The Villains' Reformation, Ruined

Two Face and Catwoman's Golden/Early Silver Age Journeys

As villains’ stories progress, a lot of them tend to either get worse, become a joke, or get redeemed. At least, the ones who writers care enough about to give a true arc to, do. 

In the Golden Age, and the transitional period between Golden and Silver, most villains and mobsters are put away for years. They get legitimate rehabilitation efforts, with varying success rates (frequently taken advantage of by Penguin, for example, who often fakes rehabilitation before getting back to his usual ways). 

Two-Face and Catwoman, in particular, got notable redemption arcs that were given chances to stick, that we actually got to see progress (rather than off-screen “will they?” from a jail cell). Harvey Dent (or Kent? It changes) gets his fairly early, in 1943. In Detective Comics #80, he’s finally captured, and he gets the help he needs across several issues across a long period. However, this ushers in a long series of fake-outs. 

Those fake-outs, I’ll admit, were fun! Some disgruntled person in Harvey’s orbit either attempted to force him into a mental break, reverting to Two-Face, or pretended to be him in order to frame him for crimes they wanted to commit, or a combination of both! Throughout all these many, many, many instances, he manages to retain his recovered, plastic-surgery-assisted new face, and recovered persona. 

Ironically, him being able to retain his face was an accidental in-canon sign of the Allies winning, then having won, World War II! In his original origin, Harvey’s recovery is halted due to the only surgeon capable of helping him being in a concentration camp in Germany. Their ability to successfully retrieve him, then maintain Harvey’s care if another incident undoes his work, bodes good things. 

Meanwhile, Catwoman gets her redemption well after the war is won. In 1950, in Batman #62, she’s revealed to be an amnesia victim in that classic comic trick of “a head bump made me evil”, except only revealed at the alleged end of said evil career. Once her situation is “cured”, she’s given the chance to redeem herself. 

However, she has many, many more overt flirtations with regressing (including influences and appeals from her old gang and her brother), which she herself verbally considers more than Harvey ever did. She even actively reverses her redemption in the end, deciding to return to a life of crime organically, with no injury to blame in Detective Comics #203. 

This would signal the beginning of an end, however, because she only had a few short appearances in Bat-titles more until she disappeared for over a decade, until 1966. This was due to the Comics Code Authority worrying about her never truly being punished, and the idea of a villain being glamorous, among other things. 

Harvey, meanwhile, regresses into a villain once more in Batman #81, when an explosion at a bank undoes his plastic surgery, seemingly for good. Unfortunately, it even happens when he’s there to stop others from robbing that bank! 

He also somewhat fades into obscurity, with his resurgence leading only to a few appearances more before other villains cut to the front of the line until well into the Silver Age. In particular, we wouldn’t see much more of him at all until after the Batman show from 1966-1968! 

Which begs the question: Is ruining redemption worth it? These and other cases often end up with the one brought back to the side of “evil” being used sparingly before being tossed aside for a long time. In comics, redemption is a powerful theme, but one often marred by the cycles the heroes are forced to continue on in by their importance and the need for sales. 

I understand it, honestly I do! Some characters are often so much of a combination of popular, nostalgic, and interesting that you want to write them, and often the only way that’ll happen with villains or ex villains is to have them be villains still. 

It does, however, often sting to see redemption as a moving target in comics-verse. Why do some people get all the chances and all the excuses but some people keep getting tossed into the cycles again and again?

Sometimes, people change for good. Maybe they recover, or escape the cycle that kept them in a criminal career, or something else. But often, in Gotham, most are trapped in the same cycle unless the sales demand otherwise. 

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