't follow Batman's Thou Shalt Not Kill rule.
Skewed Priorities: Played for Drama. Two-Face values his coin over his own life and can't make decisions without it. He's even unwilling to save himself from certain death in "Second Chance" because it would mean dropping his coin. Not even the knowledge it was a trick coin is able to get him to stop.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Two-Face tends to speak in a calm, even tone even when he's preparing to do something particularly villainous. His anger also tends to manifest through Tranquil Fury; he'll speak calmly and politely just before throttling the target of his anger.
The Scream: He does this at the end of his introductory episode as Two-Face.
Second Super-Identity: The Judge is really a new split personality of Harvey Dent, formed from his repressed passion for the law becoming its own entity to fight back against the dominant personality Two-Face.
Sharp-Dressed Man: He's always dressed to the nines in a sharp, asymmetrical three-piece suit.
Slouch of Villainy: When Harvey's psychiatrist asks to speak with Big Bad Harv, Harvey slouches in his chair and begins flipping his coin as Harv takes over.
Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The "Two-Face" two-parter chronicles how Harvey's struggles with his mental illness and Rupert Thorne's machinations turn him from a heroic and well-respected lawman into the notorious gangster Two-Face.
Split Personality: After supposedly hospitalizing a bully when he was a child (the bully was actually in the hospital for appendicitis), Harvey began repressing his anger until it manifested as a second personality known as "Big Bad Harv". During Harvey's pursuit of Rupert Thorne, Big Bad Harv starts rearing his ugly head due to the stress of the campaign, and once he was scarred by a chemical explosion, became the dominant personality, renaming himself "Two-Face."
Split-Personality Merge: Implied. While Harvey is referenced as still being a separate personality, Two-Face - despite mainly being controlled by Big Bad Harv - adopts some of Harvey's traits such as his love for his fiancé Grace, hatred for Rupert Thorne, and an albeit twisted faith in justice and the law - hence his signature coin.
Split-Personality Takeover: After being disfigured, the Big Bad Harv personality takes over. Harvey does resurface at times, but by and large Harv is in control. He eventually gets a third that puts the other two personalities on trial. And I Must Scream indeed.
- By the time of Justice League vs. The Fatal Five, Harvey seems to be the personality in control, though he’s still an inmate at Arkham.
Stating the Simple Solution: In "Trial", he offhandedly mentions that he suggested "a quick slug between the eyes" rather than all the theatrics. Naturally, he lost the coin toss.
Straw Nihilist: He views everything as being dictated by random chance and disregards conventional morality as being arbitrary in such a world.
Strong Family Resemblance: His father appears in the 2nd issue of Batman: Gotham Adventures, who is shown to look like what Harvey might look like decades from now had he not been disfigured.
Superpowered Evil Side: Downplayed. Two-Face doesn't have any actual powers, but Big Bad Harv proves noticeably stronger than Harvey when he has control of the body. Harvey rarely engages in fisticuffs, where Harv is able to throw grown men across the room with ease.
Suppressed Rage: Harvey suppressed all his anger after mistakenly believing he had hospitalized a school bully, which led to his anger becoming a Split Personality: Big Bad Harv.
A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Thorne's Blackmail leads to Harvey's disfigurement and downfall, so Two-Face's first plan is to blackmail Thorne right back. Subverted when Thorne Out-Gambits him and humiliates him again — Two-Face's resulting Villainous Breakdown drives him to just (nearly) kill Thorne instead.
There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: When he threatened to release a binary poison on Gotham, he claimed there would be two kinds of people in Gotham: The dying and the dead.
This Is Gonna Suck: When his coin rolls onto an unstable metal beam during the climax of "Second Chance", Two-Face visibly realizes that following it is a bad idea but can't resist the compulsion to do it.
Throw the Dog a Bone: Justice League vs. The Fatal Five shows he's a better mental state thanks to Arkham's inmates being moved to a new, more spacious facility (with the implication it's far better staffed and more humane to its patients), so he's able to keep his rage under control. He even befriends the time-displaced Starboy.
Tomato Surprise: The Judge is Harvey Dent, repressed by Big Bad Harv for so long that he developed into a third personality.
Took a Level in Badass: As the Judge, he's able to work his way through the rogues gallery in a matter of days and manages to hospitalize most of them while taking no hits himself. He's even able to nearly kill Batman, while admittedly aided by having handcuffed him.
Took a Level in Jerkass: Two-Face is much more vicious and cruel in The New Batman Adventures. While he was always fairly ruthless, in his first appearance he proves willing to threaten to murder all of Gotham with a gas attack, something that seems more out of the Joker's playbook.
Took a Level in Kindness: At the start of the series, Harvey views Batman as a possible criminal and very easily buys into him having committed a string of robberies in "On Leather Wings". He changes his tune after Batman saves his life from Poison Ivy, and he views him as an ally by "Two-Face, Pt. 1". Unfortunately, his scarring comes soon after.
