Suicide Squad #15

Oh my. Patching things up already?

This issue isn't specifically a Death of the Family crossover but it does continue where last issue (and Batman #13) left off. Harley has just gotten Batman trapped in a vat of chemicals and has been strung up by The Joker. So far, it's one of their better dates. Harley eventually blacks out (still a good date!) and awakens in a state of confusion about recent events.

How many times is he going to threaten to cut off her face as too?

When does Deadshot come galloping in on a white Segway to save the day?

Meanwhile back at Belle Reve, Amanda Waller and Yo Yo are watching this little drama unfold via the nano-cameras Amanda shoved into Harley's eyes when she was comatose a number of issues ago. Yo Yo is a bit curious as to why he's got ringside seats to The Crazy Show.

Why is it characters that can manipulate their body shapes through forms of elasticity never get any respect? Did Plastic Man ruin it for any serious, grim shapeshifting bouncy house people?

Speaking of things that have nothing to do with what I'm about to say, where has Light Lime been?

The Joker and Harley have a bit of a discussion as The Joker sets their hyenas, Bud and Lou, on her, both now infected with rabies. The discussion just isn't crazy enough for my tastes. The Joker is all rational and explicates the reasons why he is doing the things he's doing. Perhaps it's because he simply wants Harley to understand what's become of him so that she'll join him. Perhaps it's because he's being written poorly. Perhaps it's simply because the whole point of this encounter is for Amanda Waller to learn something from the craziest mother fucker in the DCnU and how could she learn anything if he just joked and non sequitured the entire time.

The Joker explains that he cut his face off to remove the last traces of his humanity. He's now running on pure instinct like the hyenas. But the hyenas aren't running on pure instinct anymore because they've gone insane from their degenerative nerve disease. In this way, The Joker is being more truthful than maybe even he realizes. He is not running on pure instinct at all. He also has gone extra crazy from the face removal surgery. Also he's gone extra crazy from jealousy since Batman has so many other intimates in his life these days. And The Joker explains why he's doing all of this to Harley: he wants her to go extra crazy with him. But she's simply too attached to her cute smirk and attached skin, so she kills her babies and declines the offer.

This is pretty much the same scene as in Batgirl. The Joker really is burning all of his bridges.

The date goes a little south what with Harley threatening to kill The Joker and then punching him in the place where his face used to be and then The Joker biting her ear off and then Harley smashing him into an iron tank and then Joker losing his face and then Joker poisoning Harley and then Harley biting off the Joker's tongue and then The Joker kicking Harley in the vagina.

There's also this part in there somewhere where she makes the mistake of telling The Joker that she enjoyed stuffing Deadshot into her clown car.

Even though The Joker just had a bit of his tongue bitten off, it doesn't seem to hamper his ability to monologue incessantly. And Harley had her ear bitten off. Oh hey! Is this some kind of commentary on relationships? The man needs to shut up and listen more and the woman should stop listening and talk more? No wait, that doesn't seem right. One thing I'm pretty sure about though is that the next scene where The Joker locks up Harley in a sub-basement in ACE Chemicals will cause an avalanche of impotent fandom rage.

And if you do manage to get out, Harley, be sure to take care of that raging case of rabies you've contracted!

Maybe fans will like this scene. If there were more Harleys, maybe the current Harley in the whore's outfit isn't the cartoon Harley that everybody loves! Maybe this allows for a different way of looking at things! Perhaps this moment will save the day! But probably not. More than likely it's just going to take away that "special connection" everyone felt The Joker and Harley had between them. Now it means nothing because Joker had a whole slew of past loves. People are going to judge him over his past relationships as if they had anything to do with his current relationship.

I wonder if this Harlequin is down there too! Not because she was The Joker's love interest but because she suddenly got really depressed since Alan Scott couldn't love her, so she dragged her ass down in this pit to die of a broken heterosexual heart.

Harley escapes by becoming a pure, crazed animal relying only on instinct. When The Joker finds she is gone, he's impressed and falls a little more deeply for her. Harley somehow makes it back to Belle Reve from Gotham dressed up in little more than her stripper clown suit. Perhaps she got a lift from Large Marge. Whatever happened, she returns to the Squad a little crazier than when she left. Perhaps Harleen has finally been truly repressed. But she still has rabies.

And then the final panel makes my guess of Deadshot returning in two issues nearly spot on since he's just Floyd in this panel and it is just the final panel to set up the next issue anyway.

Oh my god! Deadshot's not dead! Or circumcised!

Suicide Squad #15 Rating: -1 Rating. It's not that I didn't enjoy this issue as much as I've enjoyed the other issues (which frankly is due mostly to being such a fan of Waller and Deadshot that even in a slack-asseriffically written comic book like this one, I can still have fun reading it) but it just wasn't about the Suicide Squad! This was a Joker comic. Or a Harley Quinn romance. But it wasn't a Suicide Squad comic book at all! Although I did enjoy the two pages starring Yo Yo. I think I hated him when I first met him but now that he lived inside King Shark for months and is a demented, scarred-for-life self-loather, I think he's beginning to grow on me.