Harley Quinn #7

Face piercings and tattoos are way easier than actually having an interesting and unique personality.

When I give writing advice, I usually give terrible Grunion Guy writing advice that doesn't make any sense but makes me laugh. Today, I offer real writing advice: writing doesn't just take place when you sit down to do the hard labor of writing. "Duh!" you're probably saying. Well, "Fuck you!" is what I'm saying back! Sorry! I'm always a little pre-defensive when I know I'm posting something on the Internet because the Internet is full of Know-It-All Motherfuckers whose favorite word is "Actually." To explain a bit further about the writing, you know how some people say they do their best thinking in the shower? I'm sure you've seen all those Memes that are labeled as Shower Thoughts. It isn't that the shower is a magical place where ideas fall like hot water from a shower head or masturbatory juices from self-pleasured genitals. It's just a place where your brain is freed up from concentrating on anything else. Unless you're going through some kind of physical therapy from an accident or a stroke, taking a shower is so routine that your brain doesn't need to concentrate on any part of the process. It's freed up to wander and contemplate. Most people spend nearly every minute of the day engaged in some other activity that takes up brain power which means you're not doing writing. When you sit down to write, it suddenly becomes difficult because you have nothing to show for the other twenty three hours and forty-five minutes of your day spent not at the computer (or typewriter or pad of paper or mustard-stained napkin). You're beginning the race unprepared for the starting gun. You at least need to stretch and probably eat the right kind of meal and hydrate. Um, this isn't running advice. I know nothing about running. So getting back to writing, if you aren't writing away from the computer, you're going to have a hard time writing at the computer. That means your brain cannot be constantly occupied by being on the Internet, or engaged in text conversations, or playing Candy Crush. You know why people think the shower is so magical? You can't take a fucking phone in there!

And before you get on me about being down on people always needing their phones, fuck you. I don't care about people always being on their phones. But if you think of yourself as a writer, you'd do yourself a huge favor to turn it off and leave the headphones out of your ears and go for a fucking walk without anything but your own head-space. My writing has suffered drastically over the last two years because I began listening to a lot of podcasts during work and walks instead of just being up in my own head thinking about things (there are some other reasons which lead to wanting to tune out some things which has lead to listening to Podcasts. But I won't get into that stuff because it's all been mentioned in this blog before). I always had something to discuss before getting into the comic book because I had many hours without distraction to "write."

One more bit of evidence that what I'm trying to get across is accurate and not just a condemnation of cell phones. Keep your bloody fucking cell phones. I don't give a shit who uses them or when. But one of the reasons transcendental meditation is so huge with ambitious extroverts is that it forces them to take those moments of down time where they end up in the Shower Thought space. The more time you allow yourself to not be engaged in anything but a rote activity that your body can take care of practically all by itself (I'm not talking about rote activities like Candy Crush or watching television where your mind is otherwise engaged. Even listening to music can interfere, although mostly the thinking interferes with the music and you'll find yourself replaying a song you were excited to hear again because you thought right through it and missed it), the easier you'll find writing when it's time to actually sit down and do the laborious part. You know, the actual writing.

As far as Harley Quinn goes, this is the last issue I'm reading. I'd like to just get it over with as fast as possible and maybe go eat dinner, so I'm going to write the ranking review bit before reading it!

The Ranking!
No change! I really liked the part where she said "Holee Something-olee!" So hilarious. And the way she mentioned her beaver in that bit that sounded dirty! It was like watching another Austin Powers movie! Plus her rooster is named Mike! As in Mike Cock! As in My Cock! Shit, my stomach muscles are sore from laughing so hard. Oh! You know what my other favorite bit was? When Harley Quinn almost fucked that other woman! Wowzers! So modern! P.S. If I have anything else to add after I read it (which I doubt I will), I'll add a postscript.

P.P.S. I mean a another postscript! After this one!

Harley Quinn #6

Your days are numbered, Harley Quinn!

My lack of interest in reading this comic book just caused me to break out a pad of paper and begin a list of comic books I'm cutting. Off the top of my head, I've got about sixteen series on the chopping block. There would be more but a few of them I'm going to ride through until the end, like Earth Too and Doctor Fate. I mean, technically those are still New 52 books so I have to read them! I think? This should open the door to me reading more interesting and better written comic books rather than having an obligatory tether to DC's bullshit. Needless to say, after this month, I'll never read another comic book written by Scott Lobdell!

I just heard my subconscious scream "Hooray!"

Harley Quinn's punk band is called GG Harlin and the Skull Bags. Why would she choose that name? I mean, I don't care about the Skull Bags but the other part of her name is going to create an expectation that she'll eat her own bowel movements on stage. I already found this comic book hard to read! I don't know if my stomach can handle that!

Harley avoids eating her own shit by murdering a spectator on stage. That's cool. So punk. Rock and roll. Whatever. Then she hurls dog shit at the crowd and the crowd eats it up. I mean they enjoy it as opposed to going up on stage and kicking the fucking shit out of her. Because punk rock! I guess being punk rock means having no self-respect?

Harley Quinn winds up at a superhero and supervillain fetish club at the end of the night with the punk rock band she's been hunting. I don't know why they were let in though because none of them are dressed like superheroes or supervillains. They're just dressed the way people dress when they want people to know they don't give a shit about the rules! I mean, they give a shit about the rules of wearing a certain aesthetic that lets people know that they don't go in for rules and don't ever conform to anything ever! I mean, except for the fashion sense and hair styles of the non-conformers! That's like totally different and shit and if you don't believe it, you can get your ass beat, normie!

