Harley Quinn #44

In this review of Harley Quinn #44, Harley returns to her old neighborhood of Throatcutter Hill, determined to restore its now gentrified status to the crime-ridden hellhole she once knew it to be!

Harley Quinn #44
Written by: ELLIOTT KALAN
Art by: MINDY LEE
Main Cover: ELIZABETH TORQUE
Variant Covers: DAVID NAKAYAMA, JORGE FORNÉS, SARAH BASLAIM, KELLEY JONES, DANIEL SAMPERE
Release Date: October 23, 2024

This review contain spoilers

Harley Quinn #44 begins as, in a funk over self-doubt after the events of Absolute Power, Harley seeks to find new meaning in her life by returning to the neighborhood she first moved to upon graduating college years ago: Throatcutter Hill. The area was bereft with crooks, swindlers and muggers, but at the time – Harley became accustomed to the rough and tumble ways of the streets. Seeking a fresh start, Harley and her pet hyenas Bud and Lou move back to Throatcutter Hill, only to find the streets entirely clean and bereft of crime.

Harley “inquires” to source of Thoratcutter’s newfound respectable status, which leads her to Nowegose – a.k.a. Northwest Gotham South East, a tower headed up by Althea Klang – manager of the building and Gotham entrepreneur. Harley’s taken with Klang’s evil yet attractive demeanor,  but still vows to restore the neighborhood back to it’s pre-Nowegose roots once Klang makes it clear she has no regard for the downtrodden whom threaten to bring down the property value of the area.

Harley finds a room to rent from an old woman named Mrs. Grimaldi who says that Klang and her forces have tried for years to get her to move out of her home. Along with the Grimaldi’s grandson Richie who’s charmed by her, Harley is committed to keeping Throatcutter safe for those who’ve always belonged, and opens up a new front: The Harley Quinn Destructive Agency. Unbeknownst to her, Althea Klang has taken steps to get Harley forcibly removed from town by any violent means necessary.

Analysis

Despite (or perhaps due to) her surge in popularity over the years, Harley Quinn is actually a difficult character to pin down. In various media such as ensemble casts like the 2016 and 2021 Suicide Squad films, DC Superhero Girls or the Injustice games, she slots in fine as a wacky wild card who’s fun nature offsets her potential for extreme violence. In the original Batman: the Animated Series incarnation, she was a foil for the Joker who quickly shot up to superstar status when she began appearing in episodes without him. Probably the most consequential of those old episodes is “Harley’s Holiday”, where – without even mentioning the Joker – Harley gets the spotlight as a troubled but ultimately well-meaning young woman who has a propensity for both bad luck and wonton destruction. In the decades since that 1994 episode, I think “Harley’s Holiday” remains the best thesis on the character as someone who really does need help, but has enough of her faculties not to fall totally into evil inclinations.

That characterization opened up avenues for her to be pitted more as an anti-villain, but quickly she became slotted into anti-hero status with her early ongoing series in the 2000s. That ran for a few years, but through Gotham City Sirens (by creator Paul Dini), the Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner runs and her newfound popularity through the Margot Robbie performances as well as the aforementioned DC Superhero Girls – which it should not go misunderstood is a huge reason why Harley maintains young fans – Harley is currently an A-Lister in the DC Universe. Look no further than the fact that she’s sitting right next to Superman in the Justice League Watchtower when he reveals his identity as Clark Kent (since retconned), or front-lines a movie that saddles the Birds of Prey title in it. Or even the Harley Quinn animated series, which posits a Venture Bros-esque narrative that while Harley is screwed up in many ways, the patriarchal DC Universe is far worse off, where characters from Gordon to Nightwing to Batman have unresolved neuroses that put hers in sharp relief. Additionally, it’s been a very long time since Harley’s actually been portrayed as a villain. Disregarding adaptational material like the animated Hush movie, I’m thinking Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (a very solid watch, genuinely recommended) where Harley was a baddie alongside the other Gotham City rogues.

All this is to say that Harley’s undeniable popularity and status quo as a forward moving protagonist with flirtations of villainous tendencies has not for a long time sat right with me, personally. I don’t dislike Harley Quinn whatsoever. Her B:TAS incarnation is rightfully iconic and remains the funniest version of the character. Margot Robbie is perfectly cast and delivers the best performance in each of the three films she’s ben in. And frankly, adding to the list of DC’s best characters being a fun clown that young girls adore is a great thing for the company. But I do have trouble with the anti-hero yearnings the character is written with, which too often come down to the writers wanting it both ways. As it tends to be with The Joker, much of Harley’s mania falls down to “she’s crazy”, and are simply used as fodder for action scenes which she would not reasonably survive. Beyond plot armor, the scenarios call upon us to root for her getting what she wants which at the best of times is a sense of stability, self-worth and love. Totally appreciable. But when those goals are blended with destruction and violence, the stories more often than not get confused, and the intentions of the writers start to reveal themselves as just making it through the story with her at the center of it than carrying the character and readers through the story.

I’ll grant a large caveat that I’ve not read the majority of the Palmiotti/Conner run, where most of her development took place. Nevertheless, this new run by comedian Elliott Kalan and Mindy Lee reek of much of the same: Harley wants to go back to her beginnings and gain new perspective on her life, but the bad neighborhood she started out from has improved over time, hence she seeks to restore it to ruin. There is a line thrown in about her wanting Throatcutter (a groaner of a name) to be as bad as she is and change only if she does, but the potential psychological subtitles have yet to bear fruit in this first issue. And the rest of the characters are so broadly depicted, it’s hard to presume this will delve any deeper than it might.

So that’s a long a grumpy start for a review where the writer has a chip on his shoulder. What’s to like?

Honestly I do enjoy how Kalan write Harley. Talking to herself out loud, blending both psychology language and her Brooklyn accent from open self-diagnosis while leaving snide remarks in every conversation is fun.  Mindy Lee’s whirling, swooping artwork also is solid stuff, and evokes Bret Blevins on some of the recent Harley titles. So the actual writing and illustrating of Harley is good.

But I will conclude on some other personal annoyances. This might not be thrown simply at Kalan’s feet, but it’s such a cliche’ now for writers to create pockets of Gotham so harsh and bad that “not even Batman would step foot in them”. As a Batman fan first, last and always, this is nonsensical and insulting to the concept of the character. Either he returned to Gotham to stamp out crime or he didn’t’. Previous tales that went at this idea at least commented on real world racialized policing and crime like The Hill, but this has nothing to offer other than to fall down this trope. Why even make it in Gotham except to expect a Batman appearance down the line? Additionally, there’s tons of commentary on gentrification and how corporations ruin old neighborhoods, but the neighborhoods in Harley’s memories were crooked and corrupt to begin with, so her goals are actually horrid and Nowegose isn’t doing anything actively immoral as presented. Yes, Althea Klang is given the evil swipe by how Lee draws her and her villainous scene at the end, but what are we doing here? What’s the goal? A twisted take on Tom Taylor’s recent Nightwing run where the hero seeks to revitalize the neighborhood, but in the opposite direction? I will say this may be Kalan setting up how Harley might be mistaken and even wrong in her memories, which would make for solid storytelling. But as I’ve described her history above, it’s more likely that whatever the character wants, she’ll get and it’ll be depicted as always the right thing.

This is a biased, prejudiced review for a title that’s doing much of what’s been done with the character in the past decade. The writing and artwork are solid enough that for new readers to the character it’s a decent recommendation. I’m personally less inclined to see where things lead, but I’m not the intended audience and would still recommend this for current Harley fans. Just barely though.