Holy crap, this issue only has one cover that I can tell! I don't actually know what to do with myself..
There is so much confusion in my life right now and I honestly don't know what's real or not. Is up down, and vice versa? Is there a spoon? Is the world actually flat but not as bad ass as Discworld?
No, wait, I lied. Or rather, I was misled. There is a second cover where a fancy Harley contemplates killing a bat. I don't see why you would go to the trouble of dressing up like that and then keeping your normal hair style. Right? Keep it period appropriate.
Ohhhh... I see what happened here.... Harley's variant got kicked off of the digital copy I had to make room for Shazam! movie advertising. I still haven't seen that yet. Oh well. The ordinary cover's fine.. I guess. Nothing to write home about, it's not even a good parody of an overblown action movie because I'm sure I've seen at least ten other covers in her solo series just like this. Plus we're back with another speech bubble "pun". Like, it's too generic and so far over into 'Not Trying Land' ... why should we care?
Also Harley's ribs are visible through and over her tube top. That's... probably not good.
In fact, this whole issue is an up and down mixed bag of something. It constantly brings in a cool concept with the benefit of nice art, but then keeps dragging itself down with the terminal stupid and a bad case of the 'whatever, this is good enough to churn out an issue with'.
Then you realise that she's probably only in this situation so her fancy alien ray guns can match her stupid hair colour.
Then you get told this is what she's doing and why she's in this mess.
"Hi, it's me, Harley! Trying to be Deadpool by breaking that fourth wall! LOL!! Totally changed since the old stupid classic version of me but I'm still doing crimes! For my mom! Who has cancer! Haven't mentioned that in a while! You know my mom has cancer. Cancer mom!
Yeah, remember how she's already being treated by competent doctors? And how she tells me not to do anything stupid?? Lulz here I am breaking in to find some random magical cure I just invented in my head because there's no proof such a thing exists in this place! Or even if this building existed prior to today! So random!@! Rawr!!"
This is literally the next panel.
I get it's supposed to be funny, but it just falls flat on account of it only being there as a cheap way to squeeze in a 'backstory' of sorts without going to any effort creatively. Plus, Harley keeps taking steaming dumps on Classic Harley's reputation, and then goes and does stupid things like this. What makes it worse is that you just KNOW this Harley is NEVER going to face anything more than a slap on the wrist for the crimes she pulls on the regular.
Same on the effort thing - we have about four pages in a row of Harley just spitting monologue and fighting bad guys, and one line saying where she swiped the guns from despite us being shown she was basically entering the building from a section that seems to be manned by office workers (there's one scientific device on the tables... apart from that nothing) and not scientists. But suddenly she has magic science guns and knows how to use them and of course they're effective against the alien looking things she encounters. Which is just as well because we have no idea what they even do. One seems to shoot lightning and the other looks like it's made of magical girl 'attacks'.Don't get me wrong, it's very cinematic and well done the way she fights her way down the corridor but ultimately I feel like we didn't need that many pages of it when we could have had other establishing information being given. For example, she wasn't wearing her gloves when she broke in but now they're on her hands automatically.
The art is beautiful but I'm not keen on losing plot points because there's a cool looking sequence. Her melodramatic dialogue gets a bit grating after a few panels too.
My biggest take away from these first few pages was "Oh cool, Harley breaks into buildings but then gets offended when she gets stuck in there. That makes perfect sense."
Hey, remember how Harley's so over the Joker ever since the last writers made him lose a prison fight to her in a terrible plot line that ran like fan fiction? Well...
Yeah. She then goes on to almost call him Mistah J and starts talking to him normally instead of shooting him like she said they would if they met again, or expecting a death trap like the LAST time they met up. Hmm. Then Joker disappears and she meets Batman, who starts talking like he's from Brooklyn... then he gets grabbed by aliens and also vanishes. The aliens don't attack Harley, then Harley's stupid mom shows up and vomits out bug parts. Harley is a bit thick here in my opinion.
