In the Earth-89 timeline, which is an alternate continuation of Batman and Batman Returns and ignoring the events of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, he serves as the main antagonist of the Batman '89 comic miniseries and a posthumous antagonist ofBatman '89: Echoes.
He was the district attorney of Gotham City who later gets half his face burned and later teams up with the Riddler.
In the first film and the Batman '89 comics, he was portrayed by Billy Dee Williams, who also portrayed Lando Calrissian from Star Wars. In Batman Forever, he was portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones, who also portrayed Agent K in the Men in Black trilogy, Mike Roark in Volcano, and General Boutwell in Undercover Brother.
Harvey became district attorney of Gotham City and vowed to rid the city of its crime, with one of his ideas being taking down mob boss Carl Grissom, later Jack Napier/The Joker. He is seen several times in the film, and at the beginning attending a party at Wayne Manor.
He then allied with Batman in order to end crime in Gotham and make it a stable and peaceful city.
Becoming Two-Face[]
Harvey would later be scarred and become Two-Face. He would also team up with the Riddler in order to take down Batman and Robin. Their plans were scuppered and Dent fell to his death after a last effort to kill Batman for good.
Trivia[]
Harvey Dent was meant to appear in the 1992 sequel Batman Returns in which he would be transformed into Two-Face at the climax of the film. However his role in the film was replaced by new character Max Shreck played by Christopher Walken.
This is quite interesting as Max Shreck was portrayed as a corrupt official who had attempted to kill Selina Kyle (which led to her becoming Catwoman). Its unknown if they would of made Harvey an antagonist in the film, or if he was to develop a separate personality (like big bad Harvey from the animated series).
However overtime, the stories about Harvey Dent's involvement in Batman Returns do vary. Some claim Billy Dee Williams was only going to solely appear in Batman (1989), or that Riddler was going to be the sole main antagonist in Burton's unmade Batman 3 film.
In the 1995 film Batman Forever Harvey Dent (in his Two-Face persona) was played by Tommy Lee Jones, replacing Dee Williams who was bought out of his contract. Despite Billy being black and Tommy being white, their two versions of Harvey Dent is supposed to be the same, with the novelization making this clear (see below).
In the Batman Forever novelization, it is mentioned that Dent and Batman first directly allied to take down the remaining members of the Red Triangle Circus Gang from Batman Returns.