Birds of Prey episode 4: Three birds and a baby

This episode opens up with a screaming yet obviously fake baby in it's mother's arms, she is also screaming and running from a bad guy on one of those classically American fire escapes.
Those things never look safe to me. Anyway, in protecting her child from some weirdo thug - is this guy really going to change dem nappies? I don't think so! - they drop the child over the edge.

Fortunately, Huntress is there and catches it, rather like a football.. actually but no matter. I'm sure this baby doll's fragile body is fine with that and being shaken around while Huntress fights off more conveniently hidden until now goons.

Hang in there, baby. 

It goes slow-mo for a bit which just makes the whole fake baby thing even more painfully obvious.. I mean, they could at least pretend to give it some neck support and change the repetitive crying track but no. I mean, shit, Huntress does like three or four flips. Is this child okay??

Anyway, she wins and then for some reason goes to hold out the child to the mother (even though she's like, how many stories up?) and sees she's been stabbed. Ungrateful baby continues crying but that's fair enough considering she's now an orphan and probably has some sort of neck injury.

Back at the clocktower, there's a scene of the girls looking for too long into the diaper to check the sex of the baby so they don't have to keep calling it... IT.
Dinah wants to name him but Helena decides she's happy with calling it 'Boy' and then prods him with a pencil. She gives Barbara severe stink eye when she's told not to poke the baby.
Like, what else do you do with infants, right?

Fortunately, Dinah was a pro-level babysitter back in the day. She names the baby 'Guy' and shows proper carrying techniques which means this child may even survive the episode if they can keep him away from Helena.

Helena's like 'what? you guys want to look after this thing? ugh!' like it's completely unreasonable even though she has literally just come from a murder scene where at least ONE parent has been killed and there was obviously no one else to leave Guy with. Plus, as they're not even sure why the mother was killed, this baby could be next in line.

Sadly, after jinxing everyone with a casual 'how hard can this be?', Barbara makes the call of throwing the baby at Helena once he starts crying. Showing her competitiveness, Helena starts yelling about the baby crying. Now, I'm no expert on the childrens but I'm fairly confident that this is the best way to calm them down.

This somehow works because the baby seems to like Helena? Now I know all that shaking and flipping shook something loose!

Aha! So the mother wasn't the mother at all! Turns out she was a lab assistant who broke in and stole the child, hence her being killed by the other.. assistants? On call ninjas? I don't know.
I'm kinda confused though.. is this supposed to be an IVF thing, have they straight up taken some child and added things to their DNA or have they literally grown/cloned this thing?
The kids like, at least a year old! (I don't know babies but he's not a new born!)

Harleen wanted this child because she fancies her green eyes and the Joker's amazing green hair in a child. I would have figured this differently because green isn't his natural hair colour (plus Harley's eyes are meant to be blue) but apparently the Mr. J in this universe wanted kids.
Jury is still out on whether or not he wanted kids like Batman has proteges a'la Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker but there you go.

Either way, Harley gets out of doing the deed herself!

Batman: Harley and Ivy #3

Aug 2004
"Hooray for Harleywood"

This is by far my favourite cover of the series. The pure joy in Harley's face as she peers into a film strip of Ivy punching Batman is just so in character and it's a great way to set up the comic's premise.

This comic gets around a bit. First issue was mostly set in Arkham/Gotham City, while the second one was in a Costa Rican jungle mainly. This one has come back to a US based location.

Hollywood! Geddit? It's gonna be Harleywood.

So the comic opens with Harley kicking her "Puddin'"'s face with the reveal being it's actually an actor. And a pun on Mark Hamill being the Joker's voice actor, and also being an actor in Star Wars. Not subtle, but passable.

Obviously these two have snuck onto a set and there are no security guards to worry about. Now, the comic is not long enough to go into great background about this but I wanted to mention it because the most recent Harely and Ivy series.. as in "Harley and Ivy meet Betty and Veronica"...
the girls were struggling to get past a butler with a spring of some random plant Ivy was carrying.

This was to go to a high schooler's costume party, no where near on the level of sneaking into a normally security focused work place. Just a bit of perspective.

