You won’t like Harley when she’s angry!
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato, Christopher Sebela
Art: Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Harley Quinn gets better acquainted with her gang of Jokers, while the duplicate heroes begin to arrive from the parallel Earth.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The narrative structure for Injustice: Ground Zero is something that with three issues into it now I think will work – but not for the whole run. I get that it’ll likely be here for it as we get Harley narrating her view of the events of the game and all but there’ll come a point where it’s just going to feel like a little too much, a little too forced. It’s not in the here and now but I can definitely feel it. This issue avoids it partially because it’s got such great artwork from Sampere and Albarran, particularly with some wonderfully color work from Lokus – who isn’t even credited in this issue! I love the layouts that Sampere uses here and some of the larger spreads are great, especially that final full page image of Harley. We’ve got a lot of Harley in this book and that means a lot of good images to work with, but he and Albarran really make that last page stick out.
The view of this world through Harley’s eyes is definitely intriguing as she’s coming from it in way that few others do. Her path to being a “hero” in the moment gives her an insight into the lackey side of the villain game and their importance. She also gets to call out the callous side of it from both hero and villain alike and that’s definitely fun to see, even if it is just a stack of Robin’s piled high. What this does, however, is make her want to be a better leader when it comes to her own gang and we see that well with Gary, Larry, Perry, and Terry, as they spend some quality time together drinking. She’s intent on knowing them and thinking well of them even if they don’t look as mean and tough under their masks as she thought they would be.
What Harley gets to present in this issue is also an interesting area as we see how the heroes from the other Earth are starting to factor into things. With Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, & Green Lantern in Gotham and trying to figure out the nature of everything, it turns into a mess quick enough with Sinestro there to put down some anti-regime protests by the average citizens. It’s a lot of chaos where we see how Harley just thrills to all of it as one would expect, but we also see how her role as a boss now with her own lackeys has her taking a more nuanced and complicated view. Harley doesn’t always do complicated but when she does it can be pretty intense. There’s a lot to like in how all of this unfolds, even with the narration heavy elements that slows down the pacing too much at times, and getting Angry Harley at the end makes the next issue a must-read piece.
In Summary:
Injustice is still finding its voice to some degree, especially compared to the Gods Among Us series, as it’s mostly playing things small and close to the vest at the moment. Part of it is that I’m coming into it with no game experience so while I have the general concept down I’m essentially just waiting for things to get serious. The opening three issues have been solid, even if we didn’t really need another Harley centric book, as we’re getting a handle on how the new additions from the Very Positive Earth are factoring into it while keeping a focus on Harley’s evolution within this particular world. I’m a fan of Harley and I really like what she does with her lackeys here but I’m also hoping things expand sooner rather than later when it comes to the story.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 18th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
