Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey #2

Well here am I, sat in front of an uphill battle of reviewing something that is admittedly out of date and even after a long hiatus I'm out of patience for. Self loathing is a trip, I tell ya. 

August 2020

Same as last issue, written by Palmiotti and Conner again with Conner still doing the art. As you probably know by reading nearly any of my blog posts (another fun word for them is rants!) these guys aren't my favourites. Conner's art is fairly clean, which I appreciate but... 

Eh. As much as the taglines like to spout that these guys really push the boundaries, push the envelope, push the shopping trolleys, push the fourth wall and anything else that needs a shove... they really don't. This is the exact same as their other Harley Quinn run - from the cover layout that I've seen a million times before, the over explained re-cap with a zillion speech bubbles, the billion other characters that Harley is given precedence over, the trillion times we're reminded that Harley is now a crass horndog who really doesn't care about anyone else and the bajillion times we have to hear the same unfunny beaver jokes. 

If I can say something nice about the cover, it's that I like the Harley grenade and the logo is fairly inoffensive. The rest is just... really generic and flat. It's clear Conner loves making this art... but I know she can do better (well, maybe) and not be as lazy as this. 

So, as mentioned earlier we have a huge recap complete with over dramatic Harley even though nothing really happened in the last issue. Well things did happen, but it's nothing that Harley cares about, it's just a lame pretense for her to run away from her girlfriend troubles or the mundane issues like helping her friends recover and find a home because she wants revenge on the eeeevil loan mob she chose to deal with, even though she literally just murdered a huge bunch of them and didn't pay them the money she owed because she was off trying to simultaneously smooch and kill Ivy. 

This is not me being a Harley hater. This is me re-capping what the Harley in this series alone has done. She decided her best course of action was to take a fun road trip to get away from her immediate problems instead of helping her friends and co-workers. 

The Gang of Harleys almost died, they're homeless and with the exception of maybe Coach - they've lost their FREAKING EYEBALLS! 

It just got straight up Little Orphan Annie in here! 

Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey

You can probably guess that I've put off reviewing this one for as long as I can.

April 2020

The creative team that transformed Harley Quinn forever returns to shake up her world once more-and this time, the gloves are off! Harley Quinn has avoided Gotham City ever since she broke up with The Joker and found a home, and a kind of family, in Coney Island. But when she gets an offer she can’t refuse, she has no choice but to slip back into the city as quietly as she can, hoping to be gone before anyone-especially her ex-learns she’s been there. But for Harley, “as quietly as she can” is plenty loud…and before she can say “Holee bounty hunters, Batman,” The Joker’s sicced every super-villain in the city on her pretty ombré head-and the only team tough enough (or crazy enough) to come to her defense is the Birds of Prey! The foul-mouthed, no-holds-barred sequel to one of DC’s raciest runs is here! Get on board early, before we come to our senses!

So, the team that messed up Harley Quinn for iterations to come decided to break their 'Harley Quinn retirement' now that there's more media focus on her than usual, they can smell the dinero from a mile away.. and in doing so are going to schlock out their usual off brand catch phrases, show how absolutely annoying their Harley is, and forget that she's been seen in and out of Gotham several times during their run.

Going from that blurb, this is meant to be a direct sequel to the recent movie I guess?

The cover already made me lose what little hope I had. Here are five women of diverse nationalities who all have the exact same face and body type.  The characters in the movie (if you can call it that) were already so distanced from their comic counterparts, but here while they look a bit more like the characters they're meant to be - we still get to tell them apart by their accessories. 

LOL Montoya has doughnuts, she must be a cop! Ha, Cassandra is such a little cat burglar, look at her hoodie with cat ears and how she's stolen Huntress' arrows! 

Also.. are the Birds in Coney Island because otherwise what's with this backdrop of Harley's hotel full of her extended roster of bit-parters if she's supposed to be in Gotham? 

