GAME OF THE NAME - "TWO-FACE"

"I thought something happened to you guys.  

Two-Face told me you guys were dead."

Cisco 

'THE FLASH'

Oh, there'll be spoilers ahead.....

Cisco used this nickname to describe the alternate future version of Barry Allen whose face had been scarred.

But in that Toobworld dimension (which considers itself Earth-1, but which is known here at Toobworld Central as Comix Toobworld DC1), where did Cisco come up with that phrase?  Did he coin it himself, as he had done with the monikers for various members of the Flash's "Rogues Gallery"?  

Or was it a reference to former prosecutor Harvey Dent, whose face had been scarred and drove him mad, becoming the arch-villain Two-Face.

From Wikipedia:

Two-Face (Harvey Dent) is a fictional super-villain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. The character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane and first appeared in Detective Comics #66 (Aug. 1942). As one of Batman's most enduring enemies, Two-Face belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up Batman's rogues gallery.

Once an upstanding Gotham City district attorney, Harvey Dent was hideously scarred on the left side of his face after a mob boss threw acidic chemicals at him during a court trial. He was subsequently driven insane and adopted the "Two-Face" persona, becoming a criminal obsessed with duality. In later years, writers have portrayed Two-Face's obsession with chance and fate as the result of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. He obsessively makes all important decisions by flipping his former lucky charm, a two-headed coin which was damaged on one side by the acid as well. The modern version is established as having once been a personal friend and ally of James Gordon and Batman.

So it could be that Harvey Dent AKA Two-Face exists in this world.  Maybe Crime Boss Moroni, the mobster who disfigured Dent with acid, exists in Comix Toobworld DC1 as well.  It's always been the position of Toobworld Central that most characters found in Earth Prime-Time also exist in the alternate Toobworlds.  And so we could assume that Bruce Wayne is in that world too... not that we'll ever see that acknowledged.

DC Comics and its parent company, the Warner Brothers empire, are keeping a tight reign on what can be used on the various shows and in the movies which would normally share the same universe in the comic books.

And it's not just the characters who can't easily cross over into the various properties.  According to Andrew Kreisberg, the executive producer of both 'Arrow' and 'The Flash', "There’s the cities that we can use and then there’s everything else. I don’t think you’re going to be hearing ‘Gotham’ or ‘Metropolis’ [on 'Arrow' or 'The Flash'] anytime soon.”

So officially, that's how it has to stand - Cisco's turn of phrase is most likely just a derisive nickname.  

Luckily, Toobworld Central is not bound by such restrictions.

For us here in the brick-bound fortress of Toobworld Central, Cisco's question was phrased so that it can be read two ways.  And I'm going to be one of those who fall in the camp that sees it as a reference to the former District Attorney.  I think he did become disfigured and insane and is wreaking havoc in his hometown of Gotham City whenever he's escaped from Arkham Asylum.

However, whether that also means Two-Face has tangled with Batman in that world is unknown.  I think Bruce Wayne does - or did - exist in Comix Toobworld DC1, but we've seen so many permutations of the character in other dimensions that we can't say what he may be like in the "Arrowverse".  Just in the dimensions of the Toobworld Dynamic, we've seen:

• a Bruce Wayne whose career as Batman peaked in the 1960s ('Batman' of Earth Prime-Time)
• a Bruce Wayne who served as Batman but then abandoned Gotham City (Comix Toobworld DC7)
• a Bruce Wayne whose fate was sealed by another child - Conan O'Brien (Skitlandia)
• a Bruce Wayne who is still a boy and not yet the Batman ('Gotham' of Comix Toobworld DC6)

And that's all I have to say about that.  Blathered on more than I expected to actually....

BCnU!