Harley’s past and present make for some fun and dark times.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett, Gail Simone
Art: Isaac Goodhart, Priscilla Petraites
Colors: Chris Sotomayor, John Kalisz
Letterer: Marshall Dillon, Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
Story 1 – Poison Ivy’s throwing a housewarming party, and Harley’s got to find her bff the ultimate gift. It has to be something special…something rare…and deadly would be a plus! Can Harley and her animal pals find Pammy the perfect present before everyone gets arrested? Story 2 – Harley Quinn delivers some long-awaited justice on behalf of a woman who’s been wrongfully imprisoned, but with a Harley twist. And by twist, we mean mallet.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After an opening issue that was a full-length story, this one looks to go for something shorter – which is actually in Harley’s favor, I think. Sometimes she can be a bit too much for some, myself included, and these smaller doses a bit plus. The opening tale brings Marguerite Bennett in on the writing duties and it reminded me why I enjoy her work so much. She’s well-paired with Isaac Goodheart to go for a Looney Tunes style installment as she raids a museum. The flip side is the story from Gail Simone that goes dark with story and humor as she works with Priscilla Petraites to highlight more of Harley’s past and just how long she’s made wrong choices while showing how she’s redeeming in the present – somewhat.
The first tale is a cute one as we get Harley being invited to Poison Ivy’s new housewarming/lairwarming party. Solve the code and you’ll get the time and location! Harley wants to do well by her so she heads out to find the best housewarming present which is a rare plant from a botanical exhibit that’s in town. Harley in a museum is always fun and with her menagerie of animals with her it’s even more amusing to watch. The story is short but it delivers plenty of silly action as the museum has an overpowered attack robot on watch that goes after her by capturing her animal friends first. It’s silly and slapstick in all the right ways and I really enjoyed the expressiveness that Goodhart captured in her animal pals and Harley herself. The little bits of nuance are what works the best and those details should delight a lot of long-time fans of the character.
The second tale is one that digs into Harley’s past and expands on it a bit as she’s gotten information from Huntress to deal with a particular problem. There’s some fun as she talks about her view of the relationship dynamic with Huntress like they’re best friends but it just reinforces how skewed she views the world. What this story wants to do is show that she had a bit of a history with bad boyfriend choices that messed with her and has the lead now on where a former patient of hers may be, which is tied up with that former boyfriend as well. The manipulative men in her life have done a number not just on her and she doesn’t intend for her former patient to end up in a bad place because of it, especially now that she operates outside of the law as both good and bad. It’s interesting to see another piece of her past in this way, making clear the Joker fascination wasn’t an aberration, and understanding why she and the girls she rescues are able to do what they do is key to it because they do share that kind of history.
In Summary:
With two writers I like and a pair of solid art teams working here, the second installment goes for the short-form stories that are harder to tell but succeed quite well. The opening story is definitely wacky and silly while the second is more serious while still leaning into the humor, though it’s got the darker edge to it. The result is that we get to see just a bit of the many sides that are Harley Quinn and how she handles her interactions with good guys, bad guys, and scum in general. It’s one that does a lot of heavy lifting in small spaces and succeeds better than a lot of the writers working on these shorter stories in handling the limitations.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via Kindle | ComiXology
Release Date: June 10th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
