Yet Even More Ugly Harley Quinn Merchandise!

DID I HEAR MY NAME????

You know, this kind of post could go on forever the way DC is milkin' the ever lovin' fudge out of their main pillar. You know, the female one. No, the one that's not from Themyscira and is actually worth building a pillar around.

So yes, I have managed to find even more merchandise for Harley Quinn - merchandise that only the most dedicated fan could stomach, and even then not without wincing or cringing away from it.

Firstly - do you even look back fondly on Harley Quinn's original Suicide Squad outfit? Do you like horribly paired colours? Do you enjoy wearing socks and sandals together?

Then these Harley Quinn tights could be for you!

I don't even know what you would wear this with or if you could even really wear shoes with them on? Is that a white diamond on the blue calf or is it just a dodgy design job?

They retail for about as much as your average knee high tights (read: way too much) and don't actually resemble her costume that much.

How can one pair of tights cause so many questions?







Otherwise, here are some that are inspired by the grungy, infection riddled prison tatts from the movie. Let the world know you're obsessed, draw like a child and can't spell 'secret!'

Gotham City Sirens #5

Out of the Paest
Dec 09

Can I just say how awesome this cover is? My only quibble is Harley's twisty ass and tits torso and what one of my old work friends used to call 'mono-boob'. I think you could put a pencil under one side, and lift the entire set equally. It's a disturbing notion, yet somewhat tempting. Hmm.
Apart from that though, the dynamic background, the nice work with the shadows and lighting effects, the sweet cane pose and the pop gun... it's just a nice cover.



Anyway, where we last left of in Sirens, a horrifying Joker car-drone had just driven into their hideout and exploded. Selina and Ivy are alarmed by the sudden appearance of fire while dear Harley Quinn - ever on the ball - simply gets peeved that Joker didn't try to finish them off with a funnier gag.

Ivy - a woman of entirely plant parts and wavy hair - leaps dramatically from the fire, into the frying pan. Which is also very much on fire. She quickly grows and then sacrifices one of her budding cacti which is enough to extinguish the fire but can't avoid creating another kind of damage.

Needless to say, the other Sirens aren't exactly pleased with
Harley's dismissive and unhelpful attitude.









They decide enough is enough, this Joker's gotta go. Harley, true to form - doesn't seem to want him dead and offers anything apart from that - plant shopping trips, getting a restraining order...
Finally Ivy gets through to her by telling her what she wants to hear and then smacking her in the face with reality.

Nerdy Investigations: New 52 Harley Quinn

Earlier in a New52 Suicide Squad post, I asked myself what made writer Adam Glass change Harley Quinn so much when I remember him saying he was such a fan. In comic terms, this revamp may as well have been a few decades ago instead of back in 2011 but hey.

I decided to do some digging to try and find the interview I was recalling. 

We're not just going to focus on the outfit but mind you.. you have to point out what an extreme change she went through with her duds alone,  never mind her personality. 

For one thing, she went from a harlequinn to someone whose only visual cue that they were linked to clowns at one time was the ruffle collar and her kind of two toned theme with some diamonds sprinkled around. And even those are pushing it. For someone unfamiliar with the premise of Harley Quinn, she could be a renaissance era hooker or something. It's like someone asked Jim Lee to draw a Harley Quinn revamp and he only heard the word 'harlot'. 

Alright, sex worker jokes and slut shaming is not the way I want to go about this. So, let's compare two other revamps to how Harley Quinn was re-imagined.

So there was this one time when someone thought this was an awesome idea for Superman.

Everyone hated it, and he was soon back to fighting evil in his underoos which is more iconic and makes more money for DC.

With the Harley costume hate, DC decided it was better to keep it and ride the gravy train of publicity.









The other one I want to bring up is Catman. I was only introduced to Catman in Gail Simone's fantabulous Secret Six series. Originally created way back in 1963, he was a cat themed villain (duh) much like Catwoman and often got into scrapes with her as well as the Bat.

Eventually, he became a bit of a joke - that he was nothing like his old self but rather out of shape, dying his hair to make him look more bad-ass, all that jazz. This was in 2003 in a Green Arrow comic.

Then Gail Simone stepped in in 2005.

Harley Quinn and Batman #3

When we last left off, Harley had just gone to rob the zombie-like Catwoman (presumably for her poor re-design) and discovered that Catwoman was in fact home and not the rollover chump that Harley took her for. Honestly, why would your first hit be Catwoman? Do you not value your life?

In any case, the art is markedly better than the fare we've had previously even though it suffers from Batman the New Animated Adventures designs. Have I mentioned I hate these designs? Because I do. Hell, I even like the redesign for Joker more in The Batman than his appearance in The New Animated Series. 

Where are your eyes, Joker?! Where?!

Honestly, I don't know what they were thinking. Not everyone suffered, but Poison Ivy, Catwoman and Joker were definitely worse for wear. 