The only thing I LIKE about this cover is the can that says "Oh, happy spray!" but come on, that's not exactly original either, is it?

Birds of Prey: Sirens of Justice #1

Not content with her own comic empire, a successful Gotham City Sirens run and a miserable attempt to encroach on the Birds of Prey universe via cinematic vomit, DC has decided to combine all three of these elements to make this Birds of Prey: Sirens of Justice - The inclusion of one Harley Quinn.

Sigh.

At least going from the cover art and the involvement of one Gail Simone, this should be better than that hideous movie-comic tie-in we had before.

Fight or Flight
May 2020
Writer: Simone
Cover: Lupacchino and McCaig
Interiors art: Miranda

As much as this cover is actually visually appealing - I'm a bit concerned that Harley is basically wearing as knock off version of Canary's outfit. Remember that old design guideline where it was basically law for any TV show/movie/comic etc that had more than one female, that they all had to wear a different style top etc? Anime fans would be familiar with uniformed school girls having extremely varied socks - same kinda thing.

They even go as far as to include fishnets on Harley's get up though - like.. a blonde wearing fingerless gloves, jacket, booty shorts with the same belt, fishnets and then the matching mid-calf black boots? COME ON. That job's been taken already!

I really wish they had taken a page from some of the other outfits Harley has worn, like Arkham City, Assault on Arkham, Gotham City Garage, Joker TPB, Injustice and even the rare Suicide Squad where she has pants and a functional looking outfit..


The interior art is  very much a step below the cover. I'm not really a fan of Miranda's art. At least here there is a bit more to differentiate Harley and Canary, although I stand by my previous comments about Harley needing a better outfit because she looks ridiculously out of place compared to the people she's with, to the extend someone could have poorly photo-shopped her in.
The background work is very nice though, so points for that.

Happy about Simone being back in the saddle - her dialogue between the Birds seems natural and fits their respective personalities, plus her Harley sounds less like an inbred hick and more like someone who genuinely has a bit of an accent/dialect.

My first issue with this first issue though is that it opens on "Later. Ten blocks away and thirty stories up..." which could work for the intrigue aspect but it just happens way too often in comics. Like, flitting between then and now is fine, but didn't we used to just have the comic open and THEN have the later/earlier sequence pop up? This reeks of Conner/Palmiotti. Ugh.

Next issue is immediate.
Harley Quinn is making all the decisions for a team she's not even in and everyone else just goes with it, while making vague comments about her mental capacity.

Birds of Prey Episode 6: Primal Scream

Well, it's been a while since I've done one of these, and even though this iteration is elseworlds, it's still more canon than the "Birds of Prey" movie so let's go!

Detective Reece fiddles with the fancy new ring he got out of a Christmas cracker, then lo and behold...HUNTRESS APPEARS! She had to wait until the ambulance passing distracted him so she could make her grand arrival, so she was probably sitting up a tree waiting patiently for a few minutes. He's impressed by her timing, she's bragging about her speed like she's a pizza delivery or courier mail service, he wants to get onto talking about kicking it up a notch in their relationship, she's not sold and I'm over here thinking HOW did she know where he was AND how did she get there so fast, she just has to be stalking this guy, seriously.

Anyway, they're off flirting or whatever it is that's not an emergency but meanwhile, the club is getting shot up by a bunch of motorcycle dorks wearing animal head pieces. I mean, I'm kinda impressed by the skill it must have took to ride the motorbike and hold up a club while wearing something that may impede your vision, but the furry in me is offended at how lazy their costumes are. I mean, just the heads? No tails or anything?? Maaaaan!

That said, it may not just be a gang gimmick because when the bartender pulls a gun, Cathead does some super speed ninja-ing to save a wolf friend. Props for this one thug to go the cartoon route when their colleagues clearly decided on an ultra-realistic theme. You might even say this lone wolf went against the pack mentality? Hehehe.