The Ranking!
I refuse to rate this comic book on the grounds that it might expose my inability to remain unbiased as a comic book critic! It's possible my usual reviews already exposed that but I doubt anybody ever reads that closely. I'm just excited that I'm freeing up so much of my time by dumping all of these terribly mediocre comic books! It was fun reading comic books when The New 52 began because so many of them were absolutely terrible. But DC Comics seems to have cracked down on the truly terrible writers and now most of their worst books are simply bland and uninteresting, like Harley Quinn. I never felt like I was wasting my time reading comic books written terribly. But I always feel like I'm wasting my time when I read something that is technically acceptable in every way except in a way that makes it interesting.

Harley Quinn #5

Doctor Martens! Doctor Martens! Doctor Martens boots!

The Review!
I get the feeling a lot of people are buying Harley Quinn comic books but aren't actually reading them. What's the point? Harley gets into a misadventure where she's able to say "Holee Nounarolee" a few times, gets naked once or twice, engages in acts of extreme violence, and overuses sexual euphemisms! But if you consider yourself a huge Harley fan and want others to consider you the same, you have to buy her comic book! Just like I'm proud to have every issue featuring Ambush Bug (not really), Harley fans need to be able to remind everybody how many Harley Quinn comic books they have. They're a big fan, after all! Probably the biggest!

You know, I used to be a fan of Harley Quinn myself. And then I was inundated with all of these stories of her zany adventures outside of Gotham and I said to myself, "You're a stupid ugly loser!" I rarely say anything else to myself these days. Sometimes I'll say, "Go get a burrito, dum-dum." What I'm trying to say is that my self-esteem isn't the greatest and I'm fucking sick of Harley Quinn and her zany cast of characters in her crazy New York home.

In this issue, Harley decides to start a punk band to go undercover to catch a punk band full of criminals. That's the whole story. She makes a decision. I could say she gets a hair cut and finds members of the band and notices the punk band commit a crime which is how she gets on the case...but I actually said all of that when I said she makes a decision. Maybe it's the little details that people enjoy. Like when Harley takes a crap? Or when her towel falls off and she stands naked in front of her band? Or when Dead Tool cuts the strings on a woman's blouse so he can see her tits just before he kills her?

The Ranking!
-2! That's -1 for being a relatively boring comic book and -1 in additional lowered rankings because of my personal bias. I think that's fair since it was Harley that made me hate Harley.

Harley Quinn #3

I'm a huge fan of Ivy's new dildo.

The Facts!
• Previously in Harley Quinn, Harley was living with a stuffed beaver, a wiener dog, and a cock named Mike. If those three things set you to giggling, you'll love this fucking comic book.

• The issue begins with Wannabe Deadpool (who is Wannabe Deathstroke, so we're really getting into some comic book history layers here) receiving a new arm in the hospital. I didn't know that if you arrived at a hospital missing an arm, they'd just stick a new one on! I'll have to remember that!

• Vertigax, the alien who became hot dogs which turned everybody into zombies, has parents who care for him on a planet far away. They had put a tracker on their teenage son because they're busybody, micromanaging assholes. Maybe it's a good thing they did though because now they can track him to Earth and discover he's been spread out among dozens of human stomachs.

• Did you grow up in the late 70s and early 80s? Remember how they used to have days at school where they would fingerprint all of the kids just in case they went missing? I can't believe our parents fell for that shit out of fear. All the fucking cops wanted was a record of our prints so we could easily be caught when we became teenagers later and began vandalizing shit. Fucking pigs! Do they take samples of children's DNA now and pretend it's for safety reasons?

• You can get DNA samples in other ways then jerking kids off, right?!

This page takes care of all of the formulaic bits at once! Harley and Ivy being sexy and naked. Mike Cock strutting around all hard and erect. Harley's stuffed beaver turning into Eclipso. And the wiener dog licking the weed whacker. If that doesn't sound dirty, I probably should have put a little more thought into it to make it sound dirtier.

• I just remembered I forgot to buy Sheriff of Babylon #10 this week. Eep!

• Oh wait! Here's a better Mike Cock joke!

"Dammit! Mike Cock is blocking the television!" Har har har!

• Harley and Ivy shower together so I'll be stuck on those panels for awhile.

• Oh yeah. Scrub that back. Lower. Come on! Lower!

• That reminds me of a time I was lying in my friend Doom Bunny's bed the day after a party. He was lying next to me and next to him was his friend Amanda. That's her secret name because I don't want to expose her true identity or the fact that I can't actually remember her name. We were talking and I was rubbing her back with my arm over Doom Bunny. I said something about how I didn't want to rub any lower because things would get weird and Amanda said, "You can rub lower." So things got weird.

• Sorry! That's the end of the story! Actually, the end of the story was when I couldn't get my shoelaces to tie later and I said, "Please Baby Jesus! If you let me tie my shoes, I'll never ask for anything ever again!" And then they were tied! I really fucked up with my huge miracle prayer! The really scary part was that I was getting on a plane in an hour!

• Speaking of planes and flying, I used to do this thing where I would carefully check out everybody in the waiting area to make sure they looked like major characters in their lives. Because major characters don't die! You don't want to look around you and realize you're getting on a plane with background players and people who only ever get one line!

