Review #8 - Batman: Harley Quinn
Writer: Paul Dini
Penciller: Yvel Guichet
Inker: Aaron Sowd
Colourist: Richard & Tanya Horne
You knew this one was coming!
Ahh, Harley started off in mainstream on such a high note. In many ways I do wonder, these days, if it was really a good thing she made the transition to mainstream. It means that we get to actually see her now the DCAU world she was a part of has petered off, but she was also generally misunderstood.
I can be really critical on this point and I do want to clarify something - by no means am I saying all these writers and such are talentless - they all have huge bucket loads of talent. It’s that I feel they largely approach Harley, and her relationship with Joker, from the wrong angle. They have done a more simplistic or superficial reading. I think because Harley is such a cartoony character it must be very difficult to put her within the mainstream context, alongside the mainstream Joker, especially if you’re writing her for the first time. But back in the day, it sold books to have Harley in there (still does…) and I think a lot of people wanted a shot at her. Too often she was delegated to simply being the one-liner cracking henchwench, or the obsessed freak with an unrequited love.
And Harley IS so much more. She’s smart, witty, cunning, playful, incredibly likeable, goofy but NOT a screw-up, manipulative when she needs to be, strong-willed, incredibly passionate and ambitious - when she has a goal there’s little that will stand in her way. Harley also has a lot of heart and soul. She’s insane, and she does very bad things but she is incredibly loyal and has a rather twisted but sincere sense of balance and evening things out when she should, or feels strongly enough about something to do so. She’s NOT a doormat, but she is very, very sick and she is a submissive personality. This does not automatically mean that she’s always going to be pushed around, however. Go into the kink scene and you’ll discover submissives are notorious for ‘topping from the bottom’ and throwing mega-tantrums and enacting all kinds of passive-aggressive manipulative behaviour to get their Dominant behaving the way they want to (I’m a sub so I’m allowed to say that!). She’s FUNNY. Whether by intention or not, you laugh at her and with her.
It also seems that, since so many played her as a one-note and they made the mistake of giving her her own series - and as much as I love her, that really was overkill and an obvious capitalising on her out-of-control popularity at the time - the backlash was that she then faded into practical obscurity and has only started appearing again because Dini’s been writing her.
But, you know, this is a Joker journal not a Harley journal, so I’ll move on.
Needless to say, as possibly intimidating as this project might’ve been, Big D successfully transferred his baby into the mainstream world and put her alongside mainstream Joker in a way that was touching, compelling, believeable, hilarious and twisted.
The bare basics of Harley’s story have remained intact - she was a young doctor at Arkham, wanted to use the Joker for book material, fell in love with him instead and went crazy - but it’s also been spruced up a bit. Harley being naive enough that Joker immediately launching into a sob story was believable to her worked for the cartoons, but not the more ‘adult’ mainstream, so it‘s good that‘s gone. I found it interesting, too, that mainstream Harley had been helping Joker escape while still a doctor and was locked up even before donning her costume. But that might’ve been to work it into the No Man’s Land setting.
Anyway, onto Mistah J… as always, Dini has portrayed the Joker so fabulously here. He’s very charming, very witty, completely unscrupulous and entirely over the top. When Harley bursts onto the scene, he seems to have more or less forgotten who she is before it suddenly ‘pings’ on him and he’s, in a word, delighted to behold what he has wrought. He welcomes her readily and allows her the ‘privilege’ of driving his car for him. In short - he’s impressed. This is quite a turn up for the books and he enjoys the way she handled things with Penguin.
We see this story largely from Harley’s eyes, as she tells the first half through a ‘flashback’. The second half is straight out narrative and both parts give us consistent depictions of Joker, although a few elements are adjusted from Harley‘s POV...
