Harvey Dent is a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne and a prosecutor at the Gotham City District Attorney's office.
History
Harvey grew up in the impoverished neighborhood Crime Alley, alongside his friends Bruce, Ozzie, Eddie, Selina, and Waylon. Harvey and the others went on the ill-fated field trip to Gotham Zoo where Thomas Wayne, their teacher and Bruce's father, was killed.[1]
He and Bruce both interned at City Hall as law clerks after college. Harvey went on to become a lawyer but Bruce seemed to show interest in that path and instead became a construction worker.[2]
Bruce occasionally uses Harvey as a source of information on the inner workings of Gotham's law enforcement and politics to help him in his activities as Batman.[3]
After Bruce was almost killed by Black Mask, he revealed his secret identity to his friends and asked for their help stopping the Party Animals gang who were attacking the city. Harvey was furious to learn that Bruce had kept such a secret from them and believed he should be arrested for vigilantism.[4]
Bruce succeeded in foiling the Party Animals, but then disappeared. His friends believed he was dead, however; a month later Bruce approached them at a memorial for Matches Malone, another Crime Alley kid they had grown up with. He told them that he had been investigating Ark M, a private prison being built on an island just off the coast of Gotham. He had asked Matches, a forger, to make him papers so he could sneak onto the work crews building the prison. Matches did so, but also snuck onto the crews himself, taking pictures and videos and discovering that the prison had inmates already despite still being built. He had delivered his findings and the phony papers to Bruce, and then dropped dead, killed by a mysterious biological weapon that made him sweat blood.
Bruce told them that he just wanted to tell them he would get the person who killed Matches and then tried to leave, but they stopped him and told him they needed to talk about Batman. Bruce refused and said he should have kept them out of it; however they each pointed out that he had used their skills and knowledge to help him even before he revealed his identity to them. Bruce tried to leave, saying they just needed to stay out of his way; but Waylon grabbed Bruce to stop him leaving, warning him that he would die if he continued on his current path.[2]
Bruce shook Waylon's hand off, saying "Don't make me hurt you", but Waylon was unafraid. He told Bruce that if he left now he would be a coward, no better than Matches. Bruce tackled Waylon and they fought, with Waylon quickly gaining the upper hand and knocking Bruce to the ground. He told Bruce that he was trying to get himself killed as Batman, just like Matches had with his reckless behaviour because they both blamed themselves for Thomas' death. Waylon helped Bruce up and told him that it had been Thomas' life that made him a hero, not his death; and that making it through life was what was really hard, not dying for a cause. He said that the people of Crime Alley were survivors and Batman would need to be one too. He asked Bruce if he wanted to die, and he yelled "No!"[1]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
Notes
- Harvey Dent was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, first appearing in Detective Comics #66. However, the Absolute Universe version of Harvey Dent first appeared in Absolute Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta.
Related
- 8 Appearances of Harvey Dent (Absolute Universe)
- 2 Images featuring Harvey Dent (Absolute Universe)
- Quotations by or about Harvey Dent (Absolute Universe)
- Character Gallery: Harvey Dent (Absolute Universe)
Footnotes