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In Batman #114, an opponent of the Dark Knight is on the receiving end of an injury very similar to that received by the Gotham City villain Two-Face.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Batman #114, on sale now from DC Comics.
Peacekeeper-01 aka Sean Mahoney has been in a series of battles both real and imagined since being injected with the Scarecrow’s new and improved fear toxin. In his latest fight as seen in Batman #114 (by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey, Clayton Cowles), Mahoney suffers an injury at the hands of the Magistrate that creates a direct parallel between him and the classic Gotham City villain Two-Face.
Sean Mahoney was formerly an Arkham Asylum guard, keeping watch over the inmates. During the events of A-Day, Sean risked his life to get one of the remaining nurses out of the exploding building and in the process was severely maimed. For this, he was lauded as a hero by the media.
Harley Quinn later revealed that Sean was a highly abusive guard at the asylum and that his records were wiped clean by the explosion that injured him. But Sean’s sudden popularity and need for artificial limbs made him the perfect candidate to become the first peacekeeper in the new Magistrate program.
Sean was transformed into the hulking Robocop-like figure he is today, but that didn’t make him invincible. A battle with Batman proved he was dangerous, but the Scarecrow tore down the façade of invulnerability by attacking the one thing the Magistrate couldn’t enhance: Sean’s mind. A direct injection of fear toxin gave Scarecrow access and suggestive control over Sean, manipulating his perception of reality and turning him into little more than a rabid beast.
When Simon Saint learned about what happened to Mahoney, he dispatched the more advanced Peacekeeper-X to bring Sean into custody. The ensuing battle between the two forced X to unleash his full arsenal, including a light cannon. The weapon was capable of punching a hole through a building and partially hit Sean, severely burning half of his face and giving him an injury reminiscent of Two-Face, and brings to light several parallels between Mahoney and the former district attorney of Gotham City.
For all his flaws, Sean Mahoney genuinely believed that he was doing the right thing for Gotham City, and that he was a hero. Scarecrow used this belief to manipulate him after he was drugged by playing upon Sean’s fears of inadequacy, transforming the once precise assassin into an instrument of mass destruction. This parallels Two-Face’s origin story, as both men were once trying to do good in a world that punished them for it by physically hurting them and destroying their sanity.
Harvey Dent started out much like Sean, wanting to be a genuine force for good in Gotham City. Granted, Harvey’s origins were more sympathetic than Sean’s, but the two did believe they were on the right side of things, trying to work within the system to fix the problems overwhelming the city.
But much like Two-Face, Sean was punished for trying to make a difference in the world. However, Sean suffered the fate of Two-Face in a way that was the reverse of what the Gotham City villain experienced. Sean started off on the wrong side of things before losing his sanity and then his physical appearance. The injury is more or less a physical marker showing the ugliness festering inside Peacekeeper-01, but the result has turned out to essentially be the same as the classic Batman villain.
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