• Wannabe Deadpool wakes up from his operation to learn he was given the arm and hand of a chronic masturbator. One who did it in public even! Constantly! He totally freaks out because, I suppose, he believes the hand is gay. I mean, it did touch a lot of another guy's cock.

Like that matters! I'm right-handed and I jerk off with my left hand! Seriously! It's because when I was a teenager, I noticed my cock was getting a curve in the other direction from the frequency of my masturbation. So even though it was awkward at first, I began jerking off with my left hand. And now it's the only one I use! I mean, it's the main one I use! I totally need both to do it properly! Wink, wink! You know why I'm winking, right? Because I need to put a finger of my right hand up my ass to really do it right.

• Also, it turns out Chronic probably was right-handed and the doctor was just calming down a patient. Does that mean I exposed my way too personal history for nothing?!

• Enh. I'm sure I've told that story before!

• The Harley Crew (different from the Gang) decide to escape the area via the tunnels under the Wax Museum. This allows me to complete my Harley Quinn Bingo Card when she says, "Holee Spelunkerolee!"

• Harley's House of Leaves Exploration B Outfit is pretty cute. I'd buy the Action Figure.

• Poison Ivy smells mothballs on the way to the tunnel and I want to smell them too! So I pull out my Leather Goddesses of Phobos Scratch 'n' Sniff card and go to town!

• Nope. That's chocolate.

• Leather.

• Pizza.

• Oh! There we go! Mothballs! Ew. Gross.

• You know what? Supergirl #1 was a total rip-off because there wasn't one shot of Supergirl's Bum. There wasn't one in Supergirl Rebirth #1 either! I guess I'm going to have to drop Supergirl as my favorite butt in comics. Good thing there seems to be a replacement in this issue of Harley Quinn!

Oh yeah, Ivy. That's the stuff! Is that costume painted on?

• The door to the tunnel is the most obvious door to Hell anybody has ever seen. Which makes Harley want to go through it more than ever.

• The tunnel leads to a room full of doors. I think it might be the Hall of the Mountain King.

• The doors are just plot droppings for future plots. For now, the Harley Crew stick to the plan and go through the door that will lead them outside the radius of the Alien Zombie Hot Dog Apocalypse.

• The exit doesn't go far enough and the Harley Crew find themselves once again fighting zombies. Who's going to save them this time? Catwoman with a powerful laser pointer?

• Of course it isn't Catwoman! It's the alien's parents! They pull a transporter beam trick which yanks out all of the pieces of their son so they can put him back together. All of the creatures he was inside die in the transfer though. Oh well! The Aliens Ex Machina saved the day!

The Opinions!
So far, this series has breathed some fresh life into the way too formulaic and overused Harley Quinn. I'm enjoying it and not dreading it in the way I used to. I'm going to allow the comic book to get the credit for that this month and not my brain chemistry. But it could be my brain chemistry. Because--let's face it--I really enjoy the me part of these commentaries more than the comic book part of these commentaries.

Harley Quinn #2

I guess it's okay for Amanda Conner to sneak a zombie finger sliding up Harley's clown car. But it would be wrong if Frank Cho drew this, right?

The Commentary!
Tumblr has that "Recommended Blogs" column off to the right on the home page which I sometimes click on but mostly ignore. But I think I need to ignore it forever now because just looking at it depresses the fuck out of me. Thanks, Tumblr, for recommending Monster Man's blog so that I could click over to see some "Monsters Forever" and be greeted with this post:

Hi all, on Sunday, June 12th, the Monsterman passed away. He leaves behind his beautiful daughter and me his loving wife. Running this site gave him so much joy. We will miss him and love him always.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. It's a loving note of tribute and more than anybody will get on my blog when I'm found lying face-down in the cat's litter box, bloated from the gasses of decomposition. It's not like it's Tumblr's responsibility to post warning signs all over the place that life fucking sucks and, to top it all off, it just ends in the complete erasure of your existence. It's not like there aren't little reminders all around us every day which we desperately try to avoid although, when we can't, we frantically try to figure out a way to repress the reminder and get back into our heady, daily denial of the Faustian deal we unknowingly made with the universe! Because don't get me wrong! I'm glad I somehow, improbably, exist to experience all of this! But if the universe had an identifiable set of testicles, I'd definitely kick them as hard as I could.

I wonder if during the years Carl Sagan was battling with cancer if he ever just went into his backyard at night and flipped off the stars. That guy was way too optimistic and chipper. I'd feel better if I knew he had some bad days where he felt the full weight of the universe's mocking betrayal of his curiosity and wonder. Fuck you, universe! Fuck you!

I wish I believed in God because screaming "Fuck you, God!" is so much more satisfying than screaming at the universe. It's like calling the coffee table in the living room a cunt after stubbing your toe on it. I'd rather yell at the person who put it there.

I wonder how many people who believe in God just switched into their own issue after that and started yelling at me, "That's proof! Proof of God! Who do you think put the universe there? Hunh? Hunh? Hunh?!" I'm not falling for your simplistic arguments! If you can believe in a magical being who can do anything (but seemingly does nothing!) who has existed forever then maybe you can imagine matter that has, somehow, existed forever and isn't magical at all. It's just, you know, a mystery! Not God's mystery! Enough with God! Shove God!

