Review: Harley Quinn #28

Overview: In Harley Quinn #28, the new creative team takes over as Harley fights Two-Face and learns she is a multiversal criminal.

Editor’s Note: Due to the anthology nature of this collection, we will feature a synopsis and analysis for each short story rather than breaking up the synopsis and analysis. Spoilers are sure to be revealed.

Story #1: “Girl in a Crisis” Part 1 by writer Tini Howard and artist Sweeney Boo

Synopsis: As Harley Quinn #28 begins, Harley and Two-Face are fighting in an amusement park. They have been going after each other, and it has escalated quickly. He is flummoxed when one of his shoes goes missing, and he departs to deal with the situation.

Back at Harley and Ivy’s place, Harley enjoys the spoils of Harvey Dent’s stolen credit card while she chats with Bud and Lou.

Over brunch the next morning, Kevin reprimands Harley for engaging in a prank war with Two-Face. The police arrive outside and call for Harley to surrender. Two-Face has arrived and is facing off with Harley. He offers to partner, but Harley spurns him and walks outside to surrender. She is shocked to discover that Kevin called the police because Harley has “gotta learn.”

Shackled in an orange jumpsuit, Harley banters with the judge who threatens her with prison before sentencing her to forced labor as a psychology professor at Gotham City Community College. (The pay there is too low to retain professors). In class, a student asks Harley what her qualifications are for teaching, objecting to being used in criminal reform experiments. She notes that virtually all of the best scholarship on Joker is hers. The questions continue until Two-Face smashes his car through the wall.

They battle until Harley knocks him unconscious with a strangely-colored dead fish. Later, the fish reanimates and begins speaking to her. The fish is the vessel of Tashana, the Lady Quark. She names Harley a “multiversal criminal” who has eroded the boundaries between worlds. The fish is a powerful weapon belonging to a great warrior, and Tashana warns Harley that her next mistake will doom her and Earth itself.

Analysis: Tini Howard begins her run as writer of the Harley Quinn book, and the debut is inauspicious. First, there are discontinuities that make little sense. For example, it’s wonderful to see Kevin again, but his relationship with Harley is characterized by fierce devotion and unswerving loyalty, and faith in her decency and her redemption journey. The notion that he would sell Harley out by calling the police to arrest her is wildly unbelievable.  While new writers should be given some latitude in interpreting past events and characters differently, the notion that Kevin would turn Harley into the carceral machinery of the state “for her own good” is profoundly disrespectful to the relationship between Kevin and Harley and also to the audience investing in the depth and power of that relationship.

Second, why exactly do the police arrest Harley? Because of a prank war with Two-Face? After the number of times Harley has helped to rescue Gotham, these events are jarring, as is the fact that the Bat-Family is literally nowhere to be found in the issue. Are we to believe they would just stand by and watch Harley be arrested for little reason, especially after Batwoman rescued Harley from unjust imprisonment in Harley Quinn #17?

Moreover, the motivation and initiation of the war between Two-Face and Harley has apparently occurred entirely off-panel, which is a bizarre creative decision. Why would Harley engage in a war with Two-Face? The notion that she would do so for fun or boredom is profoundly at odds with the introspective, thoughtful, repentant Harley delivered so ably by previous writer Stephanie Phillips. Howard even has access to an easy deus ex machina that could explain Harley’s behavior – her trip to the Lazarus pit –, but the audience is instead left to piece together how and why Harley would engage Two-Face in such a manner.

Perhaps it’s because I am a university professor, but I was positively enraged by the narrative decision to have Harley sentenced to serve as a psychology professor at Gotham City Community College. The underfunding of public education in the US is indeed a crisis, and instead of being treated seriously, the book ends up making it a comic device. Who, after all, would agree to become a community college professor if they were not sentenced to it as a form of forced labor? I cannot possibly describe how insulting this plot device is to community college professors and staff, who do incredible things with and for students under impossible constraints.

The actual arc of Harley Quinn #28 makes almost no sense, either. Harley and Two-Face are engaged in an ever-escalating war for reasons which are never explained. The Bat-Family is absent, and Harley is arrested as a result of Kevin (!!!). She knocks Two-Face out with a fish. She knocks Two-Face out … with a fish. The fish is a weapon from another part of the multiverse under the authority of some godlike creature named Tashana, Lady Quark, who warns Harley about her multiversal mischief.

To this sequence of events, I can offer only the following response:

Wut.

The only redeeming feature of this book is the art from Sweeney Boo, which is every bit as vibrant and delightful as I had hoped. Boo’s playful, punkish style seems absolutely perfect for Harley, and the bright colors and almost demonic smiles are fantastic.

Story #2: “Lovely Angel Harley Quinn” by writer and artist Erica Henderson

Synopsis: In the backup of Harley Quinn #28, Harley takes her hammer to Koumoriot, set loose in Gotham by evil billionaire Bruce Wayne. Wayne remotely reanimates Koumoriot in giant form, who proceeds to stomp Harley. Harley summons the “Lovely Angels” (Ivy and Catwoman). They unite and, through the power of friendship, stymie Koumoriot.

Analysis: I have no idea why Harley Quinn needs or benefits from a backup story.

Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with a copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.