According to the 1976 DC Calendar, May 11th is the day that Harvey Dent had his face scarred by acid.

This is not the weirdest date that was included on that calendar, but it is up there.

I mean, I love nerdy, niche, weird bits of information about comics (DC in particular, Superman and Batman more so) but noting the date a man experienced the worst cross examination of his life is niche cubed.

The ad above is from 1990. The format for the house ads for DC’s annuals in 1990 was bright and sometimes gaudy and really managed to match the energy of the era. Bright colors were the order of the day until 1991 or so when fashion went the plaid. The pink triangles on this bad boy screams 1990 to me.

I bought Batman Annual #14 in the summer of 1990. This was during one of my periodic bouts of collecting the various Batman titles. In this case it was the carry over from the Batmania I caught in the summer of 1989. As the cover suggests, this annual is about Two-Face. More to the point it was the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of Two-Face’s origin. Andrew Helfer wrote a deeply psychological story and it was the story of the fall of flawed man who had an abusive upbringing.

It’s really good. I can’t recommend it enough.

There is a certain amount of serendipity that this came out two years before the two-part episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, which told the origin of Two-Face for that world.

If you’d like to hear Andy Leyland and I talk about this comic, go check out Episode 90 of The Overlooked Dark Knight.

So, happy “Harvey Dent gets acid thrown in his face” day?

That felt weird to write.

More to follow…