A little self diagnosis never hurts anyone.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato
Art: Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
What They Say:
Depressed over recent events, Harley decides to visit with a therapist. But maybe an encounter with Shazam will help her more.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Injustice arc with Bizarro really had me conflicted in some ways with what it did but part of the appeal of this series is that it does go in these odd directions. Events take turns that are “out of control” in a lot of ways and you kind of just have to let it run with it to see where it goes. Thankfully, the book is looking to move elsewhere at this stage and we get some really interesting pieces here that flesh out some of what’s going on. While I do prefer when this book is more focused on a particular event, and I’d love to actually see what Batman is up to at this point or more on how the world itself is coping with what the Regime is doing, I like these little detours that we do take.
The smaller detour here is one that works well as we get several of the Rogues and general criminals celebrating the lives of two that they lost recently thanks to Bizarro, who they think was Superman. That reinforces their hate of the Regime in a big way and you know that they’re not going to back down. Amid this, there are some really great panels that Redondo and Albarran work here with Mirror Master and Golden Glider that are just very pleasing because the script that Buccellato puts in basically helps to remind us of their humanity. That these are people underneath with connections born over time and a little hanky panky, or even more serious romance, will evolve out of it. That it’s broken up by the arrival of the Flash is no surprise, but it’s here that I also loved the longstanding nod toward the way he respects how the Rogues generally operate and he’s not pleased by this turn of events, nor does he really try to push hard in getting them to know that it wasn’t Superman.
The bulk of the issue is Harley focused and that works well enough, even if she is becoming the Wolverine of the DC side these days. I really liked her therapy session at the start as it’s totally her and it allowed for some great visual comedy and expressions out of her from Redondo and Albarran. When she shifts gears to going after Shazzy to try and understand why he’s aligned with Superman and the regime with all that they’ve done, it’s a good conflicting piece as he points out her time with the Joker that was the catalyst for so much of this. I really like how they play Batson here, script and visuals, and really had hoped that they wouldn’t go the transformation route so that the conversation could exist in this form as it could have gone in some interesting directions. Of course, fighting is the order of the day so you want Shazzy for that and it has potential to explore things a bit more, not that Harley expects an answer that might actually satisfy her.
In Summary:
I continue to enjoy the Injustice series a lot, even with its uneven nature at times, because that’s a lot of the appeal of it. Buccellato has settled well into the role for it and has for some time and I’m really digging the growth in what Redondo and Albarran have done with the book and their style over the course of it, especially compared to some of the earlier work that was kind of all right at best for me. With Lokus doing some great color work on top of it, the book looks great and has a smooth flow and a growing confidence in working the panel layouts for the humor that has me hopeful they’ll get to work those chops a bit more in whatever book they end up with after this wraps up. This is the start of a new and likely small arc but it has some tasty bits to it right from the start.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 10th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