During the flashback, we are treated to Harley’s delusions for part of it before things abruptly change. Up to a point, what we see unfolding on the pages directly contradicts Harley’s narrative. Mistah J laughing through the Tunnel of Love? He’s just sitting there. Mistah J raving about her renovations? He simply remarks ‘doable’. Something nice for the boys? We see a bare corner with a couple of hammocks. But that’s where it stops and things suddenly switch so that the action does reflect her narrative. Working during the day? Check. Spending their nights together? Check. Technical glitches interfering? Check. And Mistah J brightening things up? Absolutely - and he’s swept her into a dance with a great big smile on his face. It’s a clever story-telling technique and what it tells us is that although Harley can’t be relied upon to tell the whole truth - being somewhat delusional - nonetheless many things do happen as she claims - including a definite courtship that Joker takes pleasure in.
And here we come again to how pleasurably Joker is depicted in this story. He’s no less himself, but he is uncomfortable with his response to Harley. His solution is to try and kill her, but let’s face it - no one who’s going to be in love with Joker is going to be an easy push-over and Harley comes back, aching to beat that clown’s pasty butt all up and over Gotham.
Furthermore, after his attempts to off Miss Quinn, he gets drunk and initiates a conversation about women with his gang. This struck me as singularly odd. Joker having a ‘bull session’ about dames with his underlings? Joker, who so rarely demonstrates any sort of interest in such ordinary things, much less women? It really felt like he knew he’d done what he ‘had’ to, but he was missing that little clown anyway. Not regretting - regret is beyond him - but missing her.
Leastways we forget exactly who Mistah J is, when his henchman, Ron, begins raving about his own girl and getting into his relationship woes, Joker offs him with a simple: “too much information, Ron.” Mistah J’s feelings are interesting - not yours, Ronaldo, sorry! Again we see that whilst Joker is capable of having emotion for Harley, he is beyond empathy or consideration.
Furthermore, Joker contextualises himself as being in a relationship several times in this comic. He refers to Harley as ‘my chick’, bemoans her ‘blaming [him] for every little glitch in the relationship’ (to himself when no one else is around!), says to Harley they need to talk about where ’our relationship is going’ and asks why Batsy had to choose the same night he and his girl are having trouble to burst in on them. The fact that he refers to Harley as ‘my chick’ TO. BATMAN, is highly significant. Batman, his greatest foe, his only true worthy adversary and equal, his perfect opposite - if he’s admitting it to Batman, it’s official, kids.
Furthermore, he also acknowledges that the set-up Harley used to lure Bats - of exploding medical supplies - was ‘not a bad gag’. Yeesh! It IS serious.
What I saw in the HQ one-shot was Dini setting quite a lot of things up for the writers that were to come. He would’ve known he would not retain much control over her depiction so, it seems to me, he made the effort to provide a good resource of information for other writers. Unfortunately, it seems to have been too subtle for many (although many did get it)
1. Firstly - toughening Harley up from the outset. In the animated world it took quite a while before she started lashing back at Mistah J when he pushed too far. This Harley straight away does not tolerate rejection or betrayal. She comes back to open a can of whup-ass on him toot sweet.
2. Giving her enhanced ability thus enabling her to better survive the DCMU’s more lethal Joker. Increased strength and an immunity to toxins and poisons - like Joker’s smilex. Therefore, when on impulse this Joker might squirt her - she can survive.
3. Having Joker say it: ‘there’s a girl after my own heart - with a razor!’ - ‘ I’ve been reminded what it’s like… to care for someone who cares for me’. It’s right there, kids. From the man’s own mouth. Either to himself, or to Harley when he believed her about to die.
4. New dynamic with Ivy - the Ivy of the comics is a ruthless, misanthropic, remorseless killer. She has little interest in anyone but herself and plants. She gives Harley powers so Harley can take out the Bat. There’s camaraderie between the two but it’s not the friendship of the animated series. There’s potential there, but Ivy isn’t particularly interested in empowering Harley’s self-esteem (which could also do with the fact that this Harley’s self-esteem is quite a bit better than that of the DCAU Harley when they first meet). She is, in fact, using Harley to achieve her own ends. Nonetheless, the potential for a friendship is there, but it’s set off a different footing.
