had dent taken down maroni and the trial gone acid-less, what would have been his next plan of attack ? would he have furthered plans with gilda or as d.a. ?
Oh, boy, this is gonna be a long one! And speaking of ‘long’…
In The Long Halloween, Harvey mentions wanting to “take some time off” after Maroni testifies against Falcone. Had everything gone according to plan, I think Harvey would have taken a vacation with Gilda and worked on their relationship, which was becoming increasingly strained from Harvey’s workload and the danger he attracted by taking on the mob; it’s implied in several stories — and outright stated in Two-Face Strikes Twice — that they were having trouble conceiving due to the amount of stress Harvey was under as D.A.
And if there’s one thing DC’s been consistent about when it comes to Gilda, it’s how badly she wants to have little Dents running around the house, so. Yeah.
Once the ‘Roman Empire’ was dismantled and Falcone’s power stripped away, I think Harvey would have set his sights on crime bosses like Penguin and Black Mask. While it’s canon that he helped put half of Batman’s rogues gallery in Arkham and Blackgate, I think Cobblepot was too slippery for him to pin charges on and Sionis was just way too vicious for him to touch. In my story for Harvey, this is what prompts him to realize he can only do so much as the city’s district attorney, so he decides to run for mayor ( much like his Telltale counterpart ).
I also believe that Harvey would have become the first official member of the Bat Family after Alfred. Bruce laments that he was “nearly ready” to tell Harvey his secret, so after the trial I imagine he would have been like, “Hey, guess what? I’m Batman.”
Now that’s all well and good, but there’s still Big Bad Harv lurking beneath the surface. Even before he became Two-Face, there were several instances where Harvey acted inappropriately because he couldn’t control his anger: in Batman: The Animated Series, he violently lashes out at the police, Rupert Thorne, and even Bruce; in Eye of the Beholder, he fantasizes about killing a criminal as he’s prosecuting him, and he even beats up a mobster with his own weapon ( in his defense, Harvey was attacked first ); in Two-Face: Year One, he punches fellow attorney Mort Weinstein in the face for insulting Bruce, and again when he finds out Weinstein’s trying to blackmail him.
The list goes on and on. Harvey Dent is a man who’s struggling with his inner demons; the acid attack just happened to be what pushed him over the edge. In fact, in Gotham Adventures, an alternate reality where Harvey was never scarred is explored and his mental illness is shown to be slowly deteriorating and Big Bad Harv is taking control, albeit more subtly. So it’s very likely that Harvey would eventually succumb to his other personality without proper treatment and support ( comic canon Batman is honestly a terrible friend to Harvey in this regard and that deserves its own post ), which would probably lead to a scenario similar to Telltale wherein he abuses his authority as mayor under the delusion that he’s doing what’s “best” for Gotham.
Ultimately, I see “no acid incident” Harvey going one of two ways: either he gets the help he needs and successfully keeps his other personality in check — and he and Jimbo and Bats wipe out crime in Gotham and they all live happily ever after! — or he gradually becomes consumed by it. He may not be Two-Face in the literal sense of the name, but he’s still at risk of becoming Two-Face, if you catch my drift.