Old Lady Harley #3 – Frank Tieri, Writer; Inaki Miranda, Artist; Eva De La Cruz, Colorist
Ray – 4/10
Ray: Equal parts dark-and-edgy futuristic thriller and parody of the same, Old Lady Harley is one of the most frantic comics DC puts out. Every issue introduces several new concepts and then throws them out the window just as quickly. When we last left off, Harley had picked up some new allies at Arkham, which had been converted into an old-age home for geriatric supervillains. The opening segment, featuring more dispatches from the news and a bizarre subplot about a nautical sex shop, goes nowhere, and then it’s on to a flashback showing what horrific crime caused Harley to leave the Joker for good. When it picks up in the future, Harley’s battling an army of supervillains including “Four-Face”, a zombie version of Prometheus, and…Dustin from Stranger Things? This comic makes very little sense, but it’s all in service of getting Harley captured and taken to her next destination.
That destination would be the Blud Bowl, a Mad Max-inspired fight club to the death presided over by the Bane twins. These bruisers take great pride in beating anyone who enters, and they briefly give Harley the classic Bane chiropractor treatment. That’s until the actual Bane – now scrawny but still super-strong for some reason – enters to point Harley in the right direction. A brief virtual conversation with Barbara Gordon, who is now fused with Oracle technology, helps Harley to get back on Joker’s trail. This take on Oracle is intriguing, but she also looks enough like Coach that I got confused. Harley’s headed off to Vegas next, while Joker – who actually looks much older here than he does in Batman Beyond – plots to either win her back or get revenge, depending on his mood. Like most of this series, there’s a lot of noise but not much actually going on.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
