Harley Quinn #60 – Elliott Kalan, Writer; Carlos Olivares, Artist; Marissa Louise, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: When we last saw Harley in Throatcutter Hill, things were looking up for her. She had a new circle of friends, a mission protecting the blue-collar neighborhood, and maybe even a second girlfriend in the form of Althea Klang. To put it lightly, that’s changed with this issue. Klang is nowhere to be seen, and Harley seems to be down to zero girlfriends – as Poison Ivy is now Mayor of Gotham, and she and Harley are no longer together after something shocking that happened leading to Ivy’s questionable victory. And Harley, of course, is dealing with this in a completely normal way. She’s dressing up as Batman, and becoming a grim-and-gritty ultraviolent vigilante who beats petty criminals with a bat and talks in an over-the-top internal narration that’s obviously a homage to one of the most famous Batman stories of all time. And she has many thoughts about just how grim everything is.
Harley also seems to be in the business of alienating all her friends, as she quickly threatens Gunbunny and Mayfly when they ask her to hang out with them, and instead goes off to fight a band of anti-capitalist teenagers led by the Penny Plunderer, the daughter of a villain with a very bizarre backstory. This is where Harley’s breakdown goes from amusing to kind of disturbing, as her coping mechanism for her breakup seems to make her willing to straight-up kill a relatively harmless teenage villain. Fortunately, she’s bailed out of her own bad decisions by…Chicken Fingers? In an amusing little twist, the wacky homeless superhero now has elite superpowers (of sorts) thanks to the events of DC KO, and he’s determined to snap his friend back to reality. But as the end of the issue shows, this might not be as simple as Harley having a breakdown, and the ending throws the whole issue for a loop. Very odd, but entertaining.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
