Wither Harley

Oh, Harley!

What have they done to you?

Besides the fact that this outfit is ridiculous just from the sake of physics.  (I mean, we're talking about a character who does a lot of cartwheels as part of her schtick.  Flipping upside-down + half a bustier held together with dental floss = well, you might as well just get it overwith and run around topless, why don't you?)

Skimpy outfit aside (I'm starting to get numb to them by now...or at least not so surprised anymore) this outfit throws away one major part of the character: her association with the Joker.  Harley Quinn was a character who was indirectly created by the mind of the Joker.  She dressed as, well, a harlequin to go along with the clown theme.  Added to the mix was that she had a background in gymnastics, and basically her suit was a unitard.  Makes sense, right?  I've always been a stickler for a character's outfit being a representation of his or her motive or identity.

Now what does the above costume represent?  I really have no idea.  It just looks like a cosplay outfit to me, reminiscent of the Arkham Asylum video game.  So what kind of statement does that make?

I got nothing.  A lot of fans complained about the skimpy outfit, but no one has really said anything about her lack of association with the Joker.  (I'm basing this on pure assumption, taking the next logical step from Gotham City Sirens.)

Somewhere along the line, it was decided that Harley Quinn should break free of the Joker, and I never quite understood why.  Do fans want to see her on her own instead of playing second giant mallet to the Joker?  (If that is the case, then Gotham City Sirens shouldn't be ending.)  Do fans want to see her as an anti-hero?  (Having Poison Ivy in the Birds of Prey aligns with this.)

Her relationship to the Joker was such a complex and deliciously twisted one that I was sad to see it go.  The Joker was her main source of motivation: she did anything to please him, much to hilarious or tragic results.  Cutting her off from the Joker completely leaves her drifting in thin air as a nothing but an motive-less psycho in a skimpy outfit.  Though she had broken ties from the Joker in Gotham City Sirens, he was still a looming shadow of her past that still held some sway over her psychologically.  She was still motivated in some way by him, however tenuous.

So what is it you're trying to say now, DC?

Harley Quinn Sketch by Loston Wallace

November is just a crazy, and kind of bleak month, and I can't get my act together, and Frank from the Idol-Head of Diabolu was nice enough to call this to my attention.  So here's just a little something.

Though I'm pretty sure it's digital, I like the brush rendering used for the coloring, which makes it actually look like a sketch and not a scene from a comic.  A nice choice, I think.  And Harley's smile is a nice blend of crazy and sweet.

Talking Comics With the Uninitiated, Part 2

So a while back I had a conversation with my mother about Wonder Woman's new costume and how much she hated it.

I'm starting to get my Halloween costume together.  Two years ago I made a promise to someone (who's going as the Joker) that I'd be Harley Quinn, which left me kind of at a loss as to how to pull off a work-safe (a.k.a. not super-tight) Harley Quinn costume.  Lo and behold, I managed to pull it off by finding a jester costume to modify.  I have no sewing machine skills, so this is where my mother comes in.  She has no idea who Harley Quinn is.

I had been showing her various pictures of Harley to give her an idea of what she looked like, but I never explained to her who she was exactly.  Actually, I did, but she wasn't listening at the time.

Apparently my mother thought the costume was a part of her body or her skin something, and not like an actual suit.  I don't know what goes on in the heads of non-comics readers...

Mom:  Well, I don't know what all these superpowers do to people!

Me:  She doesn't have superpowers, Mom.  She's just a girl in a suit.

Mom:  Oh.  But what about the horns?

Me:  They're part of her costume!  She's got pigtails and stuff.

Mom:  Okay.  You still have to make the glasses yet, right?

Me:  They're not glasses!  That's a mask!

Mom:  Oh.

Me:  And she doesn't have superpowers.  She's just crazy.

Mom:  What?

Me:  She's nuts.  She's the Joker's sidekick.

Mom:  She's a villain?!  Wait, I thought she was a hero!

Me: *facepalm*

Mom:  So she's a devil or something?

Me:  No!  She's cute!!!  See?  She's all like clingy and the Joker's all like, "Get off of me!"  It's funny!

Mom:  Okay, I guess she's kind of cute.

I then started asking my mother if she could take the headpiece apart and re-sew it back together because the black and red were on the wrong sides and she's like, "Does it REALLY matter?"  And of course I'm like, "YES."  Never offer to make anything for someone with OCD.  She is going to switch the sleeves around because they don't match at all, but I conceded the headpiece and the tunic, so it will be backwards, so I'll just have to pretend I'm Bizzarro-Harley or Left-Handed Harley or something.

