COVE

Before reading the original text, I was only exposed to one adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde, which was on the ABC show Once Upon a Time, where like most characters in the show, both of them were ripped away from their respective stories and brought into the real. But after reading and also discussing different adaptations of the book, I came to realize a lot of characters I know across media might be inspired by Jekyll and Hyde in some way. And when I did realize it, it was always the characters that a form of split personality, which is what I want to talk about. I will discuss two characters that were directly inspired and two characters that were indirectly inspired by Jekyll and Hyde.

The two characters for being directly inspired is DC Comics' Two-Face and Marvel's Green Goblin, mainly Willem Dafoe's version of the character from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies. The two characters for indirect inspiration is Marvel's Moon Knight and The Vampire Diaries'  Stefan Salvatore.

First Image: Harvey Dent (Two-Face)

Harvey Dent, a.k.a the villain Two-Face, was once District Attorney of Gotham City and tried to remove corruption and crime throughout every inch of the city. But that all changed once a criminal threw acid on the right side of his face. A prominent origin story for his character came from Batman: The Animated Series, in that Harvey suffered from a multiple personality disorder from a young age in which he has another side to him that he tried to keep deep down and supress it (which is his Hyde side). When creating Two-Face, Batman co-creator Bob Kane said he was inpsired by the 1931 adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde, in which he said it was "classic story of the good and evil sides of human nature" (Kane and Andrae 109). Along with other Batman creator Bill Finger, they came up with a way in which how each side of Dent would appear. Harvey's signature move is flipping his lucky coin, and doing so, it determines whether is Jekyll (Harvey) or Hyde (Two-Face) side emerges.

Second Image: Green Goblin from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man

Norman Osborn, a.k.a the Green Goblin, has been a classic Spider-Man villain for decades and Willem Dafoe's performance in 2002's Spider-Man by Sam Raimi only amplified it. In the movie, Osborn has been working on a super-soldier serum for the military, and because of a tight deadline, decides to experiment on himself. Because of this, he awakens an alternate, and crazed personality in himself, bringing forth his Green Goblin persona. In an interview with GQ, Dafoe said Raimi gave him a copy of Jekyll and Hyde to read to prepare for the film's mirror scene, in which Osborn and Goblin converse with one another, which works well for the depiction of Osborn and Goblin in this movie (Dafoe). Also, another way they made this a split personality role is that since Goblin in this movie isn't shown like he is in the comics, Dafoe wore prosthetic teeth while he was Osborn and Goblin was shown with Dafoe naturally crooked teeth. This version of the character is seen as an homage to early Spider-Man comics, in which Goblin was an alternate identity to Osborn, like how it is shown in the movie

Third Image: Marc Spector and Steven Grant from Marvel Studios' Moon Knight

Moon Knight is a Marvel hero that, while not directly inspired by Jekyll and Hyde, shares many similarites with the duo. Moon Knight suffers from DID and shares his body with two distinct personalities. The main personality is Marc Spector, a former hitman who was left for dead and was later revived by the Egyptian god Khonsu in return for being his Avatar, thus becoming Moon Knight. But from a young age, Marc was abused by his mother because she blamed Marc for his brother's death. As a result, he developed DID and the Steven Grant personality, modeling him after a movie he loved as a kid and used this personality as an escape from his mother. But unlike Jekyll and Hyde who often fought control over their body, throughout the Disney+ show, they both worked together along with Marc's wife, who before the show started was unaware of Marc's DID, throughout the first season of the Disney+ show. But throughout the show, both Steven and Marc get into fights which often end up deadly and they both are confused on what happens since they both blackout when it happens. At the end of the season, it is revealed that Marc has a third personality named Jake Lockely, who is more dangerous and violent than Marc is.

Fourth Image: Stefan Salvatore from The CW's The Vampire Diaries

Another example that is an indirect inspiration is Stefan Salvatore from The CW's The Vampire Diaries. Stefan is a vampire who was turned when he was seventeen by Katherine Pierce, a frequent love interest of his and also his brother Damon. Throughout, he along with his love interest Elena Gilbert deal with the supernatural creatures of Mystic Falls, Virginia, and occasionally their own friends. In the show, vampires can turn off their "humanity switch" which makes them not feel emotion and also completely changes their personality. For example, with Stefan, he is normally shown as someone who is "kind, caring, empathetic and compassionate and heroic", but when his humanity switch is turned off, he instead has a personality which is "sociopathic, crazy, addictive, cold and ruthless" (TV Tropes). The same thing happens to a couple other vampire characters on the show after they have gone through a pretty emotional event in their life, such as the death of a loved one.

Works Cited

Kane, Bob, and Tom Andrae. Batman & Me. Eclipse Books, 1989.

Dafoe, Willem. “Willem Dafoe Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters.” Youtube, GQ, 15 Feb. 2019. Youtube, https://youtu.be/jiMguaZQREU. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022. (3:22 - 5:57)

“Jekyll & Hyde.” TV Tropes, Tropes HQ, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JekyllAndHyde.