Harley Quinn #51 – Review

This, dear reader, is my 14th issue since beginning to cover Harley Quinn here on Batman News. 15 if you count the 2024 annual.

There’s a tradition in my home when you reach 14 or possibly 15 of anything. That tradition is you just do what you regularly do and don’t really mention the 14/15 thing.

Anyway, we pick things up here with #51 after the dastardly Gunbuddies have felled Harley with Harley’s Throatcutter Hill neighbors standing over her unconscious body on the floor of the bodega, lamenting both her plight and their own as they realize an incapacitated Harley means that they’ll be the ones picking up her block party volunteer contribution slack.

We then cut, as we did last month, to the inside of Harley’s chaotic mind as she does (arguably) metaphorical battle with her Quinntellect… only this time, it’s personal!

Writer Elliot Kalan, whose throughline of Harley taking on Gentrification seems to be treading water a little bit, does ably build on the Harley vs. Her Own Brain gimmick that has been established in passing and which came to the forefront last month. The trope of our damaged hero being inundated with their most relatably embarrassing moments as if they were being hit with real physical blows is nothing exactly groundbreaking, but there is enough humor and bright colors to keep the reader from totally rolling their eyes.

Another narrative strand at play here is Harley’s Throatcutter Hill neighbors, the old-timer Gothamites whom she is trying to protect from gentrification but who usually just end up annoyed at her. The long-suffering locals, just for a moment, consider the pros and cons of potentially leaving the annoying Harley to be finished off by the Gunbuddies and simply give over to the inevitably rising tide of capitalism. The naysayers in the group, of course, are overruled by Mrs. Grimaldi, the landlady, who, while conceding that Harley can be a pain in the neck, does have her heart unequivocally in the right place and deserves the same respect as any of their neighbors. While patently silly, the neighbors rallying around and reviving Harley is a notable step forward in a title that can feel pretty stagnant in its current creative state.

In the art department, we’ve got the return of Mirka Andolfo, back to finish what she started last month when the mighty Quinntellect was first introduced. Her output, along with ace colorist Trìona Farrell, is once again solid, with clear contrast between the mundane furniture and muted earth tones of the bodega’s interior and the expectedly bright and brash set piece of the inside of our protagonist’s mind. Her facial design of Harls is fresh and exciting too, with big doe-eyes and wild, playfully unkempt hair that belies the character’s chipper intentions.

I am truly just not intrigued at all by Althea Klang. There’s a forced character parallel here at the end of the issue, an end which seems to be setting the stage for a much more serious showdown between the two ladies. I understand that this run of Harley vs. Gentrification needs some sort of single villain to themselves personify the evils of capitalism, and while Klang is not a total miss in that department, there’s no inspiration here. Klang is back to outsourcing her anti-HQ moves, leaving the reader wonder why exactly she’s so constantly revisited if she’s going to stay on the perimeter.

This is certainly not the weakest issue we’ve had from this title this year, but there’s still not a whole lot to keep this current run in anyone’s conversations. This Harley vs. Her Own Brain tangent was a competently entertaining one, but I can’t exactly say I’m looking forward to getting back into her Continuing Adventures in Grassroots Activism. But I’ll be right here, happy as always to talk to you about what’s going down in any corner of Gotham City.

Recommend if you want to see…

• Harley catch a break for once
• The best personified-brain design you’ll see all year
• Harley give herself a break for once

Overall:

This title continues to tread water. It’s a title that knows what it wants to be: it just seems stuck in a generally unentertaining place. There’s nothing majorly wrong here, and the title character is being done adequate justice. The wait for a truly great HQ story slogs onward.

Score: 5.5/10