DC Universe Harley Quinn 41

It's been a while since I checked out the recent Hardly Quinn. I've been so disappointed with DC comics lately that I just haven't been able to muster the strength to crack open a comic.
Especially since someone saw my classic Harley Quinn mug at work and asked me who it was.
I said this is Harley Quinn and they said oh, like Maggot Robbie?

No. Not like her. This one was funny and talented, not a useless, unfunny, looking like something the cat dragged out of Blondie's reject wardrobe, drugged out gangster ho, the butt-less wonder.
I could go on. The only compliment I can give Maggot Robbie is that her agent gets her juuust enough gigs that she doesn't have to rely on T&A.. which is good, seeing as she hasn't got any but gets her kit off regardless. Sigh.

Remember Harley Quinn? The character DC forgot how to write and just turned her into whatever the Tumblr generation thinks is cool at the moment?

Which brings me to this review. I've had a stressful week, and I want to take it out on something so here's my review on this month's crappy Hardly Quinn.


As usual, the Frank Cho cover greatly outshines the generic thug who eats pizza in weird outfits cover.
I shouldn't have to explain why I think this but good gravy the basic cover has Hardly so... POINTY.


How does she cross her legs without giving herself discount surgery?

 Discount bargain basement Barbie barbarian.





Oh, and this is the first advert they show.

Team Wisdom? That suits her about as much as 'Entropy' suits Batman. Geeez.

From Polygon:

And since he knows their enemy best, Braniac’s in charge of all the team rosters.

That’s a narrative hook that allows Justice League: No Justice’s creative team to indulge in some serious comic book “moneyball,” as Snyder calls it. There’s team Mystery, consisting of Superman, the Martian Manhunter, Starfire, and major villains Starro and Sinestro; team Entropy, including billionaires Batman and Lex Luthor, the assassin Deathstroke, the alien bruiser Lobo and the Teen Titans’ Beast Boy; team Magic, consisting of the mystical heroes Wonder Woman, Doctor Fate, Zatanna, Raven and Etrigan the Demon; and finally, team Wisdom, made up of the Flash, Damian Wayne (Robin), the Atom, Cyborg and, implausibly, Harley Quinn.

Truth be told, I found Dark Knights: Metal kinda lame and basically just skimmed it so sure, maybe Hardly Quinn is on team Wisdom because it's a plant eating entity and not because she's (or this Hardly at least) is anywhere near the smarts of Cyborg, Flash, Robin and Atom. 

Which is annoying because she could be, but she's not there for the empowerment, she's there because she fits the quota of 'at least one girl per team' and she's the resident cash cow. Yuck. 

So, probably won't be checking this out any time soon. The art looks nice, but the colour schemes stink of that time they decided to make literally everyone a lantern of some kind.


Anyway, here's the actual comic. 

So, definite decrease in art quality.. I mean, it's especially painful after the Cho cover but I do sympathise with these oddly drawn and hypnotised for some reason freaks.
I read one issue of the 'Gang of Harley's' mini series and I wanted to friggin' kill them too.


Hardly appears out of nowhere - probably to stop her bit characters referencing movies like The Naked Gun - which are surely going over their target audience's head.
The Gang of Harley's aren't too happy about seeing Hardly again - to be honest, I get that too because she's a human bag of shit but eh. Killer Croc is reduced to a quipping idiot. Deadtool does nothing useful, as usual but reference Animal House - another surely missed reference by the target audience.

We spend a little bit too much time on some random dude freaking about Hardly's 'lol so random' cast... he references Twin Peaks, which did have a recent remake but is still probably too dated for the demographic. Then everyone hugs and makes up - eeeeurrrgh. Lame.




I haven't read the previous issues but Penguin's here for some reason. At least, he looks like Penguin. Only, Penguin usually acts for his own interest and is rich enough that he doesn't need to gamble his luck on generic penguin or ice themed evil schemes. Then again, what's a Hardly Quinn comic without reducing good characters to one note simpletons?

Case in point, he advertises Antarctic Island but the sign says Articland.
Seeing as how Antarctic is South Pole and Artic is North Pole, these are both inaccurate.
Especially seeing how Coney Island is actually a peninsular partially connected to the rest of Long Island by freakin' landfill...

Ahhh forget it.

Here's a scene that had me on the edge of my seat. Well, no, not really.
Even if I gave a shit about this Hardly Quinn, who hasn't seen this scene before?
'I'm standing up to the "bad" guys by myself! All alone! Oh wait, here come my conveniently reconciled friend and half the neighbourhood! Yay!' 