At this point, you might be thinking, "Tess? Do you have anything to say about Harley Quinn?" It's a fair question! And a good one to since the answer is "No. No I do not. It's the same fucking comic book every month and I really don't have anything new to say about it!" I suppose I'll try anyway but I'll warn you: my Carl Sagan bit was the best part of this entire entry. It's all downhill from here! Probably. I mean, I haven't written anything else yet (or read the comic book, for that matter!) but I can't see myself being clever from this point on.

How cute! The BLAMs look like a little mushroom!

Hopefully an out of context panel of Harley firing off round after round from her AK-47 wasn't too disturbing for people constantly thinking about the next mass shooting. She wasn't doing anything intentionally horrible with her gun. She was just shooting out the windows of three floors of a hospital and endangering everybody within just to save Redtool's life. She's so thoughtful when it comes to people she knows!

Meanwhile, zombies are ravaging her neighborhood. But it's okay because her Gang of Harleys and all of her friends are safe. The people getting their arms ripped off and their faces bitten off and their legs torn off don't matter. You know how it is! Writers don't have time to write fulfilling conclusions to the story of everybody who just marginally appears in their stories. If they had that kind of time or interest or writing ability, why would they do what they did to Barb Holland in Stranger Things? Sometimes fucking a character in the ass and tossing them in the garbage is the only move an auteur has left, time and money being what they are. You know, time and money!

Luckily for the rest of the DC Universe, the zombies won't go further than a half mile away from the source of the infection: Nate-Man's Hot Dog Stand. I guess the alien that's infected them can't spread itself too thin.

Harley winds up falling off of the roof and into the horde of zombies. Previously, she didn't want to kill them because they're the people in her neighborhood, in her neighborhood, in her neigh-bor-hoooooood! But now she doesn't mind kicking their heads off because remember what I said about non-essential characters? Fuck 'em! They're like the Monster Men in my life! Their deaths only exist to remind me of my own mortality! Although, really, I just wish they'd stop with all of these reminders. But just like me, Harley decides she needs to do whatever she can to survive! In her case, that means having a great time killing her neighbors. In my case, that means playing video games until the constant thoughts of my eventual demise disappear into a flat hum in the background of my brain!

Harley's tits looked pretty good while she fought the zombies though! I didn't want to type that but I've decided to allow my Male Gaze at least one sentence per commentary. I have to pay a daily tithe to my masculinity or it'll go toxic!

Harley gets a few pages of crazy scenes like this as she Dead Risings her way across Coney Island.

Harley is rescued by her friends but then they all wind up trapped in the Bumper Car ring because apparently Nate-man's is a popular place to eat. They're surrounded by hundreds of zombies! It's the end for the heroes! Which is fine because why should they get to live when everybody else is dying? Seems so unfair, not to mention totally contrived.

But wait! One last savior appears and she's really doing the Dead Rising thing! Poison Ivy appears with a table saw blade attached to a weed whacker! Unless maybe it's just supposed to be a weed whacker but since when do those have blades in them? Maybe it's some kind of tree branch trimming tool! I might be able to tell the difference between a spade and a shovel but that's about where my gardening expertise ends. And speaking of endings, this is where the issue ends! What a smooth conclusion! It's like I'm back in high school writing another shitty paper that I was way too proud of! And I was probably just marked down right there for not writing "of which I was way too proud!" Mr. Borror was a dick! May he rest in peace. Probably. I mean, no way he can still be alive, can he?

Apparently he is! 82 years old! I actually really liked him but the dick thing wasn't too far off if you were a piece of shit who wasted his time. Check out his ratings at Mission College (I had him as my high school AP English teacher)!

The Review!
Just because I don't really have much to say about this comic book except that it's formulaic and repetitive, it doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. It's just the no-calorie rice cake of writing! If you love Harley, you probably love this book. You get to spend twenty pages with her silly antics and cute tush and violent tendencies. It can be a fun ride! It's just a ride that maybe I've been on one too many times and I'm beginning to feel nauseated by it!

Harley Quinn #28

Even if Harley survives the explosion, she's probably going to lose her left leg.

The Review or Whatever
Somebody was trolling everybody concerned about Melania Trump's "ghost" writer for her speech at the RNC. They created a fake Twitter account for this "Meredith McIver" who probably exists but is really just a scapegoat for whoever actually wrote the speech plagiarizing Michelle Obama (whoever actually wrote it had to have been some joker sabotaging Trump. I picture the person just sitting back and smiling a goofy grin as Melania read Michelle Obama's words as a room full of Republicans applauded). This person was vehemently defending obviously photoshopped pictures of her with Trump and it was truly hilarious how people kept arguing with this "Meredith" about the reality of such obviously fake pictures. This person even had a poorly faked picture of Meredith standing outside 10 Downing Street with Piers Morgan.

The obviously Photoshopped image.

Seeing that this photo was such an obvious Photoshop of this person, I had to dig up the original. And I was so satisfied when I did!

I hate that, due to Photoshop and camera tricks and the influence of our lizard leaders, people think Piers Morgan has a human face.

Previously in this comic book, some editor was all, "Wouldn't Deadpool and Harley Quinn be perfect for each other?!" And another editor went, "Mmmphbmmphlemmph!" And the first editor went, "What was that?!" And the second editor took their tongue out of the first editor's ass and was all, "High-Lair-E-Us!" So after cleaning up the carpet, one of them called Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's house to tell them the good news about their next story. Amanda answered the phone and was all, "Mmmphbmmphlemmph?"