Right, well Catwoman with her gross zombie face, surprisingly small waist compared to her thighs and her whip attack Harley Quinn, and that's fair enough. Harley could have chosen literally any villain but she went for the highest profile cameo this side of Batman.

For some reason Catwoman falls for the old 'help me up buddy WHOOPS I've got a joy buzzer in my pocket and it's happy to see you' which is incredibly not like her, especially as she's so understandably antagonistic towards Harley. It's not like anyone's going to buy the whole friends things when it comes to villains ripping each other off. 

Birds of Prey Episode 3: Prey for the Hunter

We open on Oracle and Huntress having some girl time... sassy chats in the earpiece while Huntress punches some creepy acid tongue lizard thief guy..... Wow that's pretty specific.
Anyway, Huntress is bemoaning not being normal, that bad guys keep ruining her outfits and the victims aren't even worth helping. Ouch. Bad day much?

Not as bad as her perp's. For one thing, he's got that acid tongue thing going on, then he gets punched a lot, doesn't get to keep his stolen wares, is thrown in a dumpster, and then something else throws him OUT of the dumpster giving him a wicked boo boo in the process.



Meanwhile in our CGI cop shop, a new transfer from Bludhaven does a meet and greet with Reese. Turns out he's chasing a serial killer who never uses the same method twice.

Reese takes on his Mulder Jr. and they decide to take down this freaky deaky killer gorilla. After the shortest working day in history, Reese heads out onto the street where he is promptly scared shitless by Huntress jumping down five storeys in front of him.


Huntress tries out her 'I saved your life, you owe me confidential investigation details' but gets shot down pretty fast. They both have a mini temper tantrum with Huntress vanishing and Reese blatantly jaywalking into traffic playing chicken.

Meanwhile back at the Clocktower, Barbara finds out that the perp was killed via his own acid.

As far as they're aware Metas mostly always have different powers (must not have any knock-offs or sidekicks in this universe then) so they decide to have Helena question some mysterious guy in No Man's Land.

Dinah wants to go too but Barbara denies this request saying not on a school night but here's the address anyway!

Suicide Squad New 52 #7

This is another issue I reviewed back in the day under my original blog. If you're interested, you can check it out here. What, you haven't got time nor inclination? Well fear not, here's the into to it which I feel aptly sums up what I thought about the cover.

Suicide Squad Seven - The Alliterating Issue
Yes, it’s that time of the month again, so dig out your hot pants, get ready to storm Gotham PD and grab that skinned off Joker face because it’s the SUICIDE SQUAD #7 REVIEW!

Assuming I read like a normal person, let’s start with the cover. When I first saw this cover, I didn’t like it. Now I can see it full size it’s kind of growing on me, like Joker flesh on Deadshot’s face.(Tee hee) The new Harley Quinn logo surprised me, as last time they just stole her old one. You know, the one from the ‘original’ DC universe pre-reboot, post-pre-infinite... ehh... you know what I mean. The one that doesn’t exist anymore, or kind of does in some ways, but only in ways DC can make money off it.. Ehhh, you know what I mean.

Yep - remember how they used the previous Harley Quinn logo on the issue just prior to this one? It's been replaced with a new logo for her, and also doubles as one of the nails in the original Harley Quinn's coffin. Quite useful. Apart from that, the cover also raises some questions about Harley Quinn's costume... well, I mean MORE questions. 

For one thing.. does she wear the cape or not? It seems like every other issue it vanishes. Secondly... before her arm thingies looked like gauntlets... but one this cover in particular they look more like gloves. Also her nails aren't red one hand black the other.

DC House of Horror 2017

DC released a comic just in time for Halloween - it contains several stories by several people, artists and apparently one creepy uncle (?!) but the one I'm going to look at is a story called 'Crazy for you'.
A Harley Quinn story written by Bryan Smith and Brian Keene (collect the whole set) while Kyle Baker does the art, colours and letters. The plot itself is by Keith Giffen.

First of all though.... what's with the cover here?

It's kinda cool but kinda abstract too. Like, Batvampire swooping down on Wereflash is understandable... if a little bit gross. Come on, Bats, don't get hair in your fangs! Meanwhile, Green Lantern has become Green Candle apparently because he seems to be melting all over the table. Is he drunk? Is he being crushed by the combined weight of the other heroes? Is he literally melting? He doesn't look very happy about his situation.

Frankenstein's Superman is lifting ... okay, I don't know what Wonder Woman is supposed to be. I would hazard a guess at a ghost but if she's a ghost, why the hell does Frankenstein's Superman need to lift her out of the way of the other melty-furry-blood crazed idiots?

Alright, so I honestly don't know what's going on on the cover here but I don't hate the cover itself.

If you're interested, here's a list of the included stories. I read some of them and called the ending for most straight away but obviously they're only short stories with little time for plot twists.