Harley Quinn
November 2013 - Present (issue #9)
To paraphrase those wise philosophers, Manowar, if you're not into Harley Quinn, you are not my friend. Seriously, you have to hate fun if you don't have any love for her, and her new series is everything I was hoping for her character but didn't receive from
Suicide Squad. Where in
SS there was a disconnect between the character she was and the character DC wanted her to be, they've now managed to bridge the gap between homicidal and adorable by meeting in the middle at bizarre, black humor. Not that either trait suffers for it, she just manages to do both at the same time.
Now, the one bad thing about this series is that I doubt her characterization could transfer to the rest of the New 52 DC universe. Where DC Comics has created a more gritty world, full of anti-heroes and conflicted actual heroes,
Harley Quinn ignores all of that, even paying little to no attention to current continuity in order to place Harley in her own little zany bubble. I'd be sad if this series just wasn't all that is good in life.
To give you an idea of the tone, at one point in issue... something or other, Poison Ivy is visiting her friend, and they are attacked by bounty hunters/ninjas (this happens often, though not so much with actual ninjas). Harley hurls one of them out of a window to land on her back on a barbed-wire fence, and Harley and Ivy then make a $20 bet on which side of the fence the ninja will fall. Fortunately they both end up winning when the poor unfortunate tears in half with a "RRRRIIIIPPPP!!!!". It's kept from being too gruesome by concentrating on Harley and Ivy's faces, which go from expectant fascination, to covering their eyes in moderate disgust, and finally to jubilation that both of them get to win. I also seem to remember that at least two people get eaten by a group of cute little dogs that Harley saves from an animal shelter. I think this book might actually be even more gruesome than
Suicide Squad in all honesty, even to the point of exploitative depravity, lack of Street Shark-related human-feasting aside. It just balances it out with a morbidly off-the-wall sense of humor. Sugar with vinegar, you know. The real accomplishment though, is that Harley is never anything less than charming no matter who, how, or why she is murdering somebody.
The storyline, though it's so purposefully random that "storyline" is a bit misleading as it implies reason, is relatively simple: one of her former Arkham patients has just died and left her with a large property in Statton Island, New York. It consists of a ground floor with a freak show and a wax museum dedicated to famous murderers, including her "puddin'", a second floor that houses the various carny folk who sort of adopt Harley, a third floor that eventually houses her horde of friendly-though-occasionally-man-eating pets, along with a veritable forest courtesy of Ivy, and a top floor all to Harley. Unfortunately she has no money to pay the taxes and bills, so the majority of the series is dedicated to her search for honest employment, which she eventually finds as a psychologist for an old folk's home and joining a roller derby team (who overlook her tendency for extreme violence that violates even league rules).
A large part of the charm of this series is in the familial atmosphere of the tenants of the building. There's her new best friend (aside from Ivy and her imaginary friend/stuffed beaver), a fishnet-shirt-wearing midget by the name of Big Tony, his large girlfriend, a goat-person, and a menagerie of other misfits. One might expect even carny folk might be nervous around such a lunatic, but no, they provide a support system that she's never had, while Tony provides the odd bullet to the head of any assassin foolish enough to mess with Harley. I suppose one could call this situation slightly disturbing, but it's far too heart-warming for such cynicism. Eventually, she even befriends an elderly man with a cybernetic arm and leg that look more steampunk than robot. Sy Borgman, or "Syborg", is an ex-secret agent who enlists Harley's help in hunting down a retired group of former Soviet spies now secretly living in New York. It's not made clear at first whether these are actual spies or Mr. Borgman is just senile, but Harley doesn't seem to mind either way.
One final thing I'd like to mention is that this book sort of answers the question as to whether or not Harley and Poison Ivy have a sexual relationship. It's implied to the point of being blatant. One of my favorite parts of this series is Harley introducing her friend to her beaver...
"You wanna meet my beaver?"
"Um... okay... why not?"
"Bernie, meet Poison Ivy. Ivy, Bernie."
"Oh. It's an actual... beaver."
God I love this series.
Ex-****ing-celsior!
Oh, and just cause, here's the full-spread cover of
Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con.