5. Establishing a sexual relationship exists between Joker and Harley.
Although I will concede that on this final point, Dini often seems to play it to please both sides - he infers just enough that you can interpret things either way and stops short of saying it outright. Personally, I’m convinced that sex did indeed happen, but others will swear up and down it did not. Big D has not really made it explicitly clear, just made it enough of a did they/didn’t they to drive everyone nuts.
Harley’s description of how she felt - how she was swooning and senseless with delight - is not the same as saying she was completely oblivious to what had happened. She’s not saying she doesn’t remember any sex. Ivy’s comment “drugged you, huh?” actually does not indicate that Ivy doesn’t think sex happened either - just that she thinks Joker drugged Harley.
So, I think they did the wild thing. I think the more interesting question to ask is whether or not this was the first time. Cos on that point, I’m not sure! Again, this is something that’s not clear. It seems to me people make the assumption it’s the first time simply because Harley hasn’t said anything about it before. I think it might’ve been, though, because of Joker’s response afterwards.
The sequence of events around this scene is as follows - Harley bounds off to distract Batman prompting Joker to say ‘now there’s a gal after my own heart - with a razor!’ This line indicates Joker feels some danger to himself from Harley - on the emotional level. What I interpret is Harley’s immediate action to help him actually touched him and his response to that is ‘uh-oh’. He thinks Harley will be squished by Batman and is impressed and surprised she got away from him. At this point, it’s back to the lair for the night of ‘sheer joy’. And the next day Joker lures her into a death trap. What it feels like to me is that Joker himself really got into this ‘magical evening‘ and it wasn’t just magical for Harley - and combined with the danger he felt earlier, it makes up his mind that he’s got to get rid of this girl before she really becomes dangerous. So I think there’s enough suggestion there that it was the first time and its intensity took Joker by surprise.
So there’s all that fabulous complex stuff about the relationship between Joker and Harley. It’s fun to watch Mistah J, usually so cool and in control, have himself quite torn around by this little minx who’s attached herself to him. Not only does she stir up uncomfortable feelings of tenderness, she proves to be amazingly resilient and almost hangs him out to dry! That oh so cute scene of Joker hanging by one hand, with Harley about to whack him over the head with a wrench only for Joker to say ‘would it help if I said I was sorry?’ and bam! All is forgiven! Plus Harley throwing Joker off the tower so he landed safely on the tent, to plonk herself in his lap and Joker going ‘am I dead?’ hehehehe! Soooo gloriously fabulous.
The art of this book, by Yvel Guichet, really suits the mood of it, somehow. It’s a little bit sort of ‘jagged’ for me at times, if that make sense, but on the whole I really love it. I love its style, how Joker and Harley and Ivy look and I love its ambience. It’s quite dark and quirky, as our two clowns are themselves. Guichet has a great way of capturing Joker’s attitudes and expressions and his Harley is so very, very cute. The colouring is also beautiful - it sort of manages to be both dark and vivid at once, the streets of Gotham shadow and gloomy but our two stars brilliant against it.
An actual artist would be able to give you a great critique on perspectives and shadows and stuff like that. But I really know SQUAT about all that stuff, which is why my reviews focus on the writing aspect. I can say 'it's good' or 'it's bad' with regards to the art, but not much more so I'm really sorry. But I do really like the art in this book. It's quite a cartoonish style in many ways, and suits the story. A part of me wishes that Harley's mainstream origin could've teamed Dini up with one of my fave Joker/Harley artists - Bruce Timm, Alex Ross - or Brian Bolland, though I know he doesn't really do books - but I'm pretty attached to Yvel too, for a few panels in particular that I really love which more than make up for me other panels that feel a bit 'stiff'.
This story gets full points from me for putting the scary, ruthless mainstream Mistah J with his harlequin and making it work so beautifully for both of them. Gotta love it!
