The devil is in the details.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner
Art: Stephane Roux
What They Say:
Meet Harley’s new neighbors, and shudder at the horrifying realization that they are so twisted they make her seem like the normal one on the block.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having managed to not make me cringe completely with a Valentine’s Day themed issue the last time around, Harley Quinn gets down to the serious business of being a therapist. This area of her history gets explored from time to time, but the team here made the fun and wise decision to incorporate it into her ongoing series as something they can dig into from time to time. Though going by the tease here at the end of this issue, it’ll take up an issue or two more before we move onto something else for a bit. And that’s the thing with the series is that it feels like it can move between things well and has several irons in the fire to work with as it progresses. There’s a few things seeded along the way so far, including something that Harley is having Tony doing for her to deal with her dogs, and you can imagine any number of them becoming bigger plot points.
Here, we get the fun of seeing her making the transformation into Quinzel and the way her favorite stuffed animal gives her some appropriate lip about things that reveals a little bit about herself. The two have an amusing relationship and watching the banter that “exists” definitely hits a sweet spot in setting a particular tone. The tone for this issue in general, outside of the usual fun, is all about family. With Quinzel doing her job as a therapist and listening to Mrs. Rubenstein about her woes, it doesn’t take much for her to get incensed over what the elderly woman’s son and family have been like towards her over the years. With her feeling discarded by them, it strikes a personal note for Harley in a way that demands that her version of justice be meted out. Even at the cost of delaying another patients session because justice comes first. And justice here means quite the beat down for the family members.
What makes this book work as she goes about and collects the son, the daughter-in-law and the grandson is that we get the quirky filtered view of the modern world for families, still very much close to the nuclear side but far more detached, and some sharp jokes and grins and giggles over things involving personal massagers. It all gets dealt with in a good way as she kidnaps them, tortures them in her own way and demands amends be made to the nice old lady. There’s a great, if expected, twist about it, but it doesn’t diminish the fun of the situation that Harley goes through nor the way she deals with it in terms of humor, outlandish moments and generally trying to be a good guy through awkward means.
This issue does give us another assassination attempt, though like past ones it’s largely meaningless in a sense, but we do get a tease or two about who may be involved as someone named Bubba is mentioned. What makes this one memorable though is that it happens while she’s having a meal in a cafe and the whole situation plays out like the Greedo/Han Solo sequence from the original Star Wars film. It’s got the right little twists to things and plays well as a cute parody while also achieving the goal of bringing in a bit more information about what’s going on.
In Summary:
Harley Quinn doesn’t advance the larger plot here overall, but it does have fun with events in general as she plays her Quinzel role. That leads to a silly caper with the kind of sitcom ending to it that’s definitely appropriate – you can practically hear the laugh track – but it also provides a skewed look at the simple modern family in a sense. Harley’s insights from time to time are good and I like some of what gets dealt with in terms of how she has to costume herself up to be normal, and I’m intrigued by what she has Tony doing. The book also sets up things to come with the next patient she’s dealing with as he gets his history laid out here with plans to force her to help with his issues, and that could be a good bit of wacky fun the next time around.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 19th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
