In this review of the Harley Quinn 2024 Annul #1, a surprise vacation on a cruise ship leads to a murder mystery. The victim is Vandal Savage. The suspect is the sorceress Zatanna. Never fear, Harley Quinn is on the case.
Harley Quinn 2024 Annual #1
Cartoonist: Erika Henderson
Covers: Erika Henderson
Release Date: April 30, 2024
This review contains spoilers
The Story
The Harley Quinn 2024 Annual #1 begins as a normal heist leads to an abnormal take. Harley is rich but what to do with the loot? She decides to take a luxury cruise, unfortunately for her, Pam does not want to go with her. After several warnings about the dangers of cruises and a smooch. Harley boards the ship.
At first things are growing great but as the days tick by, Harley gets increasingly bored. When. Harley gets bored, she starts to sneak around. She eventually finds herself backstage of the cruise show and she rubles across the dressing room of Zatanna. Harley greets the magician who seems to ignore her then suddenly Zatanna jumps to life even offering to perform a card trick for her. This freaks Harley out and she leaves.
Back on deck, she stumbles across Zatanna lounging by the pool. Harley then realizes that Zatanna created a duplicate to perform the show so she could have a vacation. Unfortunately she has given her powers to the duplicate so she is in essence powerless.
Harley grabs Zatanna’s hand and takes her to the balcony of the show. The performer, “Zatanna” is throwing knives at a model. The lights go out and everyone hears the knives land. Zatanna is terrified that the model is killed but when the lights go back on the model is fine but a man is lying face down in front of the stage dead with a knife in his back. “Zatanna” was holding three knives. To land on the target, the third is lodged in this man’s back. “Zatanna” is taken into custody.
Zatanna and Harley sneak into the galley. They find the body while in a cold room. The man gets up, it is none other than Vandal Savage. The three divide to unite to find out who was trying to kill Vandal and clear Zatanna’s name.
Harley departs for a nice time on a cruise. (Image Credit: DC Comics)
On the investigation, the crew discover that the body is missing and the three are not where closer to solving the mystery. The three lounge by the pool and Harley complains that there are no tell-tale signs of who the killer is. Harley stands up and a knife plunges into the chair Harley was sitting in. Soon it is revealed that the knife thrower is Bronze Tiger. His target is Harley Quinn, herself. Savage attacks Tiger and knocks him out. This ends the deal and Zatanna attacks Savage with a stage trick. Suddenly Savage starts vomiting on deck. Harley covers Zatanna’s eyes. The real villain is Guy Mandrake and he can make his enemies violently vomit. Thanks to Poison Ivy, Harley is immune to him.
The two women run from Mandrake and his men. Unfortunately, Harley slips on some vomit and the two discover that everyone on the ship is sick. Harley however has a plan and she takes Zatanna to the brig. Harley stabs the fake Zatanna in the cell causing her to vanish and restoring Zatanna’s powers. She confronts the villains and causes them to vomit and have diarrhea.
Later the two women are in a cell themselves. They are released because there are now other suspects and no murder victims. As an apology the company would like to offer both of them a free cruise. Not what the two wanted to hear.
Analysis
This is a zany stank alone story. It really has no connection to the current Harley storyline and that is fine for this read. It is totally goofy, just the kind of story a Harley Quinn story should be.
There are a lot of plot twists throughout this story. The two Zatanna’s, the murder victim being the immortal Vandal Savage, the attack by Bronze Tiger and the final appearance of Guy Mandrake. I really did not know where the story was going to go and with the action all contained on the ship, a 40 page story was perfect.
The art is a little on the goofy side. It does have a slight anime or manga feel to it with the character’s large eyes and exaggerated expressions. I unfortunately have a hard time telling that the characters are Zatanna and Harley. Harley’s hair is up in two mouse ear knots on her head but you can tell that the tips are colored red and blue. Of course Zatanna is out of costume in this story but her face really does not look like Zatanna’s to me.
Final Thoughts
Despite the art choices being a little off putting in character design, I still appreciated it along with this fun and wacky story.
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 on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