That was a terrible joke that makes no sense! The reality is that the person getting their ass eaten out would answer the phone. Also, I'd rather imagine Amanda's ass being eaten out then Jimmy's. I think I went wrong on that count too.

Not surprisingly, this comic book begins with a "Holee Wordarolee" exclamation and then Harley making up a funny name for Red Tool. Up next, Harley makes an innuendo about her beaver and farts.

Whenever Harley says a Holee Somethingolee, I just lose my shit! I don't mean I laugh hysterically! I mean I tear my fucking house apart.

It must be such a sweet job to get the Harley gig at DC Comics. You can put in minimal effort writing scripts because you know you've got a loyal fan base who will buy plenty of copies. As long as the script offers plenty of fan service with semi-nude shots of Harley and a heaping holee helping of near sexual encounters wit Poison Ivy, nobody is going to complain that the jokes are tired and the passion missing.

Semi-nude shot? Check!

The issue finishes up with another semi-nude shot while Deadpool gives a five page book report on Harley Quinn's history and her motivations. You know, to prove to the readers that Amanda and Jimmy know the character super well! It's a bit obnoxious for the writer to just lay out their take on the character but at least it's a better summary of Harley than Sean Ryan's take in Suicide Squad #22.

Harley Quinn #27

Romita's Harley isn't anywhere near as sexy as Conner's Harley.

The Review or Whatever!
Harley meets Deadpool and it's just as forced as you would expect. Unless you expected a story about Harley and Deadpool to be a never ending laugh riot. If you were expecting that, I have some bad news for you. The story isn't charming, or funny, or interesting. Half of the dialogue is just people making up stupid names for each other. The other half of the dialogue is "That's what she said." How long until Harley fans stop finding this crap funny simply because they love Harley and will not be disappointed by anything she's in? I've gotten to the point where Harley's comic doesn't just barely escape my notice by being meaningless twaddle that passes the time with some risqué humor and a few half-naked shots of Quinn. It is now beginning to seriously annoy the fuck out of me. When will it all end?!

Harley Quinn #26

Nobody else is completely sick of Harley Quinn yet? Just me?

Rating: It's a Harley Quinn comic book by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. Does it even need a review? Half of the copies sold probably never even get read. Harley fans just pick them up because they can't be the biggest Harley Quinn fan in the world if they don't have a complete Harley Quinn comic book collection! Or a tattoo of Harley within one or two inches of their asshole.

• It doesn't matter what was happening last issue. I think a bunch of sexual innuendos were said and somebody learned a cock's name was Mike. Did you know he also hunts? Oh, Harley probably also spoke to her beaver at least once. And she might have fingered Poison Ivy. Unless that was the previous issue.

• Harley commits some violence against some people on the beach. But it's okay because they were bullying her and one called her a bitch. That excuses Harley for insulting their aesthetic and making them bleed.

• I totally get where Harley's coming from though. I grew up in Santa Clara, California, and spent many summers on the beaches of Santa Cruz. Not the tourist beaches crowded with assholes! No way! We went to the beaches through holes in people's backyard fences spray painted with sayings like "VALLEYS GO HOME" and "LOCALS ONLY". I never had to rip anybody's hair off for my right to be on the beach though. Apparently the locals at Santa Cruz weren't as bad-ass as The Lost Boys made them seem.

• Big Tony reminds me that I'm going to have to purchase yet another fucking Harley Book in April. Egad.

• Harley Quinn has a tasty ass.

• Some Deathstroke wannabe motherfucker with one arm has a vendetta against somebody named "Nutbuckets."

• Harley gets a makeover so when all the fans flock to her comic book after seeing the movie, they'll recognize her.

• Oh wait! I get it! Harley is Nutbuckets!

• The comic really improves when some women get in their underwear.

• The guy in the flashbacks challenges Harley in the Skate Club ring. Rink? Um, anyway, he's a Deadpool parody which everybody else probably already understood with the Wayne Wilkons name thing. I'm so old school that I flew right past that reference and hit on the guy Deadpool was a parody of.

Harley's Little Black Book #1

Am I allowed to open this without ruining my comic book collector cred?

That question was completely facetious because I already know the answer. Of course I'm going to open it! When I got the Death of Superman, I tore right into that sucker! And of course it's going to ruin my cred! When I tore into the Death of Superman, people fainted around me and I was almost banned from my comic book store!

Some of the previous story may have been an exaggeration of the truth. I wasn't even reading any Superman titles at the time when the Death of Superman was published. But my local comic book store held a copy for me anyway. That's how awesome I am! It's also the reason why, no matter how introverted and shy you are, it's smart to get in good with the clerks at your comic book store. That was back in Santa Clara, California, at Brian's Books (their second location! I'd been going there since before they moved!). The clerk's name was the same as mine (Jeff. Not Tess. I only constantly refer to myself as "Tess" because I figure, by the name of my site, people will understand that I'm talking about myself. If I suddenly mentioned the mysterious "Jeff", it might confuse some readers) and I think he might have had a crush on me. I'm also certain that years later, long after I stopped going to Brian's Books because I moved, he became a huge Mythbusters' fan. That's just speculation on my part. But he seemed like that kind of guy. We also talked Magic the Gathering a lot, so that might be why he wanted to see me naked so much.

Okay! I'm about to tear open my Black Bagged Harley book! I hope I get something exciting in it! What are the possibilities? A sketched cover, an inked cover, and a color cover?! Which one is the best? Probably the cover color, right? Is that the Rare one? Because I really only want the rare one. They obviously have different rarities, right? Everything inside sealed bags has rarities!