Okay - here we get a bit of flashback alright and it's mostly focused on the character differences between Harley and Ivy.

This one page expresses what I will always consider the base relationship between these two. It also gives the artist another excuse to cram in some more underwear based scenes.. Look, I'm not gonna lie. I think it's unfortunate. I have no issue if this was a genuine lounging around in comfort-wear situation but when we have Ivy doing her scientist thing who just happens to be playing around with lab equipment and possibly corrosive chemicals in her lacy bra and an unbuttoned shirt, I kinda call bullshit.

True, Ivy probably can't be hurt by the chemicals but like the other two issues where we had a nude shower scene and then a prison shower fight scene where our very first shot is of Ivy's crotch with her legs spread... it just seems like half naked scenes just *because* there are female leads and they saw the chance.
Harley isn't sexualised as much, hell, that looks like me every friggin' morning with my bowl of cereal over my unfortunately stained carpet (wow, that sounded wrong!) watching cartoons.


The exasperation Ivy shows at Harley in regards to her lack of help in this masterplan to me will always be their relationship. Ivy is the straight person, the brains, while Harley is the comic and while smart, is not known for masterminding schemes. This also ties into why I think these two would make a shitty couple, but are good as a duo or friends.

Harley Quinn's motivation in Suicide Squad

I just re-read my last post and realised I had more questions  about what I initially thought was the problem with the comic.

Particularly when I read the dialogue in this screen cap.

Harley states that she never "felt right"doing the things they did. Note there are no specific examples of what it was they did. Now, considering the New52 reboot essentially scrapped their previous history.. this was a bit of stupid because we can only really look to the past to see what things they did.

Are they talking about the chaos they spread in No Man's Land? Was it the Joker Fish from the Animated Series? Joker's Last Laugh? That time they took a holiday to Metropolis and doused everyone in gas? Brainwashing Robin in Batman Beyond?

I guess so, but at the same time.. by DC's own logic, it can't be.

I've bought this up a few times but one more time.. DC failed to show us what this new relationship actually entailed and how long it was for. You would assume from Harley's speech that they were together for a while but later on in Detective Comics 23.2 we find out that Joker basically dumped her the second he got out of Arkham. Suicide Squad itself only really shows a few psychiatric sessions, a vat dumping and then a sad flashback of a clown themed bedroom.

I... I'm not corrupt enough (surprisingly!) to picture New52 Harley and Joker banging!
I barely survived the weird... fully clothed Deadshot clown car romp.

In my opinion, this whole dramatic break up would have been a lot better if they had at least flash-backed to or explained what things they were doing.

Now another important bit here is that while Harley states she wasn't comfortable doing what Joker wanted her to do, she did it because she loved him. This, I don't have a problem with because that was very similar in pre-New 52 but with one exception. Harley was never an outright baddie, she was basically lead astray by Joker, only seeing what they were doing as fun and games. So while she would never take it upon herself to carry out large scale crime operations or murder, she wasn't exactly torn up over the 'fun things' Joker and her did either. If someone else complained, they just didn't "get the joke."

The next thing Harley says is that someone else (Waller, presumably) offered her a chance to be something different than what she had been. This part nagged me because when you think about it... it didn't.

Suicide Squad New52 #15

#15 Joker puts his back out!

This cover has always annoyed me. For one thing, Harley's pose.. as usual, is awkward as hell and she's wearing that painted on vinyl. Her eye make-up is not it's usual black but that weird blue colour it turns when the artist no longer cares about the image. Joker meanwhile looks like his stupid stapled on face is having an epiphany about how stupid this whole thing is. At least he's in his purple suit and not that stupid mechanic's outfit, I guess.

The headline is "psychos in love!" like any of that is correct, and they're in an oddly shaped circle while playing cards of the other losers fall around them.

Now, if you'll recall the last issue of Suicide Squad # 14 - Harley had just been chain-choked in a dick 'to be continued' moment, and that was just after the events of Batman #14.











Where it actually fits into continuity is beyond me because this means that right after dissing Joker and having a strange heart to heart with Batman - Harley wanders off to where she knows Joker is and has been watching. Then at some stage, Batman blows his way out of the chemical vat but this is neither seen nor heard in Suicide Squad #15 - where both Joker and Harley are revealed to still be chilling at ACE Chemicals. Joker has also found time to juggle having torture porn with Harley and being at the Gotham reservoir taunting Batman?

