Suicide Squad #21 - Interview with the Quinn-pire

Yeaaaah, that time again. Another 'Harley Quinn' is 'something' in a weird outfit with no pupils on a Suicide Squad cover. This time it's a Belle Reve - not Reeve? - warden with an appalling abdomen.

Anyway, opening on a Las Vegas spread for some reason, in comic Harley is wearing pants because cover Harley is stupid. Again, we never really know what the squad is supposed to be doing but, you know, whatever. Edgy new DC universe! *cough*

I mean, surely there's some heroes that could be saving the world from whatever the hell that Clayface thing is? Shouldn't the Suicide Squad be covering up Waller's boo-boos from detection? No? Oh, okay then.

'Nuff said in comic-world.

Now an edgy flashback showing Harley in her weird fluffy kitty romper suit onsesie snuggie stabbing the unknown and un cared about soldier. Well, I'm sure we've all been there. You know, hardened soldier ready for anything working for a covert secret OPS thing, killing people for playing scrabble badly... when suddenly a woman from said sneaky covert killing team appears and seduces you in two seconds!! When, oh when will there be a defence created for this dangerous situation?!?!

Must be why he wears so many bandages then.

Stabby Saturdays.. the usual routine.

Waller pulls the usual 'ERMAGERD, Get to Hardly Quinn's cell, like, five minutes ago youse guys!' 
Does anyone else feel the de ja vu? Seems like every other issue someone cracks a beef about being on this inane team, goes berserk, Waller cracks a shit and then we go round in circles again.

Anyway, here's some panels of awkward running shots as Harley spouts useless junk again. Waller makes an obvious pun about her weight issues with the lock down password being 'shallowhal' of all things. OH NOES! Lock down failed but at least her trained serial killer can sniff out stabbed felons successfully. That's something. Much like seeing Waller's side boob question things.

Did ...... did I just write that?

I have often wondered about what boobs think about. 

Harley is threatened by Waller about having her head blown off - you know, the old stand by - but Harley won't fall for that. For one thing, her skanky butt's all over the next few covers and for another Waller's threats are empty, only sidekicks no one cares about get their heads blown off, the ones she wants just get shot and then lazarussed back to their imitation life.

'Lookit. Mah. Gangsta. Skeelz.' 

Wow, did anyone else just cringe as hard as I did? Well, she's got the 'gangsta' broken English down pat. The size of her stupid collar fluctuates wildly as she captures Waller and invites the clockwork orange Deadshot for a ....'tickle party.' Ooh, there's that cringe again. 

Deadshot kills a few well meaning guards with another stupid comment about being a doctor. No, that's a stupid catchphrase Harley Quinn could actually USE seeing as how she IS a damn doctor but one day you might get it right. Anyway, Cheetah only gets a few panels this issue and spends them locked up begging for freedom but is denied on account of the fact that she's Cheetah. I assume. Does Deadshot just set himself up to be attacked later on by potential team mates or what?

Now it's time for annoying cliché therapist with Harley asking the usual 'and how does that make you feel' bullshite. Then she says it's good for sorting out her 'feelz'. She's hip, she's with it, she knows all of the cool kid's lingo..? Hey Harley, Dr. Evil called, he wants his hipness back!

Burn. 

Err.... well.... whatever. Deadshot inevitably meets up with the unnamed plot device and challenges him to a fist fight, which he subsequently cheats at. Way to go, protagonist. Who brings fists to a gunfight and then gets the one with the gun to decide that he hasn't been stabbed in the back (or stomach) enough lately and then fails at shooting AND holding a gun. 

Maybe their next fight will be rock paper scissors.

Can we get a credentials check on Mr. Soldier? Was he ever in the army? 

Deadshot also gets taken out, because he's an idiot. Mr. Soldierface is really taken out but no one cares. Harley discovers a secret drone pilot thingy and assures us that she reads stuff about this stuff. Because she's smart. This comic really needs to sort out what to do with Harley. I'm sick of seeing intense close ups of her face showing us how eeeeevil and dark and hardcore she is now.

I'm so hardcore, you don't even know. 