Penciller: Yvel Guichet
Inker: Aaron Sowd
Colourist: Richard & Tanya Horne
You knew this one was coming!
Ahh, Harley started off in mainstream on such a high note. In many ways I do wonder, these days, if it was really a good thing she made the transition to mainstream. It means that we get to actually see her now the DCAU world she was a part of has petered off, but she was also generally misunderstood.
I can be really critical on this point and I do want to clarify something - by no means am I saying all these writers and such are talentless - they all have huge bucket loads of talent. It’s that I feel they largely approach Harley, and her relationship with Joker, from the wrong angle. They have done a more simplistic or superficial reading. I think because Harley is such a cartoony character it must be very difficult to put her within the mainstream context, alongside the mainstream Joker, especially if you’re writing her for the first time. But back in the day, it sold books to have Harley in there (still does…) and I think a lot of people wanted a shot at her. Too often she was delegated to simply being the one-liner cracking henchwench, or the obsessed freak with an unrequited love.
And Harley IS so much more. She’s smart, witty, cunning, playful, incredibly likeable, goofy but NOT a screw-up, manipulative when she needs to be, strong-willed, incredibly passionate and ambitious - when she has a goal there’s little that will stand in her way. Harley also has a lot of heart and soul. She’s insane, and she does very bad things but she is incredibly loyal and has a rather twisted but sincere sense of balance and evening things out when she should, or feels strongly enough about something to do so. She’s NOT a doormat, but she is very, very sick and she is a submissive personality. This does not automatically mean that she’s always going to be pushed around, however. Go into the kink scene and you’ll discover submissives are notorious for ‘topping from the bottom’ and throwing mega-tantrums and enacting all kinds of passive-aggressive manipulative behaviour to get their Dominant behaving the way they want to (I’m a sub so I’m allowed to say that!). She’s FUNNY. Whether by intention or not, you laugh at her and with her.
It also seems that, since so many played her as a one-note and they made the mistake of giving her her own series - and as much as I love her, that really was overkill and an obvious capitalising on her out-of-control popularity at the time - the backlash was that she then faded into practical obscurity and has only started appearing again because Dini’s been writing her.
But, you know, this is a Joker journal not a Harley journal, so I’ll move on.
Needless to say, as possibly intimidating as this project might’ve been, Big D successfully transferred his baby into the mainstream world and put her alongside mainstream Joker in a way that was touching, compelling, believeable, hilarious and twisted.
The bare basics of Harley’s story have remained intact - she was a young doctor at Arkham, wanted to use the Joker for book material, fell in love with him instead and went crazy - but it’s also been spruced up a bit. Harley being naive enough that Joker immediately launching into a sob story was believable to her worked for the cartoons, but not the more ‘adult’ mainstream, so it‘s good that‘s gone. I found it interesting, too, that mainstream Harley had been helping Joker escape while still a doctor and was locked up even before donning her costume. But that might’ve been to work it into the No Man’s Land setting.
Anyway, onto Mistah J… as always, Dini has portrayed the Joker so fabulously here. He’s very charming, very witty, completely unscrupulous and entirely over the top. When Harley bursts onto the scene, he seems to have more or less forgotten who she is before it suddenly ‘pings’ on him and he’s, in a word, delighted to behold what he has wrought. He welcomes her readily and allows her the ‘privilege’ of driving his car for him. In short - he’s impressed. This is quite a turn up for the books and he enjoys the way she handled things with Penguin.
We see this story largely from Harley’s eyes, as she tells the first half through a ‘flashback’. The second half is straight out narrative and both parts give us consistent depictions of Joker, although a few elements are adjusted from Harley‘s POV...