Oh. I got the color one. That must mean the other ones are rarer! I would have been disappointed with whatever one I got. Probably.

Do we really need a new Harley Quinn comic book? I'm fairly certain I'm up to my synapses in enough Harley Quinn. Hopefully this series will explain how she's in so many places at once: prison, California, Brooklyn, space. It's probably because she's a clone. I mean clown. No, wait. I was right the first time.

Harley Quinn has just defeated some thugs (comic book thugs and not the thugs that the Fox News guys want you to picture when you think of the word thugs. You know? Like the people Heroclix chose to use for their Thug Heroclix figure? Hmm. What is wrong with you, Heroclix?) and found evidence that Wonder Woman might be in trouble in London. That means Harley Quinn needs to team up with Wonder Woman! I already knew that because Wonder Woman is on the cover about eighteen times. I'm a pretty thorough reader.

Harley Quinn is super excited to team up with Wonder Woman because she has a shrine devoted to her.

I have a closet like this but it's for Aubrey Plaza.

This comic book is really thick and I don't want to wind up writing six pages of commentary on it, so I'm going to have to keep my thoughts brief. Although that's really nothing. I'm only forty-six pages into Genesis and I've managed to write 288 pages of commentary on that alone! If I ever fucking finish my commentary on the last eighteen pages of Genesis, I'll finally get around to publishing Lyle’s Study Guide for the Literal Interpretation of The Bible for Dumb Dumbs by Grunion Guy! And then it'll be on to Exodus where I think a baby topples a civilization or something. It might sound ridiculous but remember that he gets help from frogs and insects.

Harley usually goes into hallucinations to pad the pages on her special comic books but this time she just has a flashback to when she was a little kid and was beaten on by bullies. Boy, those bullies sure are cool! I wish this comic book was about them! They're all like, "We don't give no fucks! We'll kick little girls in the stomach no problem! We probably do other cool things too like smoke cigarettes and talk back to our single parents working two jobs and probably even play doctor with stray cats." Being a bully is awesome!

Harley is forced to do the bullies' homework which is another cool reason to be a bully! You never have to do any homework! It is kind of weird that the star of the comic book is being kicked around by cool characters. It would almost seem like the bullies are actually the...oh. Um. What I meant to say is bullying is awful and nobody should ever do bullying of any kind and I hope Harley Quinn defeats them!

Whoa. That was close. I wish I understood social dynamics better! I almost rooted for the bad guys! Except isn't Harley Quinn also a bad guy? Fuck. I'm so confused!

Violent retaliation against bullies is not the fault of the victim; it's the fault of society and the grown-ups who continue to believe in a kids will be kids attitude.

When I was in fifth grade, I was in a bowling league. I was also extremely...unsociable? Maybe more a-sociable? I've never cared about any kind of diagnosis for how I've never quite fit in and I never really thought much about it until Ray Romano's character appeared on Parenthood. When people claim nobody in television or books or movies seems to represent them, realize that I'm a white male who never thought of any "white males" as being representative of who I was. Not until Parenthood and then not even until he begins to realize that maybe he's on the spectrum. But my life has paralleled that characters in ways all the way up to and including having my own business in which I only interact with people when I absolutely have to. I'm just trying to paint the picture that I didn't really fit in in many odd and quirky ways and sometimes people smelled that and didn't like it.

So this bully at the bowling alley told me one Friday night at league that if I showed up the next week, he was going to kick my ass. I don't remember why. I don't know what I did. It boggles me to this day. It's quite possible I said something awful about him out loud when I thought I was thinking it because he was a huge dick to everybody. But the next week, I didn't know what else to do except to bring a knife to protect myself. If he had bothered me, I would have stabbed him. That's it. That's all there was. Try to fuck with me and I will end it. But I brought the knife to school that day, some kid ratted on me, and I wound up crying in the Principal's Office. The principal could not have been cooler or more understanding, trying to find the root of what was going on and why I had the knife and what he could do to help. He even called my cousin, who was a year younger than me, in to ask him questions. But I wouldn't say anything. In the end, he took the knife away and had my grandmother pick me up. She, as always, was sweet and kind and understanding. But I was also stubborn and unable to truly articulate my frustrations with how the world works. And I also didn't want to miss bowling. So I went. Without my knife. And Brian (the stereotypical red-headed bully asshole with the short sidekick named Maurice) picked a fight with me. I flew into my usual tantrum when at my wits end and just flailed my arms like crazy while crying and screaming. I think I scared the shit out of him because he just kind of backed off and left me alone. I'm pretty sure he got in trouble and was kicked off the league after other people came forth to relate how horrible he was to everybody. But if I had had that knife, I have no doubt I would have pulled it out and one of us would have been wounded by it.

Bullied kids will find their power wherever they can. And bullied kids that already don't fucking understand how and why everything around them works the way it does? They're just powder kegs waiting for society to fail them. Because everybody thinks everybody else should just buck up and fit in. But some of us truly don't fucking know how.

So no matter how terrible Columbine was, there was always a piece of me that couldn't help but empathize with the monsters who perpetrated it. I know violence is no answer to violence. But you back people up to the wall long enough--and I'm not saying the Columbine kids were that. I'm saying they could have been and I would have understood it--and they'll find their power any way they know how. You treat people like shit long enough and they'll forget they're human. And then they won't care that you're human. And then you'll have the monsters you expect them all to be. You'll reap what you sow.

