Taking down cults on the side is just pure Harley.
Creative Staff:
Story: Christopher Sebela
Art: Mirka Andolfo, Max Raynor
Colors: Gabe Eltaeb
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
When Harley Quinn finds herself hammer-deep in a paranoid spiral, the last thing she needs is for someone to blow up her favorite bodega! Worse, the only clue she finds seems to indicate Harley herself was the actual target of the attack! What’s a girl to do when she’s pushed all her friends away just as someone decides to kill her?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dropping into the middle of an ongoing series like Harley Quinn may not be the smartest thing in the world. I’m also realizing that small doses may be too much for me with this character, especially after such heavy exposure in the Injustice series. Here, Chris Sebela finishes up what began in the previous issue with the cults that Harley got exposed to as she makes some new friends. Mirka Andolfo continues to put in some gorgeous work as I really like the way she handles Harley’s design but that of the rest of the cast, as well as both Frankie and June, feel like they’re pretty accessible and familiar just from what we get in their designs here. Max Raynor steps in to help out with a couple of pages but it’s not that noticeable overall.
Harley and Frankie being all tied up together isn’t a bad way to start the book as we get the Reaper going on about his dastardly plans and the general evil of it all that’s in the works. Frank’s convinced they’re going to die with how Harley eggs him on and even the Reaper feels like he’s reaching his limit, particularly since his speech is not exciting the rank and file members all that much. Even worse, Pyg shows up along the way and kind of trashes him a bit as well, insisting that he get back to work in causing problems in the city so that Pyg’s own plans can get underway. Harley’s mocking them all as it plays out but even that feels understated since they are largely ignoring her. It’s just Frank that’s trying to survive the experience.
The situation does cause enough concern among of the Reapers acolytes, a young woman named June, to start to switch sides once everyone has slipped out. She only joined because it was initially a support group that then brought out robes and scythes and most of them just went along with it. The book kind of falls into a weird zone from here, outside of the two pages of Harley battling her demons again, where it’s a lot of back and forth about what to do, lots of yelling, and some good material involving Frank and June finding that they might have a real connection here – if they can actually ditch Harley. It’s just got a flow about it that didn’t work and felt like it belonged in a different portion of the issue. Honestly, the way it played out on top of my tiring of Harley quickly just made it clears that this series is not for me.
In Summary:
I like Harley Quinn as a character and have read her in a lot of books over the years but the drop-in I’ve done into this batch of issues just isn’t clicking for me. There doesn’t feel like there’s a bigger focus at work and it’s just kind of meandering and doing one-off bits that aren’t interesting at all. Andolfo’s artwork is great and I love her take on the title character and everyone else as well, but there’s little here beyond that as it’s filled with dark backgrounds and large shadowed rooms. This’ll be a title I’ll rotate out of interest and look for something else to get into instead.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: DC Comics via DC Universe
Release Date: June 20th, 2018
MSRP: $2.99
