Harleen
By: Stjepan Šejic
I’m not particularly good at fawning over things so let me just say I really think this is my favorite Harley story, Harley-Joker origin story ever and one of my top 3 graphic novels. I went into it expecting to like it because it is Harley.
I did not expect it to be so damned good or have so much going for it.
As we get ready for all the new 2020 movies I thought I’d wrap up my movie year in a one sentence for each film post 🙂 I had fun looking back and doing this for 2018.
Though to keep it simple I am limiting it to 2019 theatrical releases mostly in the order I saw them.
Joker
Directed By: Todd Phillips
A lot has already been written dissected and yelled about this deep dive into the psyche of the Joker. Some interesting topics like art, censorship, the cultural responsibility of artists, violence in films, etc are involved. Not to mention why the yelling over this particular film and not countless other super violent movies that come out?
And is Joker even worth it?
The Harley Quinn movie trailer is here (also known as Birds of Prey) and while it looks fun I’m also once again glad it’s not Gotham City Sirens.
In fact I’m not sure I want to see Ivy while Margot Robbie is calling the shots and I say that as a huge fan of Harley Quinn.
Harley Quinn Hot in the City (Vol. 1) & Power Outage (Vol.2)
By: Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Chad Hardin, John Timms & Alex Sinclair
Genre: Comics/Superhero
Grade: A
Now a break from my regularly scheduled Marvel reading.
I love Harley Quinn. She’s one of those weird, fascinating characters that get under my skin. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to be her (Halloween is a different story) and I know a lot of people would put her in the “problematic fav” category but that doesn’t stop me from loving her.
So I was thrilled to get Hot in the City and Power Outage, new stories about the Jokers one-time love on some wild adventures of her own. Harley becomes part of a crime-fighting duo, rescues animals, gets a day job, goes to Comic-Con and even runs into an old-friend.
She’s crazy and honestly the stories get a little too crazy in the second novel. But somehow it’s still hard not to like her. I can’t even put my finger on it. Probably has something to do with the rescues animals thing. Both volumes are violent of course although these are way more on the almost zany antic side than some of your darker D.C. comics.
Harley’s like Lucille Ball gone wrong.
I really enjoyed the art in these. Despite a couple of pages of dreams and some space strangeness I thought it was very clean and bright and fun. Very fitting to Harley’s tales. I’ll definitely be reading onward while I count down the days until Suicide Squad hits theaters.
Recommend: Yes. Harley’s an acquired taste so if you don’t know anything about the character I’d read up on her first before jumping into the madness.
