The holidays are over. Harley vanquished the evil in Santa Claus’s brain to save Christmas (no, really) and it’s time to deal with the ex-puddin’, who strong-armed his way back into her life back in issue #9.
Harley Quinn #11 (DC Comics)
Harley Quinn‘s been an entertaining series for the past several months, but honestly not a lot has happened you can really sink your teeth into. This is poised to change with the return of the bane of Harley’s existence (and also possibly the love of her life)–The Joker. We haven’t seen him in the Harley ongoing since "The Joker’s Last Laugh," so it’s nice to have a little gravitas injected into the story here. And after the cliffhanger we got before Christmas break, lord knows we’ve been waiting for it.
Red Tool’s involvement in this story had been wearing on me a bit, as it seemed like he was sort of inserted into the story just because. But with Harley’s ex in town and his feelings for her flaring, he got a little bit more interesting this issue. It seems like he’ll be integral to the plot going forward as well, so that’s something to definitely look forward to. Business is about to pick up!
There are also some goings on with the city government making some shady moves to remove the homeless from Brooklyn that should manifest itself in interesting ways soon. The groundwork was laid here and it should pay off and come to a head in the coming issues of this arc.
You…might wanna workshop that one a little more Harley. Not your finest work.
Art is again handled by John Timms this time around, and it’s unfortunately something of a mixed bag. When it’s on, it’s on–Harley can look emotive and brilliant, and The Joker unhinged and dangerous. But sometimes character models look extremely stiff, faces look contorted and in extreme cases don’t even look much like the characters they’re depicting at all–there’s a bizarre image for instance where we’re looking up at Harley’s for-some-reason trapezoidal nostrils that you probably won’t want to order a print of any time soon (unless you’re into that sort of thing).
On the other hand though, there are some really nice layouts here. There’s an explosion at one point that frames a few other panels below it that was really creative and well done.
Is It Good?
This issue has a lot going for it–a one-in-done adventure with a unique baddie, sexual tension between Harley and Tool, and some setup for the incoming showdown with The Joker that’ll surely be a lot of fun to witness.
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