Overview: Harley penetrates the sanctum of Professor Pyg, and faces the Reaper! Rescuing her companions, Harley then turns the fight upon Pyg!
Synopsis (spoilers ahead): Picking up right after the cliffhanger of the last issue, Harley faces off against some Reapers, before trying to overcome them with a little assistance from her talking beaver Bernie! Sadly her efforts prove in vain and Frank and Harley are at the mercy of a hooded Reaper. Pyg appears, grotesque as ever, and instructs the Reaper to kill Harley and Frank. Fortunately for Harley, this particular Reaper is having issues with the program. She releases Harley and Frank, describing how joining the Reapers at first felt like a family – until it became a crazy cultish prison.
After this backstory ends, Frank and the Reaper-who-Harley-calls-June, think Harley will beat a quick retreat from this underground insanity of Pyg and Reapers. But Harley has other plans! She wants to confront her demons and her opponents – in a telling scene, Harley literally swats at the mentally hungry ghosts haunting her, with her mallet!
What soon follows is a nifty plan hatched by Harley and carried out by Frank and the Reaper-who-Harley-calls-June, as they basically play a game of telephone amongst the two rival bands in this mad undercity; Pyg’s Dollotrons and the Reapers. The telephone strategy works a pinch, and there’s a hilarious moment where Harley throws a rock to kick-start the fight! Inevitably the fight breaks out and Harley throws herself into the fray, eventually leading to the defeat and capture of both the Reaper and Professor Pyg.
At the conclusion of the fight, Harley re-unites with her friends, the Gang of Harley’s, who have come to find her, admitting they left her alone as she was in such a mood, and Frank and the Reaper-who-Harley-calls-June go on a date, just two tender freaks in the city…
Analysis: This is an interesting comic and an interesting take on Harley, with the emphasis on the wackiness being ever-so-slightly dialed down, and the aspects of Harley’s mental illness being played more directly into the narrative as she faces down those demons. This is a dark tale masquerading as a romp, a facial descent into the nightmare of Pyg’s sadistic cruelty, with Harley’s determination NOT to run, weirdly heroic and almost subversive to the current of the book. It might sound odd but this character of Harley, from the current creative team, is a more muted than that of the recent long run by Palmiotti and Conner. While still retaining a large element of her cartoonish behavior and appearance, (for example she still dresses the same, she still talks to her stuffed beaver) she seems to be exploring a new kind of self-awareness that is less of a reflection of her friends and associates, and more driven from somewhere inside herself. If this all sounds a bit heavy, it’s the backdrop and a mood rather than the main narrative.
What Harley actually does here, by essentially playing a game of telephone amongst the followers of the insane Reaper, and the equally manic converts of Professor Pyg is clever and silly and almost fun – there’s still a comic heart beating in the heart of this book. But the hue and the feeling have changed, and that’s okay, too. It will be interesting to see how this book develops under this creative team. I’m getting the feeling we could in for a more personal take of the character of Harley, with a smaller supporting cast and the light shone more thoroughly on Harley’s interior. As challenging as change can be for such a cool book, and I’m sure the tonal changes have been noticed by Harley’s core audience, the opening moves have certainly been strong.
Final Thoughts: A continuation of the subtly different direction of Harley Quinn, there remains a lot to like about this book of DC’s most popular and colorful anti-hero!
Editor’s Note: David Finn is the author of The Asanti Series. Demorn: Blade of Exile, Demorn: City of Innocents and the latest book, Demorn: Soul Fighter, are currently available on Amazon here.
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