Monday, February 22, 2016

Harley Quinn #25


Why is Batman not as pale as these two?

Rating: No change.

In this issue, Harley Quinn puts some punctuation on her break-up with The Joker. The only problem with having that story told in this comic book is that it doesn't have any bearing on the regular DC Youniverse. But I think it offers a clue as to what's going on in this book. This comic book is just Harley's subconscious, perfect life. It's what she dreams about while locked away in Belle Reve or fantasizes about while in the showers (that's mostly the Poison Ivy parts). This is the life she wants to be able to live but she just can't bring herself to be this person.

Harley ultimately wants to do this to The Joker. She craves the ability to say no to him. But it can only happen in her head and the proof to that is that The Joker is currently not The Joker. He's some guy who hangs out on a park bench begging Bruce Wayne not to become Batman. He hasn't been in Arkham for a long time.

Harley dreams of having a family so she winds up in a building packed with strange people she's conjured up, and she hires a bunch of people to be in her gang. She dreams of having stability so she has a normal job counseling people in a retirement home. She still craves action so she joins a Roller Derby league that actually encourages hyper-violence and, occasionally, death. She craves a father figure and so she dreams up Sy Borgman whose metaphor as a construct is plain as day. She even dreams of living in a comic book city where some of her favorite comic book heroes like Spider-man, She-hulk, and Daredevil live!

It's possible that this entire comic book is just an experiment being conducted on her by Amanda Waller and one of her secret Task Force X members, Doctor Destiny. Using his materioptikon, he puts Harley into the most normal setting he can and lets her imagination run wild. The experiment is probably meant to help recover her sanity so that she's useful to Amanda's team and not simply a loose cannon.

No comments:

Post a Comment