Batman: White Knight Presents Harley Quinn #6 – Katana Collins, Sean Murphy, Writers; Matteo Scalera, Artist; Dave Stewart, Colorist
Ray – 7.5/10
Ray: This issue brings an end to Harley’s solo adventure—and maybe to the White Knight universe as a whole, with no announced future plans for this universe. It’s overall a compelling final issue, with Harley facing off against the Starlet as the deranged killer targets the woman who scarred her—and sent her down an obsessive path. Harley, meanwhile, is going through some dramatic upheavals of her own. After losing one of her pet hyenas in an attack that targeted her children, she’s ready to get back into the costume and get violent—even if it means losing all the progress she’s made. The writers do a good job of showing Harley torn between her wild past and who she is now, and the flashback to her final breakup with Joker has some good moments—although Jason Todd’s involvement comes out of nowhere and really emphasizes that he was just dropped into the series for a few issues without much purpose.
The problem is, many of the themes in this series are being done at the same time in the main Batman series, with Harley finally making the clean break from Joker she needs and awkwardly setting foot into being a hero. It’s very compelling there, and here it often feels like a lot of the development happens off-screen. That’s because Harley wasn’t the main character for most of this universe, and she’s only stepping into that role in the last act. A death of a major character in this issue happens rather abruptly and doesn’t leave the impact the writers wanted, and by the time things wrap up it takes a lot of rushing to tie everything up and leave Harley in an unexpected position for the future, with several other characters’ fates left completely up in the air. It’s a decent tie-up to Harley’s story, but the universe as a whole feels like it barely scratched the surface and I don’t know if it’ll stay there.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
