Harley Quinn #7

Hot damn! I bet these two were playing Bloody Mary! Unless they were playing that game where you say some name into a mirror.

Harley Quinn is a clown. Unless she's a doctor. Maybe she's a doctor that believes she's a clown. She used to be a supporting character in another person's life but she's taken on the responsibility of being a title character now. She also might be a little bit insane. But sane or insane, what does it really matter? Perception will trump reality every time. You can have dozens of doctors telling you that you're not hearing other people's voices in your head and that's it's just a glitch in your brain causing you to disassociate yourself from the origin of the voices. But if you're the one hearing the voices, it's kind of hard to listen to the professionals telling you that you're not. Especially when the voices are pointing out that the doctors are actually demons and they're trying to poison you with their so-called medications.

So sane or insane, does it matter? Can't we all just assume the Cheshire Cat was right and try to make do? I try to make do by remaining reclusive and avoiding serious conversations with other people. But I found a serious flaw in being a recluse! I keep my life orderly so that when I leave the house, I commit to short jaunts to familiar places. Get in and get out. Expose yourself to "reality" in the most miniscule time units you can manage. The flaw? The places I frequent most often because they're familiar to me cause me to be familiar with the owners and workers of those places! So now they're trying to have personal conversations with me instead of just helping me as they'd help some other anonymous nobody! I go in to get comic books: "Hey Tess! These are all you're getting this week? Usually you have a huge stack!" I go to get Korean Bento: "Do you want the usual? How is the Non-Certified Spouse? Back from visiting family yet?" I go to eat breakfast out: "Yeah, I used to live on 48th as well! I grew up there! Did you know Mack and Elma?" I go to the bank: "How is Judas?" What the fuck, bank clerk?! How do you know my cat's name! What the fuck is going on here?! How does everybody in my neighborhood suddenly know so much about me when I barely leave the fucking house!?

*pant pant pant*

Forget reality. Just let it go, Tess! Look at the comic book. Remember the comic book. That's the world you want to spend your time inside. Breathe slowly. Let your ego dissipate in the gentle caress of images and speech balloons. Relax. Relax. Re. Lax.

Get out! Get out! The posts are coming from inside the house!

I just pointed out that Harley might be the teensiest bit insane so I might disagree with Poison Ivy's convoluted assessment of the situation. Somebody might ask why Harley Quinn has issued a hit on herself but that someone might think that logic or reason means anything to the distorted thinking of a crazy person. Seriously though. If logic and reason mean nothing to sane people, why would crazy people be any different?

After leaving the beach, Poison Ivy digs around on Harley's computer to look for some clues! Clues are always a good thing to find when one discovers they're wrapped up in a mystery! And if you can't find any clues, the next best thing to find is a rich white guy involved in real estate that has easy access to scary rubber masks. Then you kill him and the mystery should quietly disappear.

Oh ha ha. The Nunya Business file. Hoo whee! It's moments like this that I wonder why God only gave us two knees to slap!

The next page, Harley finishes the Nunya Business joke that I already lost my shit over. The folder is password protected and Harley doesn't know the password. I guess Ivy will just have to remain awake while hiding behind a potted plant in the corner of the room and wait until somebody tries to access the laptop. And by "somebody" I mean Harley Quinn.

Fine. Hide in the closet. I think a potted plant would work better! Also note the Cheshire Cat under the bed because I'm a Master Comic Book Reader or something.

The plan works! Harley falls asleep and then gets on her laptop to increase the payout of the hit on her. Her crazy and/or quite confident plan is to get the competition to come to her so she can kill them all. I can't wait until Deathstroke gets a whiff of this contract! He doesn't kill for fun, you know!

As Harley updates, she's attacked by two more assassins, Cliche Skull Head and Masked Katana Woman in Leather Clichegirl. They have to be caricatures of assassins because they're going to be dead soon. As a comic book creator, you don't want to create a character that can earn you royalties and waste them by killing them off immediately! No way! You have to create watered down versions of characters people will kind of recognize and then kill them! These two are probably actually called Killdeath and Deathkill. Oh! I just copyrighted those names!

I'm tempted to replace my pink Stephanie "Get Up and Dance" icon with this one of Goat Boy's dinner being ruined.

Harley wakes up in time to kill the assassins so Poison Ivy doesn't have to. She wouldn't want Babsgirl or Screaming Canary to smell murder on her just in case she gets another chance to join the Birds. Harley can kill because she learned it from The Joker and he's always had free reign to murder to his heart's content. At least until Batman shows up. But Batman isn't going to come to New York to bother with Harley! Although now that Harley's raised the price on her own hit, Deathstroke or Twat Lobo might show up!

Mini-Danzig (he must really be small to refer to him as both "mini" and "Danzig," amirite?!) checks in on the girls to make sure they're not dead since bullets did come through the floor of the entire building. As he helps bag up Skulldeathkillkillman, Skulldeathkillkillman's phone goes off. It plays "I Will Survive" because of irony or sarcasm or anacoluthon or something. The phone tells the tale of a secret meeting of Brooklyn Assassins where Brooklyn Assassins are meeting in secret. Can you believe Harley's luck?! Now she knows where to go to kill them all at one time! She'd probably thank Jesus but he might take issue with all the killing that's about to take place.

This is normally where I'd scan a panel of the carnage except PENIS JOKE! <-- anacoluthon!

It's a good thing I opted to scan the penis joke since there wasn't much carnage to speak of. Harley threatens all the killers and says they shouldn't be trying to kill her for a very good reason. And that reason is that she'll kill them and their families if they try to kill her. Only one doesn't agree to leave her alone and that's the one that winds up allowing for some carnage. Afterward, everyone goes shoe shopping!

Harley Quinn #7 Rating: +1 Ranking. Another very nice looking issue. Some major pluses were lots of nearly naked people. Some minuses were Harley's Beaver getting a hole blown through it. He seems to be okay though. Plus the jokes were much better this time around than the last issue.