Tragic Hero: Harvey's shame over his mental illness and his anger, as well as his decision to repress them out of misplaced guilt, results in him being disfigured, having his career being ruined, and being take over by his evil Split Personality.
Tragic Villain / Tragic Monster: A man deformed by repressed anger, stress, and the interference of Gotham's vicious criminal life, to the point of losing everything in his life except the coin.
That Man Is Dead: He doesn't take well to being called Harvey, always proclaiming that he's Two-Face now.
Tranquil Fury: Two-Face's dominant personality, Big Bad Harv, is made up entirely of Harvey Dent's Suppressed Rage and thus has a Hair-Trigger Temper. However, he's often calm and collected whenever he's angered right before he goes berserk.
Two Aliases, One Character: In "Judgment Day", "The Judge" is revealed to be his new third personality.
Two-Faced: The Trope Codifier - if not namer himself. Half of his body was scarred during an explosion, including his face.
Two-Headed Coin: His signature coin is one of these, with one scratched out to serve as the "bad side".
Ungrateful Bastard: After Batman saves his life from the Judge's trap in "Judgement Day", Two-Face knocks him out so he can escape - though he thanks Batman immediately after doing so.
Unstoppable Rage: Big Bad Harv, the dominant personality after his transformation into Two-Face, is entirely composed of Harvey's Suppressed Rage and thus is in a constant state of anger. While making him angry doesn't give him increased strength, he's still able to beat his way through hordes of enemies if he's pissed off.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He spearheaded the creation of Stonegate Prison in the hope it would help clean up the crime in Gotham City. Unfortunately, the construction lead to the near-extinction of an endangered wildflower in the area that no one knew about, which leads to Poison Ivy coming after him for revenge.
Villainous Breakdown: Every time Batman manages to take his coin.
Villainous BSoD: In "Judgement Day", after "The Judge" takes over his mind and puts Two-Face on trial. He's left only able to plead guilty over and over again while rocking back and forth.
Villainous Rescue: He saves Batman from being shot by Thorne in "Two-Face, Pt. 2" by attacking the crime boss from behind.
Virtue Is Weakness: Two-Face views Harvey Dent as being a "wimp", and despises him for not indulging in his worst impulses as Two-Face does. He also is implied to look down on Harvey's career as a lawman, viewing it as pointless in a word he sees as being governed by random chance.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: After his transformation he leads an extra-legal war on Rupert Thorne's criminal organization, robbing his operations throughout Gotham, but his ultimate plan is to expose Thorne's activities and get him arrested. In "Judgement Day", he's developed a third personality, "The Judge", who is determined to punish the criminals and corrupt of Gotham City.
We Used to Be Friends:
- Like in other incarnations, Bruce and Harvey used to be very close. The incident that transformed Harvey into Two-Face gravely haunts Bruce, even going so far as to try and foot the bill for his therapy and reconstructive surgery in an attempt to bring him back.
- He and Gordon also appeared to be close friends, but unlike with Bruce Two-Face has no lingering fondness for him and proves more than willing to try and ruin his life in the "Shadow of the Bat" two-parter.
What Have I Become?: He doesn't say anything, but his reaction to seeing his disfigurement for the first time is to scream with anguish. Two-Face doesn't relish in his disfigurement but refuses to allow his face to be repaired so Harvey won't permanently take over.
White Hair, Black Heart: Half of his hair is white, anyway, and Two-Face is a ruthless gangster. The Judge's costume incorporates a white wig, and he's just as ruthless as Two-Face is if more well-intentioned.
Would Hurt a Child: If the coin lands on "bad heads", he's perfectly willing to. "Sins of the Father" has him beat Tim Drake for being a Defiant Captive and he orders him killed when the coin lands on its bad side.
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In "Trial", he tells Batman he wanted to just shoot him instead of putting him through a Kangaroo Court like the other rogues. Fortunately for Batman, he lost the coin toss.
Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His right eye was left yellow after his disfigurement, and Two-Face is both untrustworthy and massively short-tempered to the point of violent outbursts.

Characters / Batman: The Animated Series – Rogues Gallery, Part 1

Catwoman (Selina Kyle)

Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)

The Joker

The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot)

Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley)

Ra's al Ghul

Talia al Ghul

Two-Face (Harvey Dent)

Alternative Title(s): DCAU Batman The Animated Series Rogues Gallery Part 1

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Characters / Batman: The Animated Series – Rogues Gallery, Part 1

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Catwoman (Selina Kyle)

Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)

The Joker

The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot)

Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley)

Ra's al Ghul

Talia al Ghul

Two-Face (Harvey Dent)

Alternative Title(s): DCAU Batman The Animated Series Rogues Gallery Part 1

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Index

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