Originally published on Patreon
Stephanie Phillips' time as the writer of Harley Quinn comes to an end in the final issue of the 'Who Killed Harley Quinn' story line, a story that has brought yet another 'Who Laughs' character into existence. But how does the end to this pretty enjoyable arc go? Kind of just average sadly.
The build up of this story has been okay, and it's been getting better as it's gone on. The introduction of an evil Harley travelling the multiverse out to kill all the versions of herself isn't a bad idea; and the introduction of all of the different Harley variants into the story has been quite enjoyable too. And with the Harley Who Laughs having Poison Ivy tied up as her prisoner it looks like things are about to become fraught for our anti-heroine.
So it's such a shame that this final issue feels incredibly rushed. I don't know if Phillips knew that her run was going to end here, or if it was brought to a close earlier than expected, but a lot of this issue's pacing feels like someone rushing to get everything resolved before the unexpected deadline. And in order to get everything resolved Harley starts to break the fourth wall.
There are a lot of people out there who say that Harley is the DC Deapool, that she's the same because she's wacky, she wears red and black, and because she does similar stuff to him. One thing that really sets her apart from DP, and kind of makes that comparison not really make sense, is that she doesn't know she's in a comic, she doesn't start messing with the story and going against comic conventions. She's weird and makes jokes, yes, but she still plays by the rules of the universe. Except here she starts to break them.
In order to travel to a different universe to save the Ivy Who Laughs for the Harley Who Laughs to get a happy ending with she freezes everything happening on the page, and goes and steals a dimension portal device from the evil Harley whilst explaining her plan to the reader. Later on she tells the reader that they've thrown in an action scene so that we don't get bored, and then a few pages later tells the readers we have to stay outside the fortress they're attacking because they can't do any more action scenes for brevity sake.
I honestly kind of hated this. This is some rule breaking and universe bending stuff that the series hasn't done before, that Harley doesn't usually do, and breaks the flow of the story and makes everything feel kind of cheap. It seems like the only reason Harley is breaking the universe here is so that the story can rush to its conclusion. If she's always been able to control the flow of the narrative why hasn't she before? Why didn't she stop the evil Harley from shooting her? Why hasn't she done anything to alter the story until the very end? Harley Quinn isn't Deadpool, and I don't like that this issue turned her into him.
Because of this, I kind of checked out early. This was the end of this story, and this creators run, but by the final pages it was already long over for me. I'd stopped caring because the book had told me to, it'd told me that the story doesn't matter because there are no stakes, because Harley has god powers now, and because after five issues of set-up the end was just nothing. I've enjoyed Phillips' run on the book, but this final issue made me question what the point was, and if it was worth it, as the book and the writer just didn't seem to care by then.
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