You can just imagine how entertaining it will be when I take her to see the Green Lantern movie next summer.

Harley Quinn, Feminist

I know, that title probably doesn't seem right to you. But bear with me for a while, and maybe I can illuminate you about my line of thought. Who's up for a good old fashioned thesis?

Thesis: Harley Quinn is a feminist character.

I hate to go all feminist rant, because that just isn't me.  But here's the one feminist argument that I can make, which is a little different from most.  To me, sexism is the stereotyping of female characters to represent a certain role or set of behaviors, based on society's expectations of what a "woman" is.

Taking a broad view of Wonder Woman, for example, I see a serious-minded woman who promotes peace, and who is somewhat of a mother figure.  So, Woman = mature, responsible, serious, motherly.  Wait...how can that possibly be a bad thing?

Have a look at this ad:

So Woman exists only to tame her man, make him grow up and settle down, deny him all sorts of fun stuff, and generally just suck all the fun out of his life.  Oh, and to buy her diamonds or whatever girls supposedly want.  (Don't get me started on jewelry ads.)  Geez, marriage sounds like hell.

That's a really hit-you-on-the-head example, but ironically, I had forgotten about it.  It was this commercial that stuck out in my mind:

While the guy is listening to the end of his favorite eight-minute song, the girl sits there on the pavement, rolling her eyes, waiting for him to be finished with his juvenile antics.

Because girls never do anything eccentric or silly.  Only boys are allowed to "be boys."

Why does this commercial bug me?  Because way back in high school, my friend and I did pretty much the exact same thing.  Driving her home, her favorite song came on the radio, so she made me drive through an empty parking lot (at 2 a.m., no less) and circle the lot until it was over.  Ahh, the indiscretions of youth.

I totally shot my thesis in the foot by drawing on personal experience, but so what, it's my blog and I can make or break the rules of logic here.

So who is Harley Quinn?  She is fun, she's childish, she's eccentric, she's free-wheeling.  She is the opposite of every stereotyped responsible mother sacrificing her time to drive the kids to soccer practice, and who points to a meticulously-balanced checkbook when her husband pleads for a new Dodge Charger.  She's liberated herself from the stereotypical female domestic roles of responsibility, maturity, and seriousness.  If it were up to Harley, she'd sit around in her PJ's eating cereal and watching cartoons and playing in her room full of toys all day.  Not only would she buy her man a Chevy Charger, she'd buy him a machine gun as well, and shred the checkbook, too.  Harley took one look at society's expectations of her and said, "Heck with this.  I'm buying a pair of hyenas for pets."

Counter-argument: Harley Quinn is a "battered woman" and is not way an empowered female character.

Counter-counter-argument: Did I mention she has a whole room full of toys?

Something I bet you never thought you'd see in a kid's comic...

After Batman and Robin's little shower scene at Sally's blog, I was reminded of this:

Batman: Harley and Ivy #1

How did this get into a comic aimed at kids, I'll never know.

75 Favorite Moments in DC History: Number 68

68.  Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy go Hollywood (Harley and Ivy #3, collected in Batman: Harley &; Ivy, 2004)

Took me a little while but I'm finally getting around to adding Harley Quinn, one of my favorite characters, to the list.

There's a delightful little graphic novel called Batman: Harley & Ivy, which collects three issues written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm.  It's fun, well-drawn, and downright hilarious.  As far as villainess team-ups go, I think there's none better than Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.  It's a classic comic pairing of straight man (or, in this case, woman) against screwball.

Anyway, towards the end of the graphic novel, after some other hijinks, Harley and Ivy take over production of a Hollywood movie about them, and they decide to play themselves:

Admit it: you had to look up sang-froid, didn't you?

And of course, Harley is so over-the-top, she's not even content with her usual costume, a pink and purple one that lights up:

But here's the kind of Looney Tune-type panels I love the most:

Screw.  Ball.  Screwball!  Get it?  HA HA HA HA!  It never ceases to amuse me.

So, here's to you, Gotham Girls!  If only you could be funny again...

It's Never Easy Being Green

Because good ol' J'onn J'onzz gets mentioned first in this article:

Can J'ONN J'ONZZ & BLACK WIDOW Defeat Immigration Laws?

I give you this:

Click for super-duper size!

According to Newsarama, you're both kinds of alien, J'onn!

I seriously wish Harley Quinn and J'onn J'onzz would appear in more comics together.