I figured I've worked up enough inner strength to actually put myself through this issue. I'm sure it's probably not all that bad, seeing as how the Conner/Palmiotti cliche machine hasn't written all of this book. It still means there's going to be a lot of people involved and each will likely have their own interpretation of what it is to be Harley Quinn and DC won't care about continuity because hey, they're DC. It's kind of what they do. Or don't do......You know what I mean.
Anyway - in my opinion the second cover should have replaced the main cover - not just because it's the Dodson's and their beautiful classic Harley Quinn art but because it looks more like something she'd do. It ties into her circus theme and she's surrounded by toys of her criminal counterparts. The main cover is just some asshole ruining a cake and like a sad high school football player hanging onto their former glory... refuses to take off the sports gear.
Seriously though... that's a huge cake. And you're rendered it inedible by putting your various pasty body parts in it and letting your dog run around in it. Youuuu make me sick, Hardly Quinn.
Then we have this cover to make sure ALL variants of Harley have an equal chance to make money. Now this cover is fine, I guess, but at least the other two have the idea that there's some sort of celebration going on.
Here it's like she couldn't be more depressed while trying to be a bad ass. Yay, Harley's a sharp shooter instead of messing around with pop-guns! And for some reason has a cat head on a belt.. because she's... a Harley Quinn! Yeah!
Oh and they recycled that idiotic shirt from the movie. Ugh.
This page is like some rough draft of a Suicide Squad cover that Jim Lee already had available and he just said 'here ya go, I made this special for this comic.'
I have to assume this was followed up by a maniacal laugh and hand rubbing/beard stroking.
Story one: Diva Las Vegas - Conner & Palmiotti writers Paul Mounts & Dave Sharpe artists
Hardly and Red Tool are sitting in some dump, living in filth and waiting for some others to show up. They decide to play Truth or Dare while they're already playing a card game because Red Tool has to bring back that stupid roadtrip special that was brought out who remembers when because it sucked.
Yes, what other boring crap happened in Las Vegas because we're running out of new ideas for a comic, please tell us.We get out first scatological 'joke', which immediately follows some sex and murder 'jokes'..... you know, this whole comic series is obsessed with Hardly pooping, peeing, vomiting and any other bodily fluid excreting from anywhere.
Do these 'jokes' work for anyone at all or is this comic suddenly aimed at 5 year olds?
Anyway. Ivy narrowly misses a frontal collision which is apparently heroics in Hardly's eyes, even though Hardly was the one who almost caused the crash. They inadvertently save some casino tycoon's billions and he offers them some time in his penthouse as a really contrived, and really specific thank you (bathtub filled with milk for a kitten? And Catwoman didn't smack this guy down because..?).
Here lies the problems I have with Conner/Palmiotti's run on a golden platter. Hardly is one thing, but Catwoman and Poison Ivy are their characters in NAME ONLY to the point where you know they didn't replace them with generic Hardly Quinn entourage because they need the popularity that comes with their star power. Secondly.. these are all felons.
Sure, they have their heart of gold moments every now and then but here, they decide to throw a party in their gifted penthouse suite and you just know that no one is going to go "oh hey, isn't this the environmental terrorist? Isn't she the international cat burglar? And you, weren't you in the news for all those Joker breakouts/that time you killed all those kids/etc?"
There is literally no relation to any of their past comics/versions yet the characters themselves reference them ALL THE TIME.
Then of course, Hardly kills the person who gave her the damn penthouse in the first place because he couldn't lighten up enough to enjoy the party that was more than likely going to cost him a lot more in repairs and clean-up than what Hardly 'saved' for him from the robbers.
Following that, we're basically told that there was a huge sex bonanza in their gross mobile home wink wink and then Red Tool and Hardly Quinn go on to murder a bunch of human traffickers because that's what they do now.
Story Two: Birthday Blues - Paul Dini writer Chad Hardin artist
A couple more variants here.. nothing amazing but they're not bad either.This one on the left by Bengal is a bit of a mad love-esque tango with Dr. Harleen and her Harley Quinn costume. I'm surprised no-one's done this before actually.
The one on the right by Dustin Nguyen is a more arty image of Classic Quinn in her diamond motif on a water colour back ground.
This story opens up with Joker being handed a lot more mobile phones then he actually needs in his life by someone we can't see but is so obviously Poison Ivy.
Next we see Harley going to buy a birthday cake for herself but encountering technical difficulties.
Look, I know Americans have a unique cuisine but are pudding cakes a thing or is this shop assistant just deaf? Also... ugh. Why go to the effort of doing Classic Harley Quinn if she's going to be mega pasty anyway? If she was truly Classic Quinn she could have just shown her face and looked normal, not disguised herself as Carmen Freakin' San Diego just to go to a bakery of all places!
