Nerdy Investigations: New 52 Harley Quinn

Earlier in a New52 Suicide Squad post, I asked myself what made writer Adam Glass change Harley Quinn so much when I remember him saying he was such a fan. In comic terms, this revamp may as well have been a few decades ago instead of back in 2011 but hey.

I decided to do some digging to try and find the interview I was recalling. 

We're not just going to focus on the outfit but mind you.. you have to point out what an extreme change she went through with her duds alone,  never mind her personality. 

For one thing, she went from a harlequinn to someone whose only visual cue that they were linked to clowns at one time was the ruffle collar and her kind of two toned theme with some diamonds sprinkled around. And even those are pushing it. For someone unfamiliar with the premise of Harley Quinn, she could be a renaissance era hooker or something. It's like someone asked Jim Lee to draw a Harley Quinn revamp and he only heard the word 'harlot'. 

Alright, sex worker jokes and slut shaming is not the way I want to go about this. So, let's compare two other revamps to how Harley Quinn was re-imagined.

So there was this one time when someone thought this was an awesome idea for Superman.

Everyone hated it, and he was soon back to fighting evil in his underoos which is more iconic and makes more money for DC.

With the Harley costume hate, DC decided it was better to keep it and ride the gravy train of publicity.









The other one I want to bring up is Catman. I was only introduced to Catman in Gail Simone's fantabulous Secret Six series. Originally created way back in 1963, he was a cat themed villain (duh) much like Catwoman and often got into scrapes with her as well as the Bat.

Eventually, he became a bit of a joke - that he was nothing like his old self but rather out of shape, dying his hair to make him look more bad-ass, all that jazz. This was in 2003 in a Green Arrow comic.

Then Gail Simone stepped in in 2005.

Is Harley Quinn a Mary Sue?

It's the name almost every writer and fan dreads to hear... Mary Sue.

It's a term used to describe a writer insert character... as in, this character is so blank it's an opportunity for the reader to insert themselves into the character's shoes and live out some brief wish fulfilment. It describes a character who has seemingly no flaws, who is loved by all and is so skilled or unusually gifted that it's kind of ridiculous.

Notably used, perhaps unfairly for mainly female characters. For example, no one bats an eye that a young Luke Skywalker - a dust farmer from butt pluckin' nowhere picks up the force fairly easily and ends up helping to bring down the Empire. Anakin had a similar story with a tragic ending but still rose to power pretty quickly. But if Rey does it - also from the same planet, at around the same age or maybe younger - she's a Mary Sue.

Luke uses his Womp Rat shootin' skills to take down a Death Star, Anakin is the only human good enough to build and race Pods...Rey uses her mechanical know how to fly the Falcon as good as Han and Chewie. All have a natural aptitude for the Force.
Why is it different?

In saying that, yes, there are still horrible examples of Mary Sue (or Gary Stu) characters out there. Probably the most famous one of recent times is Bella Swan from Twilight.

Harley Quinn takes over Batman Day??!?!!

Okay so it's Harley Quinn's 25th anniversary this year and DC is going to celebrate by giving her several covers for other issues (they haven't done THAT in a while, right?) as well as giving her Batman's annual celebration... wait, what? 

Yes, the fourth year Batman had a celebration after reaching a 75 year milestone... and he gets kicked off for a character who's only at the 25 year mark? Huh?

As much as I like Harley Quinn... it pains me that we have yet to have a Wonder Woman or Superman celebration.. or you know.. a day for any other good character that will never see the light of day as long as the Quinn is making money. It's also painful that they're celebrating Harley Quinn's 25th year after pretty much destroying what made her popular in the first place and replacing it with a.. look there's no other word for it. OBNOXIOUS ASSHOLE. 

Seriously, check out this panel and tell me it's not obnoxious. Go on, I'll wait for you while you read it, roll your eyes a few times, skull several neat whiskey's and then drag yourself back to this page. 

The other thing that pisses me off is that we also had International Talk like a Pirate day this month and it got less attention than this crap.

