Harley's Little Black Book #6

Sometimes you can read a book by it's cover. Unfortunately for this title, it's either "ugh, fan pandering" or "ugh, 90's overload!"

Frag 'em Lobo! Don't just stand there!

Bite me, Fanboy? 

I've never been a fan of this spin of series. To me, it's just shame less overkill. Hardly Quinn teams up with enough characters and parodies to basically be an unfunny, less awesome Deadpool. By having her have her own spin off dedicated to just that - pairing her up with other characters and basically destroy their lives and souls with her patented red and black and pinky and bluey trademarks and pathetic fourth wall breaking 'humour.'

They also feature a number of artists. So, for example on this issue we have the usual schlock from Connor/Palmiotti (yaaaay..... ARE THESE GUYS THE ONLY FULL TIME STAFF DC HIRES?!) 

but then some absolute primary school artwork by some random who, like David Ayer, took "Harley wears hotpants now" as a light suggestion. 

This thing reads about the same as a shitty tie in for a kids cartoon show too.

There are a million no name, poorly drawn and inconsequential characters who  include a space pope. Futurama did it better, guys.

So when she's clearly on a spaceship filled with extraterrestrial life... what does Hardly Quinn do?

Goes to find the friggin' door. 

Guess what the door does? It tears half of her clothes off. Kills just about everyone else, but hey, we can dream that one day she'll do herself in properly. Gosh, she's turning me into Frank Grimes and she's a poor man's unfunny and ugly Homer Simpson. 

Anyway, Hardly makes the choice between death in space or being blown up by a missile and fails to die either way because McGuffin I mean, deus ex machina, I mean Lobo turns up and mistakes her for a bounty and saves her. 

She of course, hears Bounty and thinks paper towels which I'm guessing is an American brand. 

Lobo shields Hardly from re-entry to a nearby planet and burns himself. Hardly continues cracking on to him and making bad sex puns and convincing herself that he's totally into her. This time they both lose items of clothing after falling into the ocean yet somehow a certain juggalo still has her make-up on. 

Wish we could make you shut up. 

Lobo absolutely burns Hardly - she feels she's so important that everyone's after her and he hasn't even heard of her name. It's official - she's the last person you'd EVER want to be stuck on an alien landscape with. Or... like, anywhere, really. 

The dialogue is so generic but besides that, it's crammed full of yers an' 'ims and other colourful language that it kind of reminded me of someone. 

Anyway Lobo again risks himself to fight a weird tentacley beast because it's better than listening to Hardly Quinn yap on incessantly. Too right, you bastich you.

We are then treated to more gratuitous shots of eating than the whole Suicide Squad movie was budgeted for, and there is so much dialogue but it's hardly worth reading. There's even a bit about Hardly saying she's just a tourist minding her own business... yeah effin' A - after stealing Superman's globes and messing around wherever and whenever she can. Pull the other one, you two toned wanker. 

I won't show you the next pages because it's Hardly and Lobo skinny dipping and trying to make out after discussing how bad each of their respective breaths smell. 

Gross close ups of spider lashes... eeeyuch

There's even a little fourth wall breaking censorship flag covering Hardly's gross spine-curdling ass which I am so grateful for. 

Mainly I wanted to do a run down of this comic so if you have read my low down on the Injustice special featuring Harley Quinn - you can see the extreme difference between the writing, the art and the characterisation/plot. Yeah, I hate this version of Harley Quinn so I do enjoy bagging on the comics and being fairly biased, but in my defence, this shitty comic is the definition of what they did wrong to the character. 

In her original solo run, she was obsessed with love. In this issue, she sort of brings that back with Lobo and his ex. Only she 'knows how ta talk ta people' and tells said ex that she's jealous of HQ and oops, I made out with your ex Lobo while naked. Only she was trying to get these two back together and then shot said ex in the face. Swell job there, kiddo. 

Every other line in this comic is Hardly cracking on to Lobo about doing the nasty or saying how 'bodacious' and attractive she is. Lobo - instead of being the joyful fraggin' machine he normally is... puts up with Hardly and seems soppy eyed about his ex.... the hell? Do the writers even know who they're writing? I honestly doubt it. I read one of Palmiotti's Painkiller Jane comics and it was basically that same thing as the usual Hardly Quinn script so they probably didn't even try to adapt themselves. Well, why would they? For some reason DC has given them tenure and a licence to bore us to death. 

Here they're captured by some bounty hunters with a penchant for killing using slugs stolen out of Star Wars and there's no tension or anything it's over in about ten seconds and the slugs are in love with Hardly... because of COURSE they are.. she makes out with Lobo again and just in the nick of time they're back on Earth. Lobo promptly leaves Hardly because he has a brain. No one else gives a shit that Hardly is standing around Coney Island looking like a drowned hooker rat from the 90's and the comic finally ends. 

Of all the things to censor, they chose the Dawg's butt. Naturally. 

   Probably a good thing that they changed original New 52 Harley Quinn's make up because they pretty much just stole Lobo's look before emasculating th' main man so hard the comic community had a meltdown. 

Reviews are mixed on this one - some warn about foul language and violence and others crow gleefully about how fun Hardly is to read. 

Others point out that Hardly is way too much Deadpool - overused, and now kinda stale. There is no plot apart from how can we team these two characters up. The characterisation fails - like Lobo submitting to capture instead of wreaking bloody havoc,  there's so much T&A but it's not titillating it's actually a huge turn off. 

The art works for Lobo but Simon Bisley has no idea what he's doing with female proportions. 

It's also devoid of any comedic value. I read these other reviews and people say they enjoyed it and found it funny. I'm a fan of any kind of humour (except racism or sexism etc.) but here I'm like:

What am I supposed to be laughing at?!?