During the flashback, we are treated to Harley’s delusions for part of it before things abruptly change. Up to a point, what we see unfolding on the pages directly contradicts Harley’s narrative. Mistah J laughing through the Tunnel of Love? He’s just sitting there. Mistah J raving about her renovations? He simply remarks ‘doable’. Something nice for the boys? We see a bare corner with a couple of hammocks. But that’s where it stops and things suddenly switch so that the action does reflect her narrative. Working during the day? Check. Spending their nights together? Check. Technical glitches interfering? Check. And Mistah J brightening things up? Absolutely - and he’s swept her into a dance with a great big smile on his face. It’s a clever story-telling technique and what it tells us is that although Harley can’t be relied upon to tell the whole truth - being somewhat delusional - nonetheless many things do happen as she claims - including a definite courtship that Joker takes pleasure in.
And here we come again to how pleasurably Joker is depicted in this story. He’s no less himself, but he is uncomfortable with his response to Harley. His solution is to try and kill her, but let’s face it - no one who’s going to be in love with Joker is going to be an easy push-over and Harley comes back, aching to beat that clown’s pasty butt all up and over Gotham.
Furthermore, after his attempts to off Miss Quinn, he gets drunk and initiates a conversation about women with his gang. This struck me as singularly odd. Joker having a ‘bull session’ about dames with his underlings? Joker, who so rarely demonstrates any sort of interest in such ordinary things, much less women? It really felt like he knew he’d done what he ‘had’ to, but he was missing that little clown anyway. Not regretting - regret is beyond him - but missing her.
Leastways we forget exactly who Mistah J is, when his henchman, Ron, begins raving about his own girl and getting into his relationship woes, Joker offs him with a simple: “too much information, Ron.” Mistah J’s feelings are interesting - not yours, Ronaldo, sorry! Again we see that whilst Joker is capable of having emotion for Harley, he is beyond empathy or consideration.
Furthermore, Joker contextualises himself as being in a relationship several times in this comic. He refers to Harley as ‘my chick’, bemoans her ‘blaming [him] for every little glitch in the relationship’ (to himself when no one else is around!), says to Harley they need to talk about where ’our relationship is going’ and asks why Batsy had to choose the same night he and his girl are having trouble to burst in on them. The fact that he refers to Harley as ‘my chick’ TO. BATMAN, is highly significant. Batman, his greatest foe, his only true worthy adversary and equal, his perfect opposite - if he’s admitting it to Batman, it’s official, kids.
Furthermore, he also acknowledges that the set-up Harley used to lure Bats - of exploding medical supplies - was ‘not a bad gag’. Yeesh! It IS serious.
What I saw in the HQ one-shot was Dini setting quite a lot of things up for the writers that were to come. He would’ve known he would not retain much control over her depiction so, it seems to me, he made the effort to provide a good resource of information for other writers. Unfortunately, it seems to have been too subtle for many (although many did get it)
1. Firstly - toughening Harley up from the outset. In the animated world it took quite a while before she started lashing back at Mistah J when he pushed too far. This Harley straight away does not tolerate rejection or betrayal. She comes back to open a can of whup-ass on him toot sweet.
2. Giving her enhanced ability thus enabling her to better survive the DCMU’s more lethal Joker. Increased strength and an immunity to toxins and poisons - like Joker’s smilex. Therefore, when on impulse this Joker might squirt her - she can survive.
3. Having Joker say it: ‘there’s a girl after my own heart - with a razor!’ - ‘ I’ve been reminded what it’s like… to care for someone who cares for me’. It’s right there, kids. From the man’s own mouth. Either to himself, or to Harley when he believed her about to die.
4. New dynamic with Ivy - the Ivy of the comics is a ruthless, misanthropic, remorseless killer. She has little interest in anyone but herself and plants. She gives Harley powers so Harley can take out the Bat. There’s camaraderie between the two but it’s not the friendship of the animated series. There’s potential there, but Ivy isn’t particularly interested in empowering Harley’s self-esteem (which could also do with the fact that this Harley’s self-esteem is quite a bit better than that of the DCAU Harley when they first meet). She is, in fact, using Harley to achieve her own ends. Nonetheless, the potential for a friendship is there, but it’s set off a different footing.