Part of the reason original Harley was so lovable was that she was the threat you never saw coming. Put Harley in a room with Poison Ivy, everyone keeps their eyes on Pamela, ignores Harley sneaking up with a mallet. Put Joker in a room with Harley, and he's the dangerous one despite the fact that he may not even be there at all and Harley is the one pulling the strings. Because no one suspects her. 

She was always overlooked but had great potential for evil psychopath business which when written appropriately made for great comics, like her appearances in the Catwoman incarceration phase. Harley used her psychiatry knowledge and ability to push buttons to manipulate a whole jail without anyone realising, plan a crime spree using Catwoman as a cover but genuinely taking medical care of her. That and she could actually use her normal appearance to make disguises. 

This Hardly Quinn is being pushed in our faces as a threat while trying to pull the 'cute little psycho' schtick. As a fan, I'm always keen for more and better written Harley appearances but I'm hating her as a main character because I'm sick of being TOLD how deadly she is. I want to see it behind the scenes where no one suspects. I'm sick of her trying to be so kewl with her stupid outfit and catchphrases. Every time this comic makes her seem smart, they take it away by having her say really out dated and stupid things. Trying way too hard to make these outcasts the heroes while establishing how hardcore evil they are. Have you even heard of Secret Six? Because THEY could write this stuff in their sleep! 

Anyway, Psycho Jr comes back and finds Waller in some of the soldier's clothing items and Harley being a dork about rumours she's totally heard from the outside while on the inside. Come on! Waller wants Jr to shoot Harley and I agree with her as Harley can't even comprehend why Jr isn't wanting her job that she never actually offered him as they have JUST MET. Like now. When he's pointing a gun at her and talking to Waller. 

Pictured: How well my job interviews go.

That said, I do like Jr's 'reasonable loon' retort about the graves. Harley's working her way up to management because she's looking out for the little people! 

We need a better deal! We need a union! We need cheese sandwiches! 

Well, why not just say that? Why subject us to a boring one sided psycho-therapy session with Waller instead? She didn't know Jr was going to bust in there and she never mentioned any deals to Waller. But hell, this isn't the deal Harley! You signed up for this stupid squad, you should deal with it. Why on earth does Waller insist on keeping these losers in the squad? Wouldn't it be ten times easier and cheaper to just off them and start again with characters who can do their damn job and not be whiny bitches about it? 

IT'S THE SUICIDE SQUAD. You're supposed to die on these things, especially if you can't work with Waller! In the Secret Six crossover with the previous Suicide Squad there was this whole back story with why Waller wanted Deadshot on her team and they did it without weakening any of the characters or having to explain the entire story to someone like me who hasn't read the classic Suicide Squad. This story, I have NO IDEA and I have no reason to be interested in why Waller wants them so damn much. 

Then we jump back to the whole Las Vegas thing where there's some giant Clayface/Solomon Grundy corpse thing roaming around and of course no superheroes can turn up to do battle so Deadshot's running around doing something when he generic fails just in time to do a Lion King: 'Brother... Help me!' to Cheetah who presumably mentally flips him off and makes meowing noises while wondering how she went from fighting Wonder Woman to joining these sorry bastards. 

Or would that be too catty? Oh, here we go. 

This Harley heavy issue lost points with me despite being a higher quality than most of the crap they've turned out prior. It just seemed like filler, it took a lot of talking and facial close ups to say what what they were trying to say and they said it badly too boot. It just seems to be trying to foreshadow but ultimately doing nothing of interest. Anything of interest gets pushed to the side so Deadshot and Harley Quinn can do whatever it is they do. 

No matter where they're from in the DC universe, all roads lead to freakin' Louisiana apparently. Then when you get there, all the rooms are red and black or grey. Lockdowns fail all the time and costumes can't even be drawn right. That said, I'm a lot more impressed with Harley's physique this time round. Keeping with the pants, not shoving the albino boobs up in our gangsta grillz and making sure that her body is reasonably human shaped. Except her legs are still on the creepy skinny side but I'm guessing the artist just got sick of life around that time.