Harley Quinn in Top Ten Characters list

Just so you know, this is going to be a re-post of someone else's blog. It is not mine, and if you want to check out the author's original post, there is the link below.

Please check it out, because they're a lot more well written than I am most times and they're really good at articulating their thoughts.

The reason I'm going to re-port the entire part about Harley Quinn is because of how close to home it hits and it's something I want to put more out there - and save it so I can go back to it and remember I'm not alone in my despair over Hardly Quinn.

Please don't forget, when we talk about Harley Quinn being a shitty character, I mean the new Harley Quinn as portrayed in her monthly comic, not the classic one, the animated one or any of her game versions etc. Heck, even the one depicted in the Suicide Squad comics are the lesser of two evils. How did that happen???

The Top Ten Worst Marvel and DC Characters List by B List Defender.

The entire list is comprised of (highest to low) Cable, Bane, New 52 Lobo, New 52 Wonder Woman, New 52 Superman, Batman, New 52 Starfire, Gwenpool, Deadpool and Harley Quinn.

Rebirth Harley Quinn #23

Cover one: usual blah versions of Harley Quinn as depicted by Connor. A lot of the images aren't even reminiscent of the versions they're supposed to be - their stock standard Hardly Quinn is front and centre - including their weird 'punk rocker' Quinn. Others like Bombshell Harley are given cross eyes and shoved off centre, Arkham Asylum Harley has the wrong colours (ironically) and none of the attitude that made her popular. The best parts of this is when they rip off someone else's style - like Dodson's Harley Quinn or even the hideous original Suicide Squad Harley Quinn complete with pinprick crazy eyes. They've even given her hyena puppies for some reason. You don't get hyena pups because they're cute... you get them because you are so awesome you rise above conventional pets!!

Which makes cover two look like a piece of gosh darned valuable art. I've often criticised the second covers because even though they're beautiful and they're usually Quinn at her most Harley-ish style wise.. they're bland. The backgrounds are non-existent and Harley's usually doing something that doesn't mesh with her new personality. Like use a bike or a swing set without killing anyone.

This one has motion and looks great. Just don't look too closely or you might ask why they need dance steps to jive to the Batman soundtrack which they aren't even following anyway. They keep shoe-horning that freakin' dog in there too. Can you feed him or something? He looks starved for attention and/or food.

Rebirth Harley Quinn #22

Again with the two covers cash grab. This is a constant with Hardly Quinn comics, constantly milking their cash cow. The first one doesn't really work for me but I can appreciate the attempted humour. The classic style cover is pretty, but doesn't offer anything apart from the realisation that the outfit looks weird without the eye piece.

Yes, Hardly's Unusually Jewish Parents have come to visit for.. some.. reason that's crucial to the plot. I think.

They don't introduce them very well in my opinion. We don't actually know how much THEY know about their corpse like daughter and if they - like the rest of the friggin' world - seem to have forgotten that she was kind of an associate to a mass murdering psychotic clown and has put her doctorates to a great use behind bars.

Instead we get to hear about how much they experimented before marriage and how they think she's got a skin condition.

Now even if they didn't realise their daughter is a murdering whack job... do they not even recognise eco-terrorist Poison Ivy?

REBIRTH HARLEY QUINN #20 - Blast from the Future: Right back at ya!

Keeping up with the variant schtick again trying to get people to buy two issues...
Here we have generic Hardly Quinn reminiscing about how she used to be awesome and classic-esque Harley Quinn swinging around with a puppy, because apparently she forgot she had hyenas or something. Whatever.

We open up on a generic dingy motel that isn't drawn very well... it looks like the cheap wooden cabins we stayed in at school camp as opposed to a dingy motel you could be proud to carry out some illegal activities in.

I think it's raining, but  it could be archery/spear practise. More information on that later.

Harley Sinn is already a better thug than Hardly is, feeding her captives, speaking English, having a chat, and heck, she's already made me laugh when she reason's out why she can't shoot them both in the face.

