Harley’s looking for some real firepower now.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato, Christopher Sebela
Art: Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Harley goes looking for super-villains to recruit for her gang. When some likely candidates turn her down, it’s time for a trip into the sewers to find Killer Croc.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a lot of potential material to work with, Injustice: Ground Zero still feels like it’s just getting its feet wet with what it wants to do. Buccellato and Sebela have things moving well enough and I’ve largely gotten into the groove of it being a Harley story in order to give it more structure, but I’m also just unsure of where it wants to go and how it wants to get there in bringing the game storyline to life. This installment is light on action and that’s unfortunate as Sampere and Albarran can handle that well. But what we do get is some decent character material and a fun look at a number of characters that we haven’t seen in some time. That helps to reconnect a few points for the reader and nudge us toward where we’re going.
Watching as Harley gets back to what qualifies as normal for her after the time spent with the other world Joker recently has her gang feeling better about things. Just being away from him helps her to deal with things better, though that “Joker-shaped hole” in her heart is always there for her to deal with. What helps the most for her is finding something to do and that’s an amusing thing in Gotham, a city where nobody is out anymore out of fear for what the Regime is like. When she visits her cop friend at the precinct it’s made clear that they’ve been reduced to security guards at best at this point and not law enforcement officers. That gives her the idea to do a little work herself and that has her heading into the sewers to deal with Killer Croc and what’s been up to in swiping away people.
Seeing her looking for new members for her gang prior to that is a lot of fun since she knows that her guys, as great as they are, are normal folks for the most part and she needs some real firepower. This has her calling few connections from her Suicide Squad days, a great place to network she says, and has a lot of problems in striking out here – even with Ivy, which really isn’t too much of a surprise. But there’s a lot to like in catching up with some of those not seen much in the overall Injustice run to see how they’re hiding out and keeping out of sight. So when we do cycle around to the Croc story underground, which also includes Bane as the cover so helpfully points out, it’s no surprise that there are a few people in the cells there that will be useful to Harley. Still, it’s fun to watch it play out and the kind of gang that Croc has set up here, something that Sampere has a lot of fun with and even Wes Abbott does through the lettering style for them behind their masks.
In Summary:
While there aren’t any big moments or reveals in this issue, what we do get is a good bit of fun as it focuses on the gang level aspect for Harley and Killer Croc. I like this little bit of “reality” that gets played with as it works an area that’s ripe for regular exploration. Harley’s gang certainly needs to be boosted more than her, but I still feel like her purpose isn’t all that clear yet nor what the overall trajectory of this series is going to be. Buccellato and Sebela keep it lively, however, and Sampere and Albarran deliver a fun looking book that digs into the characters well for what they’re dealing with and I just loved the croc mask design that Sampere works with here as it’s priceless compared to what Harley and most others would come up with.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 15th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
