Harley Quinn is by far one of DC's most popular characters despite only debuting in the 1990s. Within that short amount of time she's managed to evolve from a one-off henchmen of the Joker, that didn't actually originate in the comics, to one of the major antiheroes of DC. As she is the star of Birds of Prey movie, as played by the fantastic Margot Robbie, it is the perfect time to discuss her character. We can't go over each of her appearances, in just thirty years she's appeared in DC a lot, so we'll be doing an overview of her instead.
Creation
Harley Quinn did not actually debut in the comics, instead she debuted on TV. It is not uncommon for characters to emerge outside of comics to become big inside the comics. Mr Freeze, Agent Coulson, X-23, Batgirl, Krypton, and kryptonite all made their debuts outside the comics. Harley Quinn debuted in the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series in the episode 'Joker's Favor' as originally a walk-on role, and she was created by the show-creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. After watching Arleen Sorkin in the soap opera Days of Our Lives, and because Dini was friends with Sorkin, they modelled Harley off of Sorkin - she would even voice Harley in the series. The animated series had a spin-off comic in 1994 called The Batman Adventures: Mad Love which more or less has remained her origin story, but it took until 1999 for her to fully debut in the mainstream DC universe. As part of the No Man's Land event - when an earthquake isolates Gotham and the villains carve up the city between them - a tie-in graphic novel was released called Batman: Harley Quinn. This graphic novel mostly kept her origins from the animated series.
Origins
Her origin story has had some tweaks thanks to the rebooting of the timelines after the Flashpoint event. Born in Brooklyn she had a long interest in criminal psychology, and she was a genius in regards to psychology. In the new timeline, explained in Suicide Squad Vol. 4, her interest was sparked by her teenage boyfriend committing a murder - to signify her interest in criminal psychology she stole a taxidermied beaver from her boyfriend's father. In the original timeline, a jealous professor spiked her boyfriend's drink with diluted Joker Venom sending him insane - not knowing this Harley thought this was due to the same mental problem which the Joker suffered from. As her boyfriend eventually was cured, she was determined to cure the Joker. In both timelines she began studying the Joker, but she did not expect to find how charming he could be. His split personalities allowed him to put on a charming, friendlier facade just for her - she enjoyed the nickname he gave her. As her name was Harleen Quinzel, he called her 'Harly Quinn' from harlequin. However, through all this, the Joker was slowly chipping away at her sanity and through this she fell in love with him. Eventually, she had been broken and secretly started freeing the Joker from his cell. Depending on the timeline she was either committed and later freed by the Joker (the original), or was kidnapped by the Joker and thrown in a chemical vat to replicate how the Joker came into being (the new timeline). Thus, Harley Quinn was born.
The Joker and Harley
Calling the Joker 'Mister J' or 'Puddin'' Harley became one of the most closest people to the Joker. Just like in the Animated Series it was not a true relationship as Harley envisioned it. Joker's callous nature meant that he regularly toyed with her emotions, and regularly saw her as expendable. In Batman #663, for example, the duo set out to kill all of the Joker's former henchmen, but it turned out that this was a set up for the 'punchline' - killing Harley herself. It was one of the examples of Harley fighting back against the Joker where she shot him in the shoulder in rage for his betrayal. In 2001, she got her own title called Harley Quinn where, tired of the Joker's abuse, she leaves to go on her own. Part of the story, which ran for 38 issues, saw her forming her own gang called the Quintets, although they too would also betray her. Meanwhile, she adopted two spotted hyenas called Bud and Lou, named after Abbott and Costello, and moved in with Poison Ivy. This would spark a long relationship between the two, which also happened in the Animated Series, and recently has blossomed into a romantic relationship. At the end of her series she handed herself into Arkham Asylum realising that she needs help.
Throughout the 2000s she would have various appearances, some big and some small. For example, in Detective Comics #831 she could have had the chance of parole from Arkham, but she was kidnapped by the new Ventriloquist, Peyton Riley. The Ventriloquist was a gangster who appeared to act under the orders of his puppet Scarface, but he died and Peyton took over the role. Harley didn't want to work for her, especially as she disliked Peyton taking on the Ventriloquist's identity as the original cheered her up in Arkham, and teamed up with Batman to take her down. Eventually, she teamed up with Poison Ivy and Catwoman to form the Gotham Sirens, in the series Gotham City Sirens, where the trio agreed to live and fight together. Among their adventures included fighting the criminal mastermind, and childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, Hush; fighting a Joker impersonator; and Harley opting to spend Christmas with the Sirens after a 'horrible' time with her family. The team almost break up thanks to the events over issues 20 to 25. Wanting revenge for years of torment Harley breaks into Arkham to kill the Joker, but ends up joining with him to take over the asylum. While Catwoman teams up with Batman to defeat them, Poison Ivy attempts to kill the re-incarcerated Harley. Then she has a change of heart, wanting revenge on Catwoman for abandoning them for Batman. In the end Catwoman chose to let them escape instead of getting them arrested.
New 52 and Rebirth
The post-Flashpoint universe is referred to as the 'New 52', and was generally seen as a new start for DC. In this Harley's origins were slightly altered, but, due to Batman's popularity, most of the pre-Flashpoint timeline was kept intact. Harley was brought into the Suicide Squad - this was basically a supervillain team used by the government to go on suicide missions. It was part of her new run with Suicide Squad that her best known design comes from. However, the Joker still had an influence of her. When it was rumoured that the Joker was dead, and that his face had been cut off, she broke into the Gotham City Police Department to get the mask - in a particularly dark scene she straps the face onto a tied up Deadshot to have one last 'conversation'. It turned out the Joker was alive, and in Death of the Family he managed to coax her into pretending to be his original moniker of the Red Hood - it was then that she realised that she could never go back to him. In 2013 she get her own comic title again, called Harley Quinn, by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner where she developed into an anti-hero, and started formally dating Poison Ivy. This was a well-received series - except for when DC ran the really stupid design competition where they asked fans to draw Harley in suicide scenarios. Naturally many artists and writers, especially Palmiotti and Conner, were infuriated by this. Regardless, the actual stories were well-received, something helped by their eccentric stories. In one, it turns out Harley has a crush on Bruce Wayne and wins a competition to go on a date with him - it quickly turns into a story where she teams up with Batman to fight supervillains.
In 2016 DC released Rebirth to fix many of the problems caused by the recent rebooting of the universe. In the new Suicide Squad series she has gone to be more of a darker character and refuses to take the title of 'hero', but still has a carefree attitude. She even managed to lead a team of the Suicide Squad which also comprises of Enchantress, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, Katana, and Deadshot - it is not coincidence that this was also the roster of the Suicide Squad movie. Despite rejecting the title of a hero, she is still seen as a hero. In 2018 the Heroes in Crisis story revealed that the Justice League has the 'Sanctuary', basically a place where heroes and former villains can undergo therapy. Harley was invited, and one day all the patients were found murdered - only Harley Quinn and Booster Gold, with no memory of the event, were found alive. In a murder mystery, which ended up spanning time itself, Harley helped clear of name of the murders.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.
No comments:
Post a Comment