From there we time-skip and show the asshole brothers (that a) she canonically only has one brother and b) these little shits keep changing ages apparently) buying her a shirt that looks a lot like the Lil' Miss Daddy Issues outfit she was wearing in a recent shit house movie.
Boo-hoo, Batman didn't go easy on me when he found me robbing a bank vault on my other birthday..
Well that's surely proven how badly Harley has had it on birthdays and clearly needs no further explanation.
Wait, there's more explanation coming? Fine. Joker bails on this birthday for a yacht club job and Harley decides to keep it low key and off herself in the oven after Ivy first laughs at her and then hangs up on her.
The cake she shares with Bud and Lou is kinda cute, dinosaurs tearing apart Batman... icing in blue and red.. ugh. New52 Blue and Red? Gross. Also, cake probably not good for hyenas.
Anyway, Joker calls her across town to the pier where - OMG, it's like, a total surprise party!If only there was some way of telling this was going to happen.
We have Catwoman dressed like her original animated self, classic Poison Ivy, the Wonderland Gang (including a depressed looking Walrus) and... others.
I don't know what's worse - Dini appropriating Hardly Quinn's "Holeeeee something-stupid-or-oleee"catchphrase or the sickeningly lovey dovey crowd of villains hugging.
Yeah, turns out Ivy poisoned Joker with something that only gets worse if he gets mad - super convenient - and literally everyone that was called to this last minute gig had time to buy and wrap a present for Harley Quinn and weren't involved in any other crimes/shenanigans at all.
Story three: Somewhere that's Green! - David Kibblesmith writer David Lafuente artist
Now this cover by Babs Tarr embodies what I'm worried about when I hear they're making a Gotham City Sirens movie.Trashy punk Quinn overshadowing T&A Catwoman and Poison Bi-vy queer baiter.
This one by Annie Wu at first reminded me of the scene in Harry Potter where he's bombarded with letters but then I realise she's trashing some random's office because she's so bad ass. Yeah, totally.
This comic opens with a pre-tween looking Hardly and super valley girl Ivy walking into a shopping centre and it's fair to say I'm a little perturbed about this. Some super hurricane is bearing down on New York and everyone's gone berserk. Some people are planning to fatten/eat their cats/spouses, and they even bring their cats to the grocery store. Yikes. If this stuff freaks out Hardly Quinn, you know it's bad.
Hardly makes some social commentary about the vegetables being avoided even in the wake of the apocalypse and then realises that she doesn't know what Poison Ivy eats these days.
Turns out it's mostly light, which doesn't explain why she's come to the supermarket. Anyway, Swamp Thing jumps out of some rutabagas to tell Ivy that with their green connection, maybe they can convince the hurricane to piss off.
Is anyone else getting sick of this 'green connection' being shoved down our throats lately? Does Swamp Thing actually do anything else these days or just harass other plant people?
Haha burn. Also, baby clown? Why do people seem to call Hardly a clown more often these days despite her constantly looking less and less like a clown, and being more violent than funny?
Despite being super worried about the hurricane before, Hardly's immediate action is to start wailing on Swamp Thing. That's fine though, because apparently this gives Swamp Thing the idea of hitting the hurricane's eye with a giant hammer. Which saves the day and clearly needs no further explanation.
Story Four: Bird Psychology - Chip 'Zdark Knight' Zdarsky writer Joe Quinones artist
So this is a busy cover - it's literally giving me a headache - this cross eyed Hardly surrounded by mini versions of herself and like one Classic Harley/Suicide Squad Harley/one with batwings...Thanks for the head pain Greg Tocchino. I'll remember that if I ever come across you.
The other cover for this one (Kamone Shirahama) I'm sure I've seen plastered all over the internet prior to this comic being released.
I think it's actually kind of cute, even if it's a Maggot Robbie-esque bending over Suicide Squad piece of shit. Look, this is as much as a compliment that I can give about this stupid bastardisation, I suppose I should be grateful she's not bending over MORE to lean over level onto a baseball bat - what height is she supposed to be? She's in heels FFS.
On the splash page, I'm actually impressed with the level of detail here. Even just having a floor - hell, the last story may as well have taken place in limbo instead of a supermarket there was so little background detail. Here though, we can see the Smylex girls from Burton's Batman, the surf board from the 60's Batman show, the laughing clown machine from The Killing Joke and apparently on this level of awesome there is.... the Suicide Squad jacket. Ugh. At least it has her name on it and not just 'Property of Joker' - mmmMmmm, that's progressive!
 |
| Still not a fan of those creepy hand chairs though. |
Joker dreams about Batman gearing up to fight him as he whips up some mechanical death traps. Later on, his plan is revealed as he sets his pyjama wearing goons on Batman and Robin. I think one's dressed as Garfield, but not well enough so that they'll get sued.
