DC Universe Harley Quinn #50

This cover, I don't mind too much even though the effect is probably a bit overdone to death. I don't know why Conner can't draw Classic Harley right - her headpiece looks weird and giving her the new Harley bruise coloured eye shadow is just... why? It doesn't look good on ANYONE.

At least they recognise that she used to have hyenas and it was awesome. Even if they do look more like dogs here. Anyway, New Harley is reading a comic and the cover has Classic Harley, and Classic Harley's cover has Bombshell Harley, and Bombshell Harley's cover goes back to New Harley because they somehow ran out of versions of Harley Quinn somehow?

Eh I dunno. The Cho cover is okay, but Harley's eyes are pointed in different directions and I don't get the ducks. It would have been funnier if Harley had been stuck holding the bomb but was waiting at a duck crossing for them to pass. I think she's just meant to be turning around instead of... going behind them, in front of them or over them? Weird.



This extra sized anniversary issue is written by Sam Humphries but begins like so many Conner/Palmiotti issues before it - a one page spread of Harley looking super elongated and about ten million speech bubbles. Talk about your TL;DR! If you are tempted to check out what they're saying, it's nothing interesting unless you like a mother and daughter talking about contracting Glandular Fever back in high school and said daughter apparently dating the whole school then complaining about double standards.

They walk through a crowd of people with the same face and Harley stuffs hers with like a million hot dogs. Harley also can't wear anything else apart from her battle hot pants even when hanging out with her mom. Mom also has no personality apart from 'my daughter's so AWESOME' so she could literally be swapped with any one of Harley's other hanger on's and no one would know.

Oh yeah, plot wise, Harley reads a comic about her and destroys continuity in DC. 

Yeah that was sort of shoehorned in there randomly. Harley's mom's like remember all those times I cared for you when you were sick and now I have to conveniently remind you in case something happens to me later? and Harley's just like I HAZ A COMIX!

So by reading her own comic by M. Clatterbuck, Harley dooms continuity - which is amazing because I thought she already did that by existing in this Mmmm. Clusterfuck of a comic. Plus it's DC.. they keep retconning things and rebooting things anyway. Like, what continuity?

Now there's a Jonni DC Continuity Cop here bitching about how Dan and Jim are going to freak.. 

Mate, if they even care I'll eat my hat but sure, whatever. We get to see a weird Batman backstory where every second word is bolded so it's like someone tried to Mad Libs the exposition. Harley tries her usual methods to fix things - invading someone's personal space and threatening them - to no avail. I kind of liked this part. If you can't punch your problems, surely your character has to develop to a version that can handle the issue without violence. 

Well, we get a few different versions of the DC universe instead. 

This one's really cute but only has two pages so they really gotta cram everything down. Is Harley being bullied or are people just laughing at her outfit? Do people not like her attitude? Or IS it the style??

I'm just saying, leopard spots with stripes? A jacket and a jumper? Standing in the middle of a hall in high school smiling at yourself? Forget Continuity Cops tyou need Fashion Police!

Anyway, after her two shitty brothers - again, continuity issues - laugh at her, her mom comes in all punked up and they hug it out. 

There wasn't really a segue-way into this sequence, it just sort of happened. Plus, I get what they're doing but it just seems like more continuity nonsense. Harley has only ever really been close to her mom in this series. Before, they had issues and they kept changing her mom around.  

Then Harley just seems to run through other weird alternate DC-verses. The pirate one I like, I thought it was inspired and it looked like something right out of Elseworlds, not just a random comic trying to be wacky. 

This one didn't sit so well. Here's like ten different horror Harley's bitching about something, craving bath bombs and then cracking onto Harley herself. Sigh. Haven't we seen enough of this already?

Just like they didn't elaborate with the Halloween stereotypes, here's Adam Strange. I don't know anything about Adam Strange apart from apparently his comic is a 50's sitcom with a laugh track. Then he teleports to a different area and has a fight with some random monster before being teleported back within two seconds so Harley can run through a fourth wall while talking about the laugh track.

I actually love the dinosaur Trinity... but why is Wonder Woman in her New52 duds? Ugh.

Enough with the narration? You're one to talk!

Then we have a bunch of nobodies on a quiz show run by The Creeper. Am I supposed to believe Black Adam just sat there and didn't once try to kill this guy? Also Continuity Cop talks about other Continuity within the ruined Continuity. How does that work without making things worse? 

Also, the Kents are told to pick a rocket as their prize, which isn't immediately clear that presumably one will contain Clark and one something else until this panel.

Random Superman inspired Coney Island has yet another four versions of Harley, parodying various Superman characters. Is Hipster Harley not just the original Hardly Quinn though but with glasses? 

Next up is a nice parody of Death: The High Cost of Living but with Lobo and terror. 

Harley has a sad, reflective moment near the fountain which is immediately ruined by her next scene. 

Yeah, back to the violence angle. I suppose we had a good run while it lasted. All ten seconds of it... but hey, here's some olden times Green Lantern, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.. 

Wow, they didn't make a Three Musketeers pun related to colour? Missed opportunity!

Next is Continuity Cop headquarters... which looks like a budget version of Monsters Inc. 

The Captain - basically Jonni DC with coffee and white hair - tells her to use the continuity powers she has and if she fails then she goes down with the ship. 

So, basically the budget version of Wizard of Oz but with Dido playing in the background, interlaced with OTP/fan-ship propaganda. 

Speaking of fans...

DC made yet another fan of Harley Quinn. Was Hack, Harley Sin, the Gang of Harleys, and the other Quinntriplecators or whatever they were.. not enough?

I don't get this shit at all. Whenever I read people gushing about another comic book character it just takes me right out of the book. Yeah, Harley's meant to be DC's Deadpool and all fourth wall and shit but it's just so lame. 

Also, if I remember the first pages correctly... wasn't the whole issue NOT that someone WAS making comics... but that the 'star' was READING them?

Ah, come on. You've done worse with less!

Yeah, no one else got it as well.. so apparently the Justice League Multiverse turned up to kill Meredith so Jonni DC had to pull her BFF the Anti-Monitor out of her non-existent butt.

Harley gets left behind in a dark zone and draws a comic. How she manages a colour spread without any colour pencils at all is beyond me but the page looks somewhat nice.

Then POOF - everything's back to normal, Harley's mom is reunited with her chalk white offspring who can't shake the red cocaine sniffin' nose and everything's fine.

Well, we assume... we only really see Harley's POV so everything else could very well be fudged up. Then again it's DC soo...

Meredith gets hired by Jonni DC and some asshole named Captain Triumph shows up for some reason. 

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

I'll be honest with you, this wasn't so bad. It's nothing special but it's not terrible either. 

The art saved it for the most part - if I had to look at Timm's artwork for the whole thing I probably wouldn't have read the whole comic. Just don't like his style, and the way he draws faces really bugs me. The guest artists didn't seem to phone it in or anything, and only a few niggling complaints about some of the styles combined with the varying characterisation of Quinn at times but meh, nothing to stress about. 

So... while there were some cool interludes and things... basically Jonni DC had the power to know where they had to go the whole time, had the ability to get there by herself the whole time, had an anti-monitor back-up... the whole time.. so this whole comic could have been avoided. Instead it's super sized. Hmm... okay. 

Ah well, at least Harley's specials are getting LESS irritating and obnoxious somehow. 

Bonus Panel!

Burn!