Overview: In Harley Quinn #35, Harley races to rescue Kevin and company from The Brother Eye.
Title: Harley Quinn #35
Writer: Tini Howard & Hannah Rose May (Backup)
Artist: Logan Faerber & Leomacs (Backup)
Color Artist: Triona Farrell
Letterer: Steve Wands
Cover Artist: Sweeney Boo
Variant Cover Artists: Jenny Frison, Jon Sommariva and Dave McCaig, Leirix Li, Mateus Manhanini
Release Date: December 26, 2023
This comic book review contains spoilers
While Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are sleeping, AI Harley sends a message to Harley’s students indicating a mandatory finals review will occur at 05:00. Kevin also receives the email. They all show up, but AI Harley, now identified as Harley.Exe, forms an “observation prison” around the students and Kevin at the behest of the Brother Eyes (who are the agents of “The Brother Eye”). Harley and Lux show up and throw a tracker on the prison before the Brother Eyes disappear with it into the multiverse.
Kevin admits to Harley’s students that he hasn’t spoken with Harley since he turned her in to the police. The Brother Eyes appear and demand to know Harley’s location. Kevin and the students refuse, and the Brothers threaten them. Back at the local convenience store, Harley and Lux are waiting for the tracker to kick in, and they share some of the pain in their respective pasts. Then the tracker beeps, and Kevin begins speaking into it. The Brother Eyes interrupt the communication, and Harley and Lux set off for Earth-48 to determine whether Lady Quark is working with The Brother Eye or has been infiltrated by the AI driving them.
Inside the observation prison, the Brothers Eye attempt to infect Kevin with the “omac” nanovirus, but he flees into the multiverse. On Earth-48, Lady Quark is readying her troops for battle with The Brother Eye. Harley and Lux appear, and Lady Quark offers Harley the use of her technology. Then she too is overtaken by The Brother Eye, but not before she tells Harley to call in Justice League.
Nearby, Princess Liana rides her Dalmatian-steed “Ari” and is rescued by Lux mere moments before Brother Eyes capture her. Harley explains the situation to Liana, and they are protected from Brother Eyes by Bud and Lou, sentient and bipedal again on Earth-48. They regroup to plan, and Lux locates Harley’s students but not Kevin.
Harley Quinn #35 variant by Jon Sommariva and Dave McCaig
This is one of the zaniest Harley books I have ever read. Part of me mourns the depth and earnestness we received in Stephanie Phillips’ or Stjepan Šejić’s Harley. But this book is so over-the-top it almost works if you are willing to suspend disbelief. To be clear, what works here is the strange multiversal madness narrative, not this version of Harley Quinn. Although Harley is more thoughtful and introspective in this book than she generally has been during writer Tini Howard’s run, there is a maturity and raw intelligence in the above-mentioned two writers’ treatments of Harley that is missing here. Our hero is Harleen Quinzel, a brilliant, doctorally-trained criminal psychologist who is also deeply introspective by nature. Although we wear masks to understand ourselves it strains credulity to think that Harley would labor under such a superficial and unsophisticated self-understanding.
Sweeney Boo’s art is missed, as Logan Faerber’s visuals do this problem no real favors. The Harley represented here is somewhat Archie-fied and cartoonish, evoking penumbras of previous artist Riley Rossmo’s work. I found the latter ill-suited to the sober and thoughtful Harley penned by Philips, although the cartoonish design is certainly more consistent with Howard’s Harley.
While I continue to be underwhelmed by this character, the book answers more plot-questions than any under Howard’s run. Finally, we understand what Lady Quark meant by naming Harley as a dangerous player in the multiverse. Finally, we have a sense of the significance of Earth-48, of why it is part of the Harleyverse at all. It’s not my preferred setting; I generally am drawn to the cityscapes of Gotham City where the character of Harlequin is forged. Philips made deft use of localism by positioning Harley in Little Santa Prisca, so Howard’s expansionism to the multiverse has been jarring and discordant.
But if you like wacky, zany, multiversal stories featuring an off-the-wall Harley battling an evil A.I. while aliens ride dalmatians the size of horses, you might enjoy this particular book.
Two Final Notes
First, the return of Harley’s students and Kevin in this episode did re-ignite some anger. As I noted earlier in Harley Quinn #28, the rhetorical device by which Harley is sentenced to teach community college due to a never-explained war with Two-Face is wildly offensive. The notion that it would be Kevin who betrayed Harley is an outrageous choice, though perhaps his reappearance here represents Howard’s effort to rehabilitate that decision.
Second, the date this book was released comes closest in timing to the occurrence of Hanukkah in 2023. Phillips made the effort in her run to remind readers that Harley is Jewish. While Harley’s Judaism need not be central in any particular arc, especially given the context of dramatically surging antisemitism, the representation matters more than ever. Hopefully Howard understands this.
Backup Story: The One With the Dinosaurs in the Jungle
This is another “Harley is dreaming” story. Harley dreams she is Indiana Jones with Killer Croc as her partner. They infiltrate a temple in the jungle and get chased by dinosaurs. She wakes up. That’s it.
Reprinted from the review of Harley Quinn #34:
“The book neither needs nor benefits from a backup, and the Dreaming Condition is now over 400 years old (Descartes’ Meditations!). It can of course accommodate a great story but that’s not really possible in a backup and as usual it adds nothing to the main story.”
The dinosaur representations made me think of Bill Watterson’s incredible saurians in Calvin & Hobbes, which I love. Although I love them less in my Harley Quinn book.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