Both Robin and Harley are chafing at being sidelined side-kicks. Harley's got yet another outfit but this one seems more in line with a circus act so I don't mind it too much. At first I was like ugh, chalky legs but then I realised that they're tights so that's fine.
 |
| I think the super loose belt and collar would be annoying though IRL |
Turns out Joker's pyjama themed bash is a prelude to knocking everyone out for a 48hr time period but not taking into consideration people driving or performing surgery etc which incidentally, was similar to some of my qualms about Sleeping Beauty. Maybe not the driving part but still, it was very careless of those fairies. Guards on the outskirts of the castle could have been eaten by bears or some shit. Not ideal.
Robin goes to stop the bomb and Harley follows to stop him.
I like Harley's mallet converting into a baseball bat. She analyses Robin while taunting him but then it gets a bit too deep and personal about Robin's dead parents cursing him in his sleep.
It really looks like this is the end for Robin and the gas is going to go off with the bomb....
This is a classic Harley Quinn bit because she can be reasoned with and when she can't justify what she's doing with Joker to herself anymore, she will step in to do the right thing.
It's a huge factor in why Harley was so popular in my opinion - she is a redeemable person and her turn arounds never feel like an after school lesson in ethics.
She lost this part of her characterisation following the New52 when they changed her into a violent psychopathic murderer with no redeeming features whatsoever.
Now this part of the comic ends with another small adjustment to Harley and Joker's relationship to make it more socially acceptable but I don't mind this change too much either because you're not sure if Harley's telling the truth about knowing how Joker's mind works given she's his psychiatrist or if she's just rationalising her love in a way that shuts Batman up.
This is my favourite part of this comic so far. I like that Robin knows that she stopped the bomb even though it meant she was captured and separated from the Joker.
He comes away from the fight with a bit more understanding about their foe, and he also gets Batman's praise.
Joker gets away but the henchdudes and Harley are stopped.
So seemingly, everyone wins?
Wotta Comedian!
Joker: Digger, you ol' wall-eyed wombat! I've got a job for you and your fractured frisbees....
Harley: Sooo... change a' plans. I'm thinkin' a movie, Chinese food, maybe stick my head in the oven. Wanna come over?
Captain Boomerang: Many happy "returns!" Get it? Boomerang..? Returns...?
Harley: Rollickin' rutabagas! The vegetables heard me call 'em disgusting and now they wants revenge!
Swamp Thing: In what universe.... could Harley Quinn... fistfight the Swamp Thing?
Newsreader/weather guy: This is exactly why I got into meteorology, folks.
Harley: Hey! It's a psychology journal! Some real interestin' stuff, too!
Joker: Pfft! The worst kind of trashy romance, you nerd!
Joker: So much resistance to nap-time!
Harley: See, make fun of Mistah J all you want, but at least he knows he's crazy!
The Short End of the Jester Schtick
As usual, it's a mixed bag. Some I like, some I hated and some that could have been done better.
There's no point blathering on about how shit Conner/Palmiotti's part is with the lame characterisation and obscenely stupid plots but they just seem to go the extra mile to take me out of the comic like when Hardly does the fourth wall break grin at the 'camera' after running into all the Elvis impersonators or her blatant murdering as attempted comedy or whatever the hell the ass-kissing Red Tool is even doing in this comic seeing as Harley is either sleeping with him or ignoring him or flat out treating him like shit.
Ohhhh, is this supposed to be a reflection of what she *USED* to be like? And now because she's a Strong Female CharacterTM it's okay that she treats someone else like shit because they like her?
The birthday comic by Dini was kinda bland which is a shame because I thought he would have had a much better story to write for his creation. I know I'm overthinking what's obviously meant to be a light hearted birthday fluff comic but still. All these villains having each other's phone numbers, all of them - even random ones like Captain Boomerang either hanging out in Gotham City or travelling there at really short notice? Shyeah-right.
Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing should have gotten their own comic instead of being shoe-horned into a vaguely clown themed comic where someone who has no relation to anything green at all like, totally saves the day for no apparent reason. I've consumed enough American media to know that New Yorkers are extremely patriotic about their general area of living (even though most New Yorkers seem to legitimately hate every other New Yorker for living there) but it seems silly that they would all panic about a weather event. I mean, New York is pretty much the next stop after Washington DC for any major alien invasion/disaster movie so you'd think these guys would have a survival plan and a back up ration supply at home instead of running to the super market and fighting over cat food.
The way Hardly 'punished' the hurricane for existing at the end just read like a super obnoxious and much less useful version of Sailor Moon. Also the art wasn't that bad, but it was very confusing to me that Hardly looked like a legitimate tweenager from the nineties and that her and Ivy had built in knee pads instead of knee caps.
Which brings me to the last story, and in my opinion the best one in the whole issue.
I personally feel that this was the only story that had some weight to it, the art was better than the rest and the characterisation was pretty top notch apart from the Joker at the very start being a friendly bully? That part read kinda weird.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Play nice or play dead! Harley Quinn's rules!