I'm not saying murderous action should be taken against our white cis-het male overlords! What I'm saying is that the white cis-het male overlords should realize that they wouldn't have to fear everybody else becoming murderous monsters if they just fucking stopped treating them like they already were!

Hmm. I feel like I went too deeply into the defense of mass shootings! I totally don't mean it that way at all! I'm a fucking conscientious object-or (thanks, e.e. cummings!) and a pacifist and mostly a huge pussy to boot! Also I'm fucking terrified of having conversations on the phone so I can't even organize a protest of anything! All I can do is write shit on the internet and cry about my cat who died a year ago. Actually I don't cry that often about Judas anymore although if I think too deeply about my last moments with him, it's all fucking over. Like now! Stupid brain! Stop sandbagging me!

Oh shit. Speaking of Judas! The universe is an awesome place sometimes and we owe it all to coincidence. Not everything has meaning outside of what you bring to it or is a sign teaching you how to save your son from aliens invading your farm.

Here's one easy way that I know I will not like a person! If they use the phrase "It is what it is" or "Everything happens for a reason." And if they say them both, I have to murder them. No, seriously. I know I mentioned I was a pacifist not two paragraphs ago but sometimes you have to forgo your ethics and just save the world from serious douchebaggery.

Anyway, enough about not Harley Quinn! Didn't I say something about keeping this shit short?! Fuck. Maybe that Brian asshole was right. Even I'm starting to hate myself.

Harley Quinn is stowing away with the chemical goodies so that she'll arrive in London to warn Wonder Woman about Barmy Bugger's plot to kill her. And while Harley's visiting, maybe she'll get to meet the London Legion, London's premier super hero group!

These guys totally won't get in the way at all and won't almost get Wonder Woman and Harley killed!

The London Legion never get a chance to work with Harley or to screw up her plans because they're knocked unconscious by some of Barmy Bugger's special knock-out gas. You know the kind? It knocks people out in gas form. They're taken hostage and Harley stows away in the van back to Barmy's hideout.

I'm at the halfway point in this comic book and Harley and Wonder Woman haven't even engaged in any finger banging. That's British for shaking hands, right?

Eventually Harley winds up with the knock out gas meant for Wonder Woman and heads on over to give Wonder Woman a dose because Harley comes up with strange plans that almost certainly don't involve removing Wonder Woman's underwear once she's unconscious. That would be unconscionable! Although a little bit sexy because it's fictional, right? That makes it okay? Maybe?

See! I knew it was okay! And it is a little bit sexy! It's like my pants suddenly don't fit right!

Harley Quinn puts on Wonder Woman's costume and throws on a wig so she can pretend to be Wonder Woman and capture Barmy Bugger!

She looks exactly like her!

Okay, I admit it. That's not really Harley Quinn as Wonder Woman. If you squint just right, you'll see it's my friend Doom Bunny who none of you know.

Barmy Bugger ambushes Wonder Woman's apartment and while Harley tries to battle his minions, Wonder Woman wakes up naked in the tub. I hope all of her towels are dirty! Her hair isn't long enough to hide her ass so I hope there's a panel where our perspective is from behind her! And maybe her legs are slightly parted. And maybe she's bending over! And maybe I should have been editor on this comic book!

Wonder Woman decides not to show me any of her mystical goodies. She'd rather risk whatever weird viruses and microbes Harley Quinn has in her underwear and wear Harley's costume to stay modest.

This comic is really getting good!

After a few more pages of what I think was the conclusion to the Barmy Bugger caper but might just have been a bunch of pages I masturbated to, Harley informs Wonder Woman that the London Legion have been taken captive and need to be rescued! So they totally didn't get in the way at all! They were completely useless throughout the entire fight! I wonder what they talked about while waiting to be rescued? No wait! I don't wonder that! I don't need to know that! It would be just like DC to believe that comic book fans were clamoring for a six issue mini-series about their time manacled to the wall of a dungeon.

The London Legion is rescued and everybody goes out to celebrate at the pub! I bet they have a few pints and skitter some chipwhiskers until they're conklin' on the shrub-tumpers!

At the pub, Harley eagerly ties herself up with Wonder Woman's lasso and asks everybody to ask her any question at all! Any question?! Oh boy! Or not oh boy since the scene cuts away before she can answer any kinky questions. But at least when they're done drinking and they're all on the way out of the pub, Harley gets a little tiny bit of Wonder Woman action.

Oi that hand!

Harley's Little Black Book #1 Rating: I enjoyed this comic book but I have some serious misgivings about it. It costs five dollars and also costs five dollars. At first I thought it was going to come out twice a month because DC loves inundating fans with tons and tons of Harley Quinn. But I can't see how a book this size and with a character already headlining her own title can feasibly be published that often. It would really help if the term "bimonthly" wasn't so fucking ambiguous! Can somebody get to work on fixing that bullshit? Also, about that clone thing! This series (along with Harley's regular title) obviously take place sometime after Harley finishes her contract with the Suicide Squad and is released from Belle Reve. That's why none of the superheroes she encounters try to arrest her for being a huge criminal. She's already served her time and as long as none of them look too closely at her cartoon violence that occasionally ends with corpses being thrown into shallow graves by Harley's employees, she's free to commit all of the chaos. So I think it works that Harley is currently in the Suicide Squad setting up these stories which take place at some future date. But don't get too wrapped up in what happens when. These are comic books and being too much of a stickler for continuity will only drive you mad.

