Originally published on Patreon
One of the things that I find can sometimes happen when comics comes up with a good villain is that they can get a bit overused, and can end up losing some of what makes them special. The Batman Who Laughs is one of these characters. Since his first appearance people were grabbed by his design, and latched onto him as being a character that they wanted more of. And he's appeared a few times since his initial story, but now his design is becoming replicated in other characters. The Flash has a speedster from a dark dimension that has the same headpiece as him (though we don't know if she's connected to him yet), and now we have a Harley Who Laughs too. Is it getting a bit too much?
Part of me wants to say yes, and especially so with the speedster character who could have just been anything; but I'm kind of okay with it being done with Harley. It feels like a more natural fit with Harley Quinn than any other character that they could do it with. It also helps that an evil Harley travelling from dimension to dimension in the multiverse trying to kill off every other version of herself is a fun concept.
This issue has expanded upon this though, by bringing multiple versions of Harley to Earth-0 at the same time. The result is a city being overrun by Harley's, most of whom aren't as reformed as ours and are just out to cause chaos. But, this does lead to a situation that can be used to help find and stop the Harley Who Laughs, as our team of heroes sets out to round up all of the variants and bring them to one spot in order to lure the evil Harley to them.
This is a pretty fun issue, especially as it allows the creative team to play around a bit and throw in some Easter Eggs. There are more than a few Harley's in this book that people will recognise, including one that looks like classic Harley, the Injustice Harley, one from the Arkham games, and even Birds of Prey. It's fun to see these different versions all together; though those that are created specifically for the book are a bit less creative, and just seem to be slightly different outfit changes and various styles of punk. Some of them look like they could be Tank Girl if given a slight colour change. With this drawing upon the multiverse it would have been nice to have seen some more Harley's from old Elseworlds stories, or even things like Dark Knights of Steel or DC vs Vampires.
We get some time this issue to dive a bit into Harley's emotional state too, and how she's struggling to walk the line of being a more heroic character. It's something that's interesting to see, as I like that she didn't just decide to be good now and it's working fine, but something that she struggles with. I also appreciated how Kevin lost his shit with her and called her out on her behaviour and self pity, as it was something that she needed in the moment.
The next issue will be the final one with this creative team, so it'll be interesting to see how this story, and this writers time on the book, will come to a close; and where things end up for the next stages in Harley's life. But overall, this was a decent issue in what might be one of the better arcs of the series.
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