Since her inceptionon Batman : The Animated Series has wreak Harley Quinnfrom TV , to comics , and beyondover the years , there have been many dissimilar take on just who she ’s really meant to be — not just esthetically or tonally , but as her own person . The latest issue of herstylish new digital seriesnails those many Harleys in a very fun path .
The first two chapter of Black + White + Red — the digital - first anthology collection of Harley tales from a plethora of funnies creatives , united by the distinctly muted titular color palette — focused on Harley ’s relationship with two more of Gotham ’s most ill-famed female figures : Poison IvyandCatwoman . But the third , written by Saladin Ahmed and boast art from Javier Rodriguez , puts the lens tightly on Harley herself , all the adult female she been since her origination , and who she is today .
https://gizmodo.com/harley-quinns-getting-back-into-her-primary-colors-in-b-1844177099
Harley makes off with what was taken from her.Image: Javier Rodriguez (DC Comics
The premise of “ Get Yer Story Straight ” is simple enough : a group of goons has been tasked with sneaking into Harley ’s spot and swiping an experimental cannister of the Joker ’s laugh gas , which they do so after a brief tussle with Harley . After incapacitating her and regrouping at the bar of their boss , the trio recount endeavor to recite their successful feat .
The problem is , as the rubric suggests , is that each one of the goons has a unlike story . As our undependable narrator — a figure itself common inHarley ’s own storytelling — recite their own version of issue , we ’re handle to a series of flashbacks . While they all tell a standardised story , plotwise ( the hood get in the base , Harley surprise them and a fight go against out , the storyteller of the flashback knocks her out , and the goons flee with the gas ) , visually and tonally they ’re all very different .
What makes each story stand out is how they are each defined by a “ dash ” of Harley ’s yesteryear . The first depicts Harley as she was project in her classicBatman : The Animated Series debut , invest in her all - over harlequin costume , crusade with comedic traps like extending package glove or bastard guns , her lair littered with play card motifs and oversized clown contraptions . Her fight with the goons is bloodless , littered with “ pows ! ” and “ fwoks ! ” The second , meanwhile presents a much darker , grounded Harley . In an outfit that feels like an homage to hercinematic Suicide Squad aesthetic , this metre Harley ’s lair is a pulse - up , dirty garage , and the fight itself — Harley trade her mallet for a nail - studded bat — is much more brutal and visceral , as Harley herself drive directly and bloodily imply .
Illustration: Jim Cooke
The third is an altogether unlike take , lay out Harley in a costume more akin to her appearance when DC relaunched the New 52 and she headlinedthe Suicide Squad comic . Instead of pass on the violence of the first two tarradiddle , the shift in tone is much more abstract and intellectual , as Harley herself is present as a mammoth , psychedelic chassis , and her lair a morphing , Alice in Wonderland - ian fantasy that speak more to the idea of Harley ’s trauma and manias presenting a fantastical , lighthearted Earth in her head .
If “ Get Yer Story Straight ” ended there , it would be an interesting enough play on all the way both Gotham and we have regard Harley over the year , a fittingly clever tribute to her account . But once the goons are done unreliably narrating to their honcho ’ dismay , the actual Harley prove up to get her gasoline back , and it ’s none of the three Harleys they recalled .
But as this “ new ” variation of Harley — the contemporary self — monish the mooks for plume her , we are remind that Harley is not a role that we can purely compartmentalize into dissimilar “ versions . ” Harley Quinn is Harley Quinn , a totalityof many ego . She has grow and changed and evolved , from doting sidekick , to traumatic villain , to solo anti - wedge . She never stopped being the playful harlequin , or the savage nightmare . Those are still aspects of her , ones we see as she release the gas from the lubber for veridical this sentence , a fighting style that is crimson , but not brutally so , playful , but not full - on - clown . But they , on their own , do not define her .
The harlequin…Image: Javier Rodriguez
As Harley walks out of the streak , gas safely back in tow , she makes one affair exonerated : this is who Harley Quinn is now , a woman not to be messed with by villain or hero alike . A woman willing enough to keep dangerous tech from her ex around as a reminder of her past , but also because it ’s safer locked away in her possession than it is harm innocents on the street . A woman who was , at one metre or another , the picture her adversaries withdraw . Those remembrance are n’t her now . They were her , still are part of her . But they alone do not define her .
https://gizmodo.com/how-harley-quinn-evolved-from-the-jokers-sidekick-to-on-1802771237
Harley Quinn is Harley Quinn , and who just that is is for Harley alone to have the last watchword on .
The Squad’s bad girl…Image: Javier Rodriguez
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DC ComicsDC EntertainmentHarley Quinn
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…and the anti-hero.Image: Javier Rodriguez
