Christian Ward Talks Two-Face and Coming Up with the Villain's First-Ever Solo Series

Christian Ward is tackling a new Two-Face series from DC Comics with Fabio Veras, exploring the twisted mind of the long-time Batman villain in a story that’s set in the main continuity in the DC Universe. Ward, the talented writer/artist fresh off Batman: City of Madness, talked with us about how Two-Face came to be and what readers can expect from it going forward! Check out our conversation below!

Two-Face from DC Comics arrives in comic book stores on December 4th, 2024. Final Order Cutoff is November 11th!

How did the new Two-Face series come to fruition? Obviously, he played a major part in Batman: City of Madness.

I think City of Madness planted the seed in me. City of Madness was a book I've wanted to write for decades. And it was a real dream come true. But the one thing that became a real revelation when I was writing it was just how easy I found it to write Harvey and how much I kind of fell in love with him. Two-Face has always been my favorite Bat-villain. Like, I adore the character. I think he's so rich and nuanced. I love the idea that he's both a villain and he's a good guy or at least he could be. They always play up the idea of his bad side. But what about the good side? I really like that kind of balance between him.

So, when I was writing him for City of Madness, he was just such a joy to write. And the fan base really responded to how I kind of perceived the character. There's a lot of love there when I'm writing him and a lot of sympathy for who he is, both sides of him. And the fan base really responded to that.

How did the Two-Face planning start?

After that book came out and the dust settled, I put my youngest to bed. And the process of putting her to bed is very laborious. You have to get into an almost meditative state as you rock her. It's always been a time where I've done a lot of story thinking and thinking about what I want to do and things that I'm writing, et cetera. And as I was rocking her one night, this idea for Two-Face just popped into my head, almost fully formed. It was like the whole story just went and unraveled. I rocked her to bed, and the whole time, I started to rock her faster because I said, “Oh my God, that's good. That's a really good idea. That's a really good idea.”

I put her to bed, and I ran back to my computer, like I'm not even exaggerating, and I emailed my editor on City of Madness. And I'm just like, “Look, I've got this really good idea for a Two-Face story, but it's just Two-Face. No Batman. It's his story.” And I kind of pitched it to him. “This is what happens to him. And this is the story.” And he was so taken with it that it was immediately put onto the kind of green light ladder. I got passed on to another editor who would have been Katie Kubert, who was the Batman editor at the time. And they wanted it for mainline Batman! And I officially pitched it.

There was no Two-Face book planned. It wasn't like they had an idea that, “Oh, we want a Two-Face book; who should we get to write this?” It was literally; I was just I had a great idea. And they were so taken with it that they agreed and greenlit it. It's amazing. And I got greenlit right at the start of the year. I've just been writing it. And then we've got this amazing new artist called Fabio Veras, who's incredible. And he's got a real pulpy, kind of like almost Dick Tracy kind of vibe, which is exactly what I wanted. I mean, what we're going for is very much. What if we did Perry Mason but with Two-Face? For people who like Charles Soule’s She-Hulk, it's very much that. But for, like, the DC Universe, it's a very kind of fun, kind of like gritty, pulpy take. But with this man at the center, who's desperately trying to be a good man, he has a kind of metaphysical demon that he shares his body with. It's been born through sheer love of the character and just really having a real desire to tell a story about him.

What is it like to write a Batman-related story in continuity as opposed to a non-canon story like City of Madness?

I wanted to kill a character in the first issue, and I was told I couldn't. So there you go. That wasn't the first issue; it was the second issue. You just have to be respectful of other writers and their stories. When you're doing something in the main continuity, you're kind of writing this grand soap opera alongside all the other characters, and everyone else is kind of writing. So it's just being respectful of that.

One thing that's quite good about this story is that it's quite self-contained. It has some ramifications for the wider Gotham City. Batman, isn’t it. Who does appear? I’ve chosen those characters quite carefully. And they're more obscure, more kind of like wilder. There’ll be a lot of characters coming in that people will go, “Oh, I haven't seen them in X, or I've not seen them for years.”

And that's been fun because I've been able to really plow the depths and try to find characters that have something to say about Harvey's story or relate to Harvey's story. And some of them are quite deep cuts and quite unusual. But yeah, it's just being respectful of what everyone else is doing and just making sure everything's in line. I kind of know what's happening in the bigger picture of Gotham.

At the moment, I'm able to play in a small pen, sort of kept away from the wider Gotham.