Then just to show she's super cool, cat lady downs a random drink at the bar which is a very bad example. I mean, that drink could have been spiked, backwashed in, or just taste feral.
This gang at least seem to care enough about each other, and are also their own hype men. But wait... why does cat lady have a similar necklace to the one Helena was wearing? Her penchant for leather outerwear and fancy violence?? Probably because...

*pause for dramatic reveal*

It IS Helena!

Birds of Prey trailer released

You know why it's called a trailer? Because they're often linked to vehicles. As in.. my fears are becoming founded.. and Maggot Hurley is just erasing the entire awesome of Birds of Prey in favour of a Harley Quinn fame train because.. because she has Hollywood clout.. and likes herself too much I guess? I'm not linking it, if you wanna waste half a minute of your life then you can search for it.

The actual title of this movie is
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Well...... when a 34 second clip of a DC comics title Harley Quinn has literally nothing to do with shows about 25 seconds of Maggot Hurley swanning around acting drunk and trying to do the seductive lollipop thing but failing miserably... aaaand the ACTUAL Birds of Prey get squished into a couple of seconds with a hideous amount of quick shots - so quick you can barely tell what's going on and who anyone is. Plus, the titular Birds have to share this time with what's supposed to be the villains, I guess and then the whole 'fade to black/see you soon' thing.


So... that's really disappointing. Not gonna lie.

Besides, you can't just whip out a fantabulous word like you're a knock off Willy Wonka!
Girl, you're not even a second rate drag queen!

"Guess who went dumpster bin op-shopping again! .....MEEEE!!!!"

I remember reading something she said back when Suicide Squad was about to come out - something about how she read a couple of comics and just didn't 'get' the character. Man, this is becoming clearer and clearer each day. I mean, I GET wanting to make a 'new' version of a character for the big screen, I do. Lord knows everyone else freakin' has their own version of Harley Quinn. At the same time, if you're not going to even be true to a tiny bit of the character's origins... why bother?

Next it'll be an unfunny Joker, a Batman that shoots people and a Superman that doesn't care.
OH WAIT.

Birds of Prey episode 2: Slick

Thus begins our recap of episode two of Birds of Prey. 

Above, we have the cast as predominantly featured in the comic series. 

Barbara Gordon and Black Canary are the main characters followed closely by Huntress. The roster usually varies but here we have Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blake) as well as Hawk and Dove (Hank Hall and Dawn Granger respectively) 

As you might remember, the television show is only loosely based on this series and I think that's partly why it didn't go over so well with audiences that weren't ready to comprehend alternate universe Bat-characters and bad special effects. 

Barbara Gordon - former Batgirl and current Oracle survived the transition pretty seamlessly. Huntress here is actually the offspring of Batman and Catwoman and is meta-human. Which means she's got half of her mother's random cat powers and all of her dad's gloomy attire and punchiness. 

Dinah is the most random.. she's super young and has mental based powers. 

Harley Quinn in Gotham

It's time. Yes. Due to the laws of thermoquinatics, Harley Quinn or a version of her, must appear on the live action Gotham TV show.

You kniow, when this show first came out, I was intrigued but not really a fan? I would still watch it, but I'd be making snarky comments and then something would happen that was so stupid or way out of left field that I'd just be like, fine!

Now, Harley has been in live action a few times. First of all was in Bird of Prey, a suuuuper nineties show that wasn't quite done well enough to be popular but if you can look past the cringey heroes, the main antagonist (who, like her comic counterpart, tends to work in the shadows and pull strings) Harley Quinn is actually not bad. 

Played by Mia Sara

I plan to do an actual post on this version of Harley Quinn later but I'll just say that I much prefer the 'smart' villain approach instead of the 'wheee I'm crazy and have a baseball bat!' trend.

It was nice seeing her get into the hero's mind as their psychiatrist - they literally walk into her den - and while she only shows her crazy crazy side towards the last episode, it's a nice reminder of how scary someone who appears nice but is actually manipulative and scheming can be.