Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special (2022) #1

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During an assignment for Crusade (‘Tomoe’) she and Jimmy Palmiotti became a real team as penciller/inker. It reminds me of the end of Suicide Squad 2016, when Harley resists and chooses to defeat the Enchantress and save her “friends” despite not being given any character development in that direction for the entire movie. Flipping Harley from one contradiction to the next is not complex characterization, once again, it’s just a mess. The art by John Timms is wonderful, though. The action is incredibly well drawn and intense, and I appreciated the minor visual jokes like Harley stealing a bag that says “LOOT” or an Easter egg of the Joker as a homeless clown. 6/10 Here, we finally get a story where Harley Quinn is written as herself. Mindy Lee and Terry Dodson are writing Harley’s voice better than even Paul Dini here because they are not trying to mimic the vapidness of the newer version. She’s got that 1940’s Brooklyn gangster twang to her voice, but it’s not overdone to the point where it’s annoying. The artwork also depicts Harley with a cute, yet sassy expression that matches her character.

Synopsis for "The Last Harley Story" This article is a stub. You can help DC Database by expanding it. I still can’t believe I’m going through a revolving door of characters that happen to be called Harley Quinn, with different voices and personalities in each and every story. Here we have a short tale that’s supposed to cast Harley as an actual jester, making her way through RPG style quests. This comic is not just a bad collection. It doesn’t just reinforce that DC Comics has no idea what the Harley Quinn character should be or what she should represent. There are some absolutely vile things in this comic that I could not believe were published by DC. I have not been this upset at a comic since I accidentally bought a Marvel trade that included the “Rape of Ms. Marvel” storyline. In many ways, Margot Robbie can be considered the casting that launched a thousand cosplays. In 2016, Task Force X came to the big screen for the first time in the David Ayer-directed Suicide Squad…and of course, Harley Quinn was on the roster.Synopsis for "Troop Harley Quinn" This article is a stub. You can help DC Database by expanding it. Writers: Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Rafael Scayone, Stjepan Sejic, Stephanie Phillips, Kami Garcia, Paul Dini, Sam Humphries, Rob Williams, Cecil Castellucci, Mindy Lee, and Terry Dodson So my hype for this comic evaporated. I had hope for this anthology because usually when writers are free from the constraints of whatever is going on in the mainstream books, they come up with fairly decent stories for Harley. What I got instead is a comic that reinforces everything wrong with DC’s stewardship of Harley Quinn. The best stories here are simply not as bad as the worst stories. The worst stories fly way over just being badly written and into being utterly repulsive. It’s really heartbreaking for me, because I know what this character means to other people. They are not invested because they can’t get enough of Harley’s high-pitched voices, skimpy outfits, or (recently) dirty jokes. Harley was meaningful to people because she presented a rare female character that was allowed to be vulnerable. It meant something to have that kind of character to relate to. But she’s in the hands of people now who don’t seem to care.

The one-shot was written by Dini and Bruce Timm, two of the iconic creators behind some of the greatest Batman: The Animated Series episodes. Freed of the constraints of network television, the comic allowed for a deep exploration of what drives Harley as well as the dark side of her relationship with the Joker, and readers responded strongly. The book won an Eisner Award for Best Single Issue and was later adapted into a 1999 episode of The New Batman Adventures. If you want to understand Harley Quinn as a character, Mad Love is essential reading. Debuting in 1992, Batman: The Animated Series was a benchmark in modern Super Hero animation. During its groundbreaking run, the Warner Bros. Animation series garnered a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, along with three additional Emmy wins and 13 total Emmy nominations. The series also featured the debut of DC’s Harley Quinn, now recognizable worldwide across film, television, video games, comics and more. The creative team behind the series was led by the producing quartet of Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett and Eric Radomski, alongside executive producers Jean MacCurdy and Tom Ruegger. DC Comics digital-first series available in both digital and print editions; Season One, Two and Three complete and on saleCover image for 0722DC028 Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special #1 Lee Bermejo Cover, by (W) Various (A) Various (CA) Lee Bermejo, in stores Tuesday, September 20, 2022 from DC Comics Then there’s the plot itself, which shows Harley trying to hang out with Alfred, and they have long conversations before Harley helps Alfred fight some villains. I was questioning in my head the whole time why Alfred was allowing a crazy person with a murder record to drink tea with him and caper about Wayne Manor, even if she is supposed to be reformed. But that’s another element to Palmiotti’s Harley. He changes anything from DC canon at will to fit his story. This has caused confusion over his run for years as people couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be canon or not. That said, if you’ve read one Jimmy Palmiotti Harley story, you’ve read them all. His dialogue for Harley can only be described as overdone baby talk, where there are so many intentionally misspelled words and speech inflections, it’s absolutely unreadable. What makes this worse is that this story is wall-to-wall with this dialogue taking up so many of the panels. I found myself tempted to skip over it multiple times before forcing myself to try to discern everything that was being said. Cover image for 0722DC024 Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special #1 Stanley Artgerm Lau Cover, by (W) Various (A) Various (CA) Stanley Artgerm Lau, in stores Tuesday, September 20, 2022 from DC Comics

