Harley Quinn, Museum Cop.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Russell
Art: Laura Braga
Colors: Luis Guerrero
Letterer: Marshall Dillon
What They Say:
It’s hard out there for a freelancer! Looking to make some quick cash, Harley takes on odd jobs in her many wheelhouses—therapizing bad guys, tracking down stolen art from the Gotham Art Museum…but when it turns out the thief has his own mental baggage to unpack, Harley’s got a real Thinkeron her hands!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a few different characters to work the Digital-First books with coming out of the DC Giants, the addition of a Harley Quinn book was a given. I’ve talked about how she’s very much not my favorite character in comics form but I’m always willing to try a new story, especially a single-issue type book. This one lucks out a bit in that it has a creative team that I like with Mark Russell, who has been churning out a lot of fun stories for the Giants, and Laura Braga on the artwork with Luis Guerrero coloring it. Braga’s long been a favorite and she gets to go all wonky here because the Head Shrink villain is used and those in his employ are just bizarre. Russell works a mostly standard story here and the only problem he runs into is my perceptions of these characters thanks to the Harly Quinn animated show.
What we get here is an issue showing us what Harley does in her off-time, when not spending the big bucks going after the big score. Which, usually, takes a lot of time and effort. She uses her skill as a therapist pretty well here in takes some time to head shrink the villain Head Shrink, who has some issues with how he fits into the villain world. But Harley also takes some other jobs, such as the Gotham Museum which has had a number of pieces stolen recently with no clue as to who did it. It’s not unfamiliar to have a criminal be hired later in life to figure out how to beef up security or figure out what happened in another crime so it makes sense to bring in Harley and her unusual skill set here. Not that everyone in the museum is on board with it but with attendance falling and no desire to put on another superhero exhibit, it’s all they’ve got.
It’s fun to watch Harley going through the motions of figuring it out and exploring the museum with her style of humor, which Russell captures fairly well but without the kind of manic presentation some other writers give her. She’s a little subdued in comparison. Naturally, it’s easy to figure out the trick of all of this, though the footage side didn’t feel like it was handled well, and getting a good fight between Harley and Clayface makes for some fun. But, again, I’m so used to the theater dork version of the character from the animated side that going to this one just felt weird. The story expands past that with more of who is involved and it brings things full circle in a fun enough way to make me smile but the main takeaway is that I’m really not a fan of the Head Shrink villain at all.
In Summary:
While I can’t say I’m excited to have another series focused on Harley Quinn, the potential for this is certainly there. I’m admittedly hopeful for a rotating group of writers and artists so that people can do some interesting one-off stories but if this is the team I’m not going to be unhappy because this has a different enough feeling that I can get into its groove as time goes on. Russell’s low-key Harley is amusing to watch while Braga’s artwork is great as always, even if she has to deal with illustrating the weird characters that populate Head Shrinks world. It’s an odd issue overall but it does leave me curious to see where it’s going to go.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via Kindle | ComiXology
Release Date: June 3rd, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
