Old Lady Harley #4 – Frank Tieri, Writer; Inaki Miranda, Artist; Eva De La Cruz, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 3/10
Ray: Old Lady Harley would have been much better off if it had been an arc in the regular Harley book – because then it wouldn’t have to compete with what that book is doing. As it is, this book pales in every way compared to Sam Humphries’ run.
Even by those low standards, though, this issue falls flat starting with the opening page involving a Cat Grant clone with intestinal distress. From there, Harley’s elaborate road trip gets even weirder. The issue’s been teasing that Harley had a lot of ex-husbands over the years and we meet quite a few of them this issue – starting with the main man. Lobo is now a casino magnate on an alien world and has picked up a dad bod over the years that he goes to great pains to hide (including a talking wig that seems like a dig at a certain President). This segment would have been funny – if it wasn’t for a gross running joke involving Red Tool being sexually assaulted by a female alien. It’s okay, though – he liked it! *eyeroll*
From there, Lobo gets Harley and company to their next destination – Atlantis, where a summit is being held between various world leaders including Luthor, Power Girl, Aquaman, and…Zombie Wayne Gretzky?
Yep, it’s that type of comic. The humor surrounding the plot is juvenile as always, with random asides about diapers and Wayne Gretzky trying to eat people’s legs. The reappearance of the Popeye-esque metahuman from the Palmiotti-Conner run as one of Harley’s ex-husbands was an amusing touch – Tieri definitely knows his Harley continuity, but it’s been four issues of running around to random gags to get to the ending. That would be yet another elderly version of the Joker showing up to cause more trouble and resolve Harley’s extended toxic relationship with him. There’s nothing in this story that we haven’t seen many times before and nothing that stands out as a good Harley story.
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Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