We can’t say what may lie ahead, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Harley, it’s that she never fails to surprise us in the most wonderful ways. In 2013, NetherRealm Studios released the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us. The fighting game from the minds behind the Mortal Kombat series would go on to spawn a franchise that included a sequel game, a popular comic series and a 2021 animated film. I've loved what Ms. Phillips has done with this new iteration of Harley Quinn, but this volume? This was on a whole new level! To bridge that gap between the original villainous and the new antihero she's emerging as through the lens of Verdict was sheer brilliance. Especially because she offered no excuses for the Harley that was. Harley has always stepped forward and embraced the evil she's done. And it's what makes her so believable and relatable as a character. There's no "I didn't mean it" or "I was under the influence of a maniacal lunatic" that's been employed elsewhere. She openly admits that she was on a different path and grew to recognize the errors of her ways.

She continuously produces cover work for Marvel Comics, DC Comics and an assortment of independent titles. Variant covers by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL, ADAM HUGHES, STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU, LEE BERMEJO, JEROME OPEÑA, BRUCE TIMM, TERRY DODSON, STJEPAN ŠEJIĆ, AMANDA CONNER, STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU The artwork was a bit inconsistent, too. I liked the moodier blue and yellow colors used in the story, but some of Harley’s faces looked garbled and weird. Sometimes her body appeared to be a bit “box-like” as well. It gave me the sense of rushed work. 4/10 Australia and New Zealand retailer, Zing Pop Culture, boasts one of the largest ranges of Harley Quinn merch locally with everything from homewares and POP! Vinyls, to apparel and accessories. New Zealand Mint also has a Harley Quinn 1oz Silver Collectible Coin as part of their Faces of Gotham collection. The ultimate Harley Quinn piece for any DC collector!

There isn’t much plot to the chapter itself, it’s just Harley traveling through a circus that represents various moments of her life and relationships in a surreal fashion. It’s still not great, and I absolutely did not need another sequence praising how wonderful the Harley/Ivy romance is after what I’ve been exposed to in this comic. Still, I would probably put Mindy Lee and the Dodsons on the list of who should actually be writing Harley. It took us ten stories to find a creative team still capable of that. 8/10 Robbie’s take on Harley was so popular that she was later given her own movie in 2020, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), and once again joined the ranks of Task Force X for James Gunn’s 2021 film, The Suicide Squad, giving viewers more laughs, action and gratuitous violence. Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special by Paul Dini, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Chad Hardin, Stjepan Sejic, Stephanie Phillips, Riley Rossmo and more is now available in print and as a digital comic book. I was rather confused by this story when it began. Harley’s voice isn’t bad, but she’s portrayed as a whiny little girl who is desperate to join the Gotham’s Women’s Club, saying she should be the star member. She is rejected, of course, but insists that she must join because she’s actually a “good role model to young girls.” Then the rest of the story is Harley teaming up with the girl scouts to effect change and “smash the patriarchy.” I mean, it’s a bit hypocritical to call Harley Quinn a role model to young girls after the kind of content we’ve experienced in this comic so far, isn’t it? I also don’t feel comfortable that this story, which feels like it’s meant for very young kids, is in the same collection as the Sejic story. The artwork, while pretty well executed, also has this patchwork, cotton-textured look to it that re-enforces the feel that this is for kids. Who is this character for, DC? 3/10 The story goes that Harley is having temptations of returning to Joker again. Selina Kyle deduces of Harley that her attraction to Joker is not based on love, obsession, or dependency, but because Harley has a bondage “Daddy kink.” Yes, that’s in the comic. Selina Kyle says this and she and Harley go on to explicitly talk about “domintatrixs” and fetishes in a mainstream, premium format, DC comic.

Excalibur and Catwoman writer Tini Howard and Captain Marvel artist Sweeney Boo are the new planned creative team for the DC Comics ongoing series Harley Quinn from March 2023 with Harley Quinn #28. This will follow February's Harley Quinn #27 by the current team of Stephanie Phillips and Matteo Lolli. DC Comics digital-first mini-series available in both digital and print editions; series complete and on sale