5. Establishing a sexual relationship exists between Joker and Harley.
Although I will concede that on this final point, Dini often seems to play it to please both sides - he infers just enough that you can interpret things either way and stops short of saying it outright. Personally, I’m convinced that sex did indeed happen, but others will swear up and down it did not. Big D has not really made it explicitly clear, just made it enough of a did they/didn’t they to drive everyone nuts.
Harley’s description of how she felt - how she was swooning and senseless with delight - is not the same as saying she was completely oblivious to what had happened. She’s not saying she doesn’t remember any sex. Ivy’s comment “drugged you, huh?” actually does not indicate that Ivy doesn’t think sex happened either - just that she thinks Joker drugged Harley.
So, I think they did the wild thing. I think the more interesting question to ask is whether or not this was the first time. Cos on that point, I’m not sure! Again, this is something that’s not clear. It seems to me people make the assumption it’s the first time simply because Harley hasn’t said anything about it before. I think it might’ve been, though, because of Joker’s response afterwards.
The sequence of events around this scene is as follows - Harley bounds off to distract Batman prompting Joker to say ‘now there’s a gal after my own heart - with a razor!’ This line indicates Joker feels some danger to himself from Harley - on the emotional level. What I interpret is Harley’s immediate action to help him actually touched him and his response to that is ‘uh-oh’. He thinks Harley will be squished by Batman and is impressed and surprised she got away from him. At this point, it’s back to the lair for the night of ‘sheer joy’. And the next day Joker lures her into a death trap. What it feels like to me is that Joker himself really got into this ‘magical evening‘ and it wasn’t just magical for Harley - and combined with the danger he felt earlier, it makes up his mind that he’s got to get rid of this girl before she really becomes dangerous. So I think there’s enough suggestion there that it was the first time and its intensity took Joker by surprise.
So there’s all that fabulous complex stuff about the relationship between Joker and Harley. It’s fun to watch Mistah J, usually so cool and in control, have himself quite torn around by this little minx who’s attached herself to him. Not only does she stir up uncomfortable feelings of tenderness, she proves to be amazingly resilient and almost hangs him out to dry! That oh so cute scene of Joker hanging by one hand, with Harley about to whack him over the head with a wrench only for Joker to say ‘would it help if I said I was sorry?’ and bam! All is forgiven! Plus Harley throwing Joker off the tower so he landed safely on the tent, to plonk herself in his lap and Joker going ‘am I dead?’ hehehehe! Soooo gloriously fabulous.
The art of this book, by Yvel Guichet, really suits the mood of it, somehow. It’s a little bit sort of ‘jagged’ for me at times, if that make sense, but on the whole I really love it. I love its style, how Joker and Harley and Ivy look and I love its ambience. It’s quite dark and quirky, as our two clowns are themselves. Guichet has a great way of capturing Joker’s attitudes and expressions and his Harley is so very, very cute. The colouring is also beautiful - it sort of manages to be both dark and vivid at once, the streets of Gotham shadow and gloomy but our two stars brilliant against it.
An actual artist would be able to give you a great critique on perspectives and shadows and stuff like that. But I really know SQUAT about all that stuff, which is why my reviews focus on the writing aspect. I can say 'it's good' or 'it's bad' with regards to the art, but not much more so I'm really sorry. But I do really like the art in this book. It's quite a cartoonish style in many ways, and suits the story. A part of me wishes that Harley's mainstream origin could've teamed Dini up with one of my fave Joker/Harley artists - Bruce Timm, Alex Ross - or Brian Bolland, though I know he doesn't really do books - but I'm pretty attached to Yvel too, for a few panels in particular that I really love which more than make up for me other panels that feel a bit 'stiff'.
This story gets full points from me for putting the scary, ruthless mainstream Mistah J with his harlequin and making it work so beautifully for both of them. Gotta love it!