Both Mason and Macabre, when un-gagged, choose to grill Sin about Quinn instead of asking 'where are we going? who are you? Why have you kidnapped us? Are we going to die? What is this generic takeaway food?'

Yeah, what's your beef with Quinn, Sin? How could anyone EVER hate Hardly? I'd say good question but every issue she's in just seems to cement the fact that she's an annoying overbearing murderer with bad colour co-ordination soo.....?

REBIRTH HARLEY QUINN #20 - Blast from the Future

Usual cover not too bad actually, despite pimping out various incarnations of Harley Quinn to attract fans from all areas while the variant.. I don't know.. that face.. she looks politely puzzled as if she's saying "Why do I have all these cats? Why am I here? Where's my makeup? Why am I sitting calmly in this no-where place?"
Sadly, no one knows. Just like this comic, that cover will be swallowed in a sink hole of unanswered questions and misguided attempts at humour.

Speaking of misguided - we open on anorexia poster child Hardly pretending to shed a tear for all the homeless folks.

This, I don't buy. For one thing, she's never really be shown to give a shit about anyone but herself and secondly, is she stupid? Some of these homeless people are probably so far under the radar that they wouldn't be able to be identified easily even if they weren't all mushed together with everyone else's skeletons. Also, what day is this? What sort of friggin' turn around on DNA tests was she expecting? Wasn't she supposed to be smart? 

Also also, what sort of jerk wears cleavage baring tops and low slung pants to a gosh darned memorial? I suppose we should be grateful that she's occasionally allowed to wear pants, even if she does look like a starved killer whale. 

REBIRTH HARLEY QUINN #19 - Red Meat - Sucking the Marrow out of the Party

Alright, props for the variant cover for at least giving me a laugh. That actual cover seems like it should have been used as a cover for the start of the whole Red Meat saga of doom instead of where it is.

Anyway, here we have Hardly waking up in a pile of bones and talking about Holeee Something or oleees TM. 




She imagines a skull that could be Skipper but probably isn't has a fuller and more interesting life than she does while she callously breaks it's teeth to help herself out.

Then, not only does she pick a lock in two seconds, but she finds hair ties and a cache of weapons, because of course.

Of course she does.

Red Tool does his best/worst Deadpool impersonation and manages to screw himself up, and kill some random dude on the way down, but it's okay because he was misogynistic for the two seconds we saw of him and the woman saved from him thinks it's cool and not a matter of 'how am I going to explain this to the boss and the cops while not looking like a main suspect?'




The hobo stealers have been told to leave town but they're all like, no way man, you're not my supervisor! Not sure why there has been a big deal made over this because it's in their best interest and seems like the plot could have used some incentive like, oh, a time frame or something to make it a bit more compelling.

Hardly busts out and she's ready to wail on everyone, because that's what she does now in her Social Justice Warrior persona.

REBIRTH HARLEY QUINN #18 - Red Meat Abduction Reduction

It's a strange state of affairs when I find myself more preferential to the Rebirth Hardly Cover instead of the variant showing Classic Harley gazing adoringly at a Suicide Squad Hardly outfit.
Pee-yeew that's so on the nose,  it honestly stinks.

Anyway, in the last shitty instalment of this comic, Hardly was abducted after posing as a wannabe homeless person and now people are trying to eat her.

I for one, welcome our new cannibalising overlords.

But first, here's some random crap thrown in as part of the plot. It's Gotham in 2167!

Good lord, who would want to see the cesspit of Gotham now let alone the future? Anyway, some random girl named Catie... ugh. I see the future didn't fix any spelling issues with kids names.

Anyway, she's being sent on some time jump mission to take down Hardly Quinn in present day. But she's not in Gotham? Oh well.

I for one, welcome our new Terminator overlords.

They clearly have their priorities straight and the art in these few pages is already better than the current comic by a mile. Did they add this in to kick themselves when they were down?

I for one, support this.