Speaking of torture porn, Harley is less than two minutes into chain strangulation and chill when she decides to reminisce on how great and historical Joker is while in the meantime a wide variety of rats close in on her half dead body.

Aren't there healthier things to eat, rats? Like.. sewerage debris? Poison? 

Oh, she's not dead just passed out. Enough to be dragged from the bowels of the factory to what I presume is a few stories higher? Since when does Joker have the strength for that?
Anyway, she hallucinates he's the classic Joker while telling him she had an awful dream, and he was there, and she was there, then he reveals himself to be new shitty Joker. His eyes are still acid green, not the messed up half white half blue they are in the other comics.

So... he's got Harley tied to a stretcher, straight-jacketed, teetering on the edge of a convenient hole in the floor that drops down into another vat of acid. Damn, this guy is a one trick pony. Making a sidekick? Vat of acid. Killing Batman? Vat of acid. Killing sidekick? Vat of acid. Relaxing afternoon with the family? Vat of acid. Change the frickin' record!
Why is this even his plan? He couldn't even kill Harley the first time, what the hell is it going to do to her this time around??

.................................................................................um, let's hope and pray not.

New 52: Death of the Family

Alright, fine, I'll read one tie in book in this lousy series! So here
you go.. for my torment and your pleasure - apparently - here is the two tie in books Suicide Squad wanted you to read as part of the Death of the Family Event.

Here we will sift through the wreckage that is Batman #13 and Batman #14.









Soo.... this one had me rolling my eyes already by page one. Yeah, I get that they're hyping up the Joker and having this major comic wide event but... damn.
Check the dramatics on this.

It's GOTHAM. It's always RAINING AND MISERABLE. Oh no, some force of nature backed the river up, better see it as a doomsday sign! Yikes. Then they're going on about a two headed lion. Gotta give Joker props for that, inseminating a lioness wrong and waiting months for the pay off. That's dedication.

We see Bullock and Gordon chatting about newspaper headlines and reading the bones but it's still not super clear if this is something someone's actually printed or what.

Next thing we know, this happens.

Just... straight up.. no chill, walking into a cop shop. So... basically we could have just had him walk in and take his own face back instead of Harley Quinn? Then why did you put us though those stupid Suicide Squad issues?! Gah!

Batman: White Knight #1

Finally, I'm getting around to reviewing Batman: White Knight!
You may recall I did some similar blogs about Harley Quinn and her roles in this a bit earlier last year.

The covers here are nice, Joker and Harley in nice evening wear.. looking quite civil. The only throwback to their glory days of crime is Joker's purple/green tie and Harley's diamond motif. He's not even smiling but there is a horrifically eye catching Joker face at the bottom if you found yourself missing that. The alternate cover is black and white (geddit?) and while they're more of a focus on Batman and his proteges, Joker (and Harley?) still appear at the bottom. There's even a little logo for them, three diamonds and a rosette. More on that later.


Oh, you want more? Well here's another cover, summing up the theme of the comic a bit more than the other two.

The issue opens up mostly silent as we watch the Batmobile make it's way up to Arkham Asylum. Once there, the guards offer to take him in but Batman states he knows his way around. Visiting a particular cell we see.... wait.. Batman chained up?! And the Joker come to visit?!

WHAT A TWIST!!

What's even happening, I hear you say? Well, let's go back, one year ago, to the innocent days where a skateboarding Joker and a terrifyingly determined Batman trying his best to run him down was the status quo. Yeah, you read that right.

Some strange costumes here - the T-shirt and suspenders thing I could actually see Jared Leto's Joker wearing but Batgirl (even though she's the voice of reason here) fighting crime in a T-shirt is just downright bizarre.

Wait nevermind, it's actually long gloves not bare skin.

Nightwing has to save a random construction worker and tells Batgirl to get a tighter grip on Batman despite her protests.

We don't hear much from Batman himself, he leaves to follow Joker solo on foot - mowing down a trying-to-be-helpful guard on the way.