Joker or Batman showing up - sure, we can understand that. But her mom? The one she had JUST left in hospital a few hours ago? How would she even have got in or knew which floor to meet Harley on? She doesn't even know where she is. Harley just sits down to have a panic attack - ignoring the aliens that may or may not be near her? It's really unclear.
Anyway, freakin' Mirand'r shows up and starts spouting that inspirational nonsense she always does when Harley gives up too soon. ...As she always does. Right about here is where that bit about Harley being a nonce who poo-poo'd the terms and conditions is gonna bite her on the fanny. Harley has a right go at Mirand'r for this, calling her a scam artist, threatening to kill her if she is who she appears to be or even if she just looks like Mirand'r, tells Mirand'r she's gonna kick her back to outer space and then punch her in the face for 'talking to her like that.'
Yeah..uh, Mirand'r's horrible freedom of speech was just her cheering on Harley, politely telling Harley that she declined to hear the terms and then explaining that she thought Harley could do it but she now thinks she was wrong. Totally deserves a punch in the face.
Yay, for reformed, non-violent Harley?
When Mirand'r disappears.. the aliens come out of the woodwork but luckily for Harley, a computerised voice tells her to get to the Control Room, which is right there ahead of her. Never mind we've barely seen any doors or walls in this escapade, this place has doors and a name plate and the woiks like a hot dawg.
Also, it has this.
There's like three versions of Suicide Squad Harley and one classic version. Does the Arkham universe not exist here? Elseworlds I can understand not being there because these are all versions pulled from Harley's memories but what about something pre-52 like her Gotham City Siren outfits, the pink and purple nightmare from BTAS, her gladiator outfit from 52 Countdown and so on. I don't even recognise the one on the top left, but it's got her stupid Suicide Squad movie hair so I'm assuming it's supposed to be one of her crappier Suicide Squad comic outfits. Action panties ahoy!
Fueled by rage directed at Mirand'r, Harley charges on like she just got a sponsorship from the NRA.
As it turns out, the aliens are a defence mechanism for the big jellyfish thing, like antibodies. Some reviews of this issue have criticised it for being an on the nose reference to Harley's mom's cancer but I didn't see it like that. I thought it was a nifty idea but the way they resolved it was a bit stupid.Well, I should say the book treats you as though you're stupid because Harley over-narrates and dumbs down the concept to the level of kindergarten kids. Plus, here's this alien asking for help and trying to relate to this other species so it can appeal to their better nature, and then here's Harley - talking over them and only talking about herself.
Is this alien speaking in single words because it isn't familiar with the language or because it can't get a damn word in edge ways?
Harley resolves the issue by having a computer tell her what to do, which in this case is pressing one button. Yeah.. I mean, sure, I wasn't keen on having another ten pages spent on Harley McGyvering some whack solution out of her butt however it didn't have to be this simplified.
Like - this is meant to be S.T.A.R. labs, right? Yet there's no additional security after hours, no alarms - even when Harley cuts out the glass and it drops to the floor, no swipe card/password entry to the control room, the computer doesn't even bother to verify who the hell Harley is before letting her override the entire system, and there's no authentication for that override anyway. I feel like they way the computer was so willing to help Harley... did it hate the other guys? Did it specifically wait until Harley was near the room to speak? Could the computer have stopped this whole thing or did it make a 'push button' clause?
Actually, now I think about it, why didn't the alien antibodies try to communicate with the S.T.A.R. labs staff? Looks like they just got straight up murdered. Was that the intervention of the chaos/order grand poobahs so that Harley could have her moment to shine at the expense of some nameless dude's lives.
Actually...now that I really think about it.... what's the timeline here? The last issue made it look like it was happening immediately after the dunk tank incident.. but Harley was at the hospital about two hours prior to this comic's events.. and we can assume if it's the same day as the dunk tank that she's also spent another hour at least getting ready (going off issue timeline and the sky colours) ..