I guess they ran out of fight poses because Catwoman's attacking before the word go and Poison Ivy looks like she's about to pop a squat or is trying to do a Shakira like hip move. It's.. not working.
Oh no, that drinking game is back! Down a shot every time Hardly inevitably mentions some sort of bowel movement or bodily function.

I've mentioned I hate this version of Poison Ivy, right? Yeah. Gosh she's so lame here.



"I've been experimenting.. which means now I have to spell out for you that I can also make the monster size things! Forget the last fifty or so years of my history where I was making giant plant things right out the gate, now I can do it with DAISIES AND EXPOSITION!"

Basically Ivy beats up some giant penguins who weren't even doing anything, Egg-whatever pops in with a useless quip, Hardly spouts some nonsense about 'look how crazy I am and how kooky my cast is!' and I wonder if the writing team actually did change.


The art changes again. Now it looks like Hardly has yet again enticed pre-tweens to do her dirty work for her. Awesome... that's just what this comic needs again. Just like how we've gone back to nonsensical fight scenes.

Okay.. Purple Quinn (no, I'm not using whatever stereotypical race name she was assigned in lieu of an actual character trait) for some idiot reason is creeping into a basement, then puts her hand out without looking, then gets thrown in the air. We're shown later it was Grundy.. but then... how? Is he daintily holding the crook of her off panel arm? What the fuck is this nonsense?

Oh, and in case you're not American, Bausch and Lomb are an optometry based operation that issue glasses and contacts and things, and probably don't have people with several eyes on their OUTFITS in their commercials because that's not how eyes work.

Meanwhile Hardly and Redtool encounter Scarecrow, pull both gas masks and vials of conveniently appropriated Joker gas out of their butts. Well, Hardly does. She has room on her belt for bullets when she doesn't carry a gun, but somehow has the mask and vial; and other shit just there and we couldn't see them until now? Hmm. Wonder if she made that Joker gas concoction when she was a bat for some reason? Anyway, Redtool just shits on the floor. Comedy gold, am I right? DRINK!



The writers manage to make Solomon Grundy into a useless lump. Apparently he doesn't like beating up women, and for a guy who speaks mostly in nursery rhymes, he manages to say this out loud just in time for Power Girl to arrive and announce "Oh, you don't like punching women? Well this woman likes punching YOU!" which left me a bit confused about the message.

I mean, if Grundy was like hahaha yeah, I love beating up women! then sure.. I guess that's a witty comeback? But he was defending himself from some weirdly coloured girls who were probably there to defeat him. Like, what is he doing wrong?

Doesn't matter, I guess. He gets punched once, falls off screen and takes all the background scenery with him. Power Girl rips the door off somewhere, revealing coach and some other dude making out, which makes the girls lose their entire faces again and then be all like eeeew nooo differently abled cooties, grosssss.


What a progressive comic! And now I can't stop vomiting!

It's actually a relief to get back to Hardly's scenes (did, did I just say that?) because at least the fight scene is a bit more plausible. And then that's that, Penguin's defeated, all those hardened criminal masterminds he hired got their butts kicked by some randomly coloured tweeny bopper punks... that's embarrassing. Then we get everything swept under the carpet and cleaned up in a generic 'weeks later' post script.

The artist changes again. Good gosh, what did this person use to draw for? Adventure Time?!?
Where are their faces? Why is the black and white Quinn now short and missing an elbow? What happened to Hardly's ankles? Why did black and white Quinn lose part of her pants? Is that supposed to be a purple fist? Why is there more detail in the background characters??

This reminds me of when Ranma 1/2 just finished and Inuyasha came out. I was startled reading that manga because Takahashi drew super babes like Ranmachan and then when Kagome appeared she had these weird spaghetti legs. I kind of liked it because yeah, she's a random school girl, not a mega toned ninjutsu pin up, but it was still weird because it looked sort of boneless for a while.





Eventually once they established the comic a bit more, Kagome's legs got a lot more shapely and less horrifying to look at which is more that what I can say for this comic because it just throws The Riddler in at the end like a stupid joke. I mean, we're supposed to say oh yeah, we can forgive Hardly's past because SHE'S come so far (depending on whose opinion you're looking at) and SHE'S changed so much but no, the Penguin and Riddler can stay one note jokes and we can ignore all of their progress right? Just throw them to the disembodied heads.

Oh hoh hoh... Youuuu thought I was kidding, weren'tcha?

Short End of the Jester Schtick

Same amount of useless tripe, bad dialogue and corny scenes. Only slightly less cringey than the Conner/Palmiotti run.

Buy it if you enjoy butt and poop jokes, and stereotypical characters/pathetic Batman character parodies. Don't buy it if you like consistent art, good stories, and want a memorable/good Harley Quinn character.