Pick of the Brown Bag
The Harley Quinn Special
by
Ray Tate
Difficult to believe, but once upon a time, no Harley Quinn books existed. I kid you not. No, Harley Quinn. No, Harley Quinn's Black Book, and no Harley Quinn team-ups with Betty and Veronica or gangs of Harleys.
The Joker had henchwenches before, in 1966’s Batman, and a kind of girlfriend in Legends.
However, none of these characters possessed the depth of Harley Quinn or fulfilled her role as an abused love interest that’s also the Joker’s lieutenant.
“The Joker’s Favor”
We can credit Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and Arleen Sorkin for propelling Harley to comedic stardom and the evolution of her character in Batman: the Animated Series.
You expected Harley to appear in the Animated Series spin-off comics, and the Powers That Be didn’t disappoint. What you couldn’t predict is her debut in the post-Crisis.
Harley Quinn premiered in a Big Bleak Stupid Event,
a one-off “No Man’s Land” issue of Detective Comics. From there, she found a better showcase under the aegis of Karl Kesel and Terry Dodson.
That series lasted thirty-eight issues and continued to promote Harley as a resident of the DCU. Gotham City Sirens followed teaming her up with Catwoman and Poison Ivy. Again in context.
When Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti took over Harley's adventures, all bets were off. Harley Quinn a genuine funny book was tangential to even the shinier, more optimistic New 52.
Harley Quinn now fit only in the kinder version of the DC Universe that Palmiotti and Conner first brokered for Power Girl.
Before Conner and Palmiotti say good-bye to Harley Quinn, they had to ask what would happen if she found a genie in a bottle. I mean, it’s a burning question, yeah?
Harley spots the bottle underwater, almost drowning in the discovery. Fortunately, Harley’s luck and Palmiotti’s and Conner’s blatant disregard for barriers between multiple earths draws in the first guest star.
The two talents genuinely like Power Girl. The affection shows in the playful burlesque. Harley’s got a massive girl crush on Power Girl, but the attention span of a fruit fly.
Djinn or genies in legend are remarkably evil spirits. They've been bottled, jammed and trapped for good reasons. Sydney Sheldon on the other hand saw the comic possibilities in genies.
As did Warner Brothers, Robert McKimson and Warren Foster with "A-Lad-In-His-Lamp." Voices by Mel Blanc and Jim Backus. Not to be missed.
Harley quickly figures the ins and outs of genie "ownership" long before Major Nelson did. So, begins a tour-de-farce of Harley's imaginative wishing with multiple artists to boot. The much sought after Conner contributes the lion's share of the illustration for the anthology, and none of the other artists disappoint.
The first deviation comes from Chad Hardin when Harley wishes something for she and the Joker.
That's still Conner. Unfortunately, I can't show you any of Hardin's art. This is an outrageous short due to the visual expression of the subject matter. The resulting future for the Joker is a winner as well because it just turns the stereotype role inside out and upends the classic animated episode Mad Love. Otto Schmidt then joins the party for dropping Harley into the Justice League.
The story goes horribly wrong because of Harley's flexible reality clashing against the stricter League code and the group's stubborn refusal to give up physics.
The League will return later in the pencils and inks of Conner when Harley makes the most out of an obvious desire. Before that, Harley takes a page from Doctor Doolittle. This episode enjoys the success one expects.
They next transport Harley to a desert paradise, but she finds it lacking something. Sex. The Bronze Age of comics discreetly introduced sex in the lives of super-heroes. The post-Crisis operated on the Final Girl principle. The New 52 on the other hand granted heroes healthy sex lives. Palmiotti and Conner were only too happy to oblige this newish trend. Harley figures that her perfect mate will be her male version. What can possibly go wrong?
At some point I'm sure she would have come to the conclusion that many fans have. Harley's perfect match is the Conner/Palmiotti Poison Ivy. Perhaps, she didn't want to include Pam into her fantasy because on some level Harley knows these wishes will always result blowing up in her face.
Harley decides that a greater dose of reality may remedy her predicament, but reality for Palmiotti and Conner happens to be Jack Kirby stalwart Kamandi.