So are the guys from issue 59 the same guys in this issue?
I see they died in the spot where they gamed, but the guy with the hat looks a lot younger in issue 59 and the colour of his eyes changed dramatically. I mean, they made sure the fallen hat was in the same position - even after he apparently lunged for the computer somewhere in between falling down and dying - but the eyes don't get that same treatment? Also - note the green security lights. If the psychic alien did something to them, why wouldn't they also take out the computer? Also - doesn't S.T.A.R. labs have like a million government agents and superheroes on call? Also also... where the hell is the Coney Island lab location, huh?? HUH???
Well anyway, Harley's mom comes to pick her up like she's a kid in time out.. which she should be, but as we already know and are told AGAIN she gets no repercussions whatsoever.The Short End of the Jester Schtick
I'm still confused about the ending. Like, the alien didn't originate in that room. So, when the button that controls all the big jargon words was pressed, was it just sucked out like a vacuum? It seems dangerous to have the control room as the only place to handle extra-terrestrial life forms. That should be an adjacent room.
The trials of Harley Quinn are really becoming that. She just has no self awareness about what's going on - she usually doesn't give a rats about anyone else but considering this impacts her life, you'd think she would at least pay some attention. The gall she had to get angry because she didn't hear the full T&C when she demanded the shiny belt and potential powers without having to hear all the boring stuff in the first place wasn't her cutest look.
While she is cute in this art, it also makes her look like she's so much younger than she's supposed to be. It does make me question 'how far back' the classic Harley is but I'm never going to get a scoop of sense from a DC comics timeline. It does seem like Harley is always breaking down, giving up, acting like a millennial stereotype putting wants before needs
I guess the worst part of it is that so many other reviewers have critiqued the current run for not being "as good" as the (hang on, let me get my straight face together) .... Connor/Palmiotti period.
PFFFFFFFFT. Yeah, that hurt to say.
Anyone with half a brain cell knows that's not true! It's not even possible! I can really tell this comic is trying it's best, and although it needs to do a bit better - it's ten times the comic those hackneyed 'writers' put out. I can actually read the current run without getting a strong urge to rage quit but I really want to like this comic more.
I know for me at least - if Harley can stop dragging on her former self while still carrying on like a criminal in present time (that never gets punished for anything) I'd be a lot happier. Also, the stories need to be more grounded because it's going the strange direction C&P went where 'Oh, suddenly Harley's in space! Oh, she's time travelling! Oh, now there are zombies! Oh, here's an alternate dimension! Oh, here's a genie! Oh, now we're in some lame future where we rip off everything even more!'
She used to be a fun loving clown with no major criminal aspirations and I do get that impression with this current run because it's so much more lighthearted than the blood soaked, gang running thug we had earlier, or the murder loving prostitute cosplayer from the first Suicide Squad run she appeared in. Something does seem to be missing from the mix though leaving these last few issues feeling a bit hollow.
Wotta Comedian!
Harley: Empty! On a weekend! Did these scientific eggheads discover the elusive work-life balance?!
Joker Copy: You gonna catch me? Or are you done being embarrassed for the day?!
Batman Copy: Every creature has a weakness. I shall exploit that weakness. And then make ya feel stupid about it.
Harley: What in the hell are ya testin' fer anyway, my threshold fer extra-terrestrial slaughter?
Mirand'r: I mean, I told them, "hey, maybe think about making these trials a smidge less brutal and savage?" but no, that's how they like them I guess!
Mirand'r: Not our fault you didn't bother to listen to the rules. You accepted, fair and square.
Computer: You wish to reverse the quantum incursion?
Harley: Yes! Sure! Somethin' like that!
Computer: Activate the Quantum Reversal Safeguard Protocol. Third button on the left.
Harley: What, is that like an undo?!
Computer: Something like that.
Harley: Or maybe... she played reverse psychology on a reverse psychologist. Good one.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Play nice or play dead! Harley Quinn's rules!