Kamandi only operated once without Planet of the Apes homage, and in Harley Quinn he's no different. The plethora of anthropomorphic invaders forces Harley to go back to a much more innocent time courtesy of Ben Caldwell.
Here's another example where Palmiotti and Conner twist expectations. Harley's reduction to infancy is actually the punchline for a number of genie stories. Conner and Palmiotti however dope out that the genie is smart enough to recognize the demands of its master no matter how tiny.
The wishes keep coming, until finally, Harley reaches her last straw. What happens next isn't the tried and true method for genie disposal. Instead, Palmiotti and Conner come up with something more interesting that allows them to fall back on Harley Quinn's intrinsic themes.
Palmiotti's and Conner's last issue of Harley Quinn begins with Harley and Ivy behind bars. No, Batman didn't put them there. He's apparently still cool with Harley and Ivy. The story of how unfolds.
After securing rooms, Big Tony, Queenie, Harley and Ivy go to the bar and grill to invert well worn cliches and mine them for comedy gold.
This is what lands them in jail. Palmiotti and Conner during this gag, slap in a brilliant meta joke that echoes Ryan Reynolds' days on the laugh out loud funny sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Shop. Just now collected on DVD from Shout Factory. Awesome, people, a must have.
Harley’s parents bail she and her friends out of the pokey, and it’s homecoming day.
Palmiotti and Conner go through the traditions of family, and artist John Timms has a lot of fun bringing animation to the brothers’ antics. He gives everything an almost Chuck Jones fuzziness.
As Ivy sleeps, and the brothers sleep it off, Harley schemes to visit her second family, and they have a surprise for their clown mistress. From there it's champagne wishes and one last double-entendre in an ending that recalls Palmiotti's and Gray's final issue of Jonah Hex.
Frank Tieri’s first issue of Harley Quinn came out a week after Jimmy Palmiotti’s and Amanda Conner’s last. As you can see, Conner is still providing the covers. Iani Miranda who partnered with Tieri on Catwoman provides the illustration. You might not recognize Miranda’s elegant linework. Colorist Jeremiah Skipper imbues a darker sheen to the whole book. Not bad. Just different.
Tieri still keeps a lot of what Palmiotti and Conner introduced. Coney Island still serves as a backdrop. Big Tony opens the story with a drunken head-butting contest followed by an abduction.
The Gang of Harleys return as does Red Tool, but Harley is in a funk for this issue. So, it’s difficult to determine where Tieri will take the character. Other than the funk of course.
The comedy in Harley Quinn detaches from the zany. Tieri instead opts for a running gag of comparing the whole investigation into Tony’s abduction as a Scooby-Doo plot.
You’ll get no complaint from me on that front. It’s fairly obvious that Man-Bat has something to do with the whole shebang, but Tieri puts in several twists. The question is whether or not these twists are still tangential to the DCU proper, or if Harley Quinn takes place in the DCU. I’d still go with no.
For one thing Jeremiah Arkham actually seems like a decent human being that actually wants to help the criminally insane. He also appears to regard Harley as no threat. Otherwise why would he allow Harley wannabes outside the bars of his asylum? Regardless, Tieri's Harley Quinn is well written, funny in places and actually a decent fair play mystery.
The second issue of Frank Tieri’s Harley Quinn is equally entertaining. The Harley-Bat swoops down on unsuspecting Coney Islanders, including her friends.
Traditionally, Man-Bat and ilk possess super-strength and claws that rend through a human like a grater through cheese. Harley’s holding back.
The fact that she’s holding back answers one of the questions. Harley Quinn is still tangential to the New 52 proper. The Harley of the Suicide Squad is quite insane and more feral than she is here. She's a friggin' Man-Bat.
As the graphic demonstrates, Harley decides to rescue her friends from the murderous Man-Bat. The Scooby-Doo jokes and the outright gags fall by the wayside. Instead, Tieri makes the whole exercise quirky, relying on the eccentricity of Harley's hodge-lodge cast. Tieri furthermore arrives at a satisfying explanation ushered by intelligent questions voiced by a strong female character for why Man-Bat chose a course of action bound to clash with Harley Quinn.
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