From this point on, all of my Wednesday Comic Book Commentaries will be available in their entirety. It'll be mostly weeklies, first issues, and special issues that have just come out. You know, to try to get people interested in spending one dollar per month to read the rest of my commentaries. As Gail Simone says about my site: "Funniest stuff on comics right now." I think she meant "right now" as in over the last few years and continuing on into the future as opposed to just this second and now they're not funny anymore because something funnier came along. If you'd like to support me and maybe get me to offer even more freebies (sure, why should you pay when other people will get them for free? Probably because you're a totally terrific and swell person!), please head on over to Patreon and sign up for one dollar (or more!) per month. It's totally worth it for the email notifications of new posts alone!

Harley Quinn #21

This was my favorite scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This issue begins with Harley Quinn tackling Deadshot into bed. Then after they tussle in the bed for awhile, they head over to the shower together. It all takes place in a cheap motel with a lot of smashed walls, smashed glass, smashed furniture, and smashed everything. Harley Quinn probably feels like she's about to get fucked by The Joker.

Look, comic book. All I really want to know is if Harley and Deadshot are going to have sex again. Maybe I should just write that scene myself and forget about it happening in the comic book.

Harley: "Come on, Floyd! Give it to me...you know what? I dried right up when I called you Floyd."
Floyd: "I should probably grab a condom, right? I don't want to stick my dick in there and wind up with a huge creepy grin on my face."
Harley: "Oh, I'm going to make you grin big time, Deady! Hmm. Deady is better than Floyd but it's still sponging up my love grease."
Floyd: "Are you even wearing shorts? Is that just grease paint?"
Harley: "Yeah! I'm always completely naked! Shove your gun in my holster!"
Floyd: "Boom! Boom! Oh yeah!"
Harley: "Deadshot, hunh? More like Wrong Hole Lawson."
Floyd: "No way! I like to start with the back end! Then I go in the front all dirty!"
Harley: "Whoa, whoa! You're not sticking that stinky ding dong in my sweet smelling semen receptacle!"
Floyd: "That's okay. I already came."
Harley: "Where's my mallet?"

That was super sexy! Now I don't even need to read this issue!

I can just look at this panel and imagine they just did it.

Or they just did it here and are about to do it again!

Deadshot could be talking about his penis!

Instead of having intimate relations with Deadshot, Harley just beats him up and knocks him through more walls. Are motels in Hollywood made out of sugar?

Hopefully Deadshot will return after Harley gets done with the part of the story I don't care about. She's trying to find some spoiled rich kid and take her back east. But to find her, she's got to put on her detective shoes.

Mystery solved!

Afterward, Harley Quinn gets an adult massage and earns her money for solving the Mystery of the Wayward Youth. But then she gives the money to some movie producer named Nick so that he isn't killed and also so he'll turn Harley into a cartoon. Later at the airport, Harley runs into her romantic interest! There's still a shot at a sex scene! Here it comes! Oh yeah! They're gonna do it in an airport restroom!

Nope. Harley just steals Floyd's money and ditches him. Not cool, Harley.

Harley Quinn #21 Rating: No change. Did you know that Harley Quinn is not really a clown? She may have a doctorate but it isn't from Clown College! She's a phoney baloney! Putting white grease paint all over your body does not make one a clown. She is an insult to clowning. Did you also know that most clowns don't kill? Okay, occasionally one will get into killing but it's not a usual part of a clown's repertoire. Did you know that clowns don't usually give grown men boners? It just seems like Harley Quinn is portraying clowns in a negative light. Shame on her.

Harley Quinn #20

Yay! More location based humor from Connor and Palmiotti!

If you think things were wacky and funny when Harley Quinn was in New York, just wait until you see her in Los Angeles! I bet it's as wacky as Starfire living in Key West! This shit is about to get crazy! But first, let's learn some secrets about The X-Files!

Look at them! They're practically babies!

I found this TV Guide while digging around in the attic for the copy of our lease. Yeah, my organizational skills aren't great and now I have no proof of our original lease for the new property managing company that has taken over. Oh well! This TV Guide is more interesting. Let's see the twenty things everybody needed to know about The X-Files in 1996! Although the tidbits are from TV Guide so don't be too surprised if you fall asleep while learning them.

#1. "Mulder and Scully don't have a love life because they're too busy!" Okay, so I'm paraphrasing instead of quoting the entire thing but that's about the crux of it. And you thought it was because Mulder was addicted to porn and Scully was saving herself for marriage and/or an alien lover.

#2. "Mulder and Scully will never have a love life because fans don't want them fucking anybody but each other." That's true enough. One of the things I loved about the show was that it didn't force a romantic plot into the series. At least not until the series had already been fitted for an adult diaper and had been shitting itself on a regular basis.

#3. "Duchovny hopes for more scenes of Mulder playing basketball." Here's David's quote on the subject: "I don't see why we can't do something that plays to my strengths." Well, Dave, I guess you eventually got to show your strengths with Californication, didn't you?

#4. "Gillian Anderson has a beauty mark on her upper lip." Gillian's quote on why Carter insisted it be covered with make-up: "Chris felt that there wasn't enough room for it on my face." TV Guide used that quote straight while I'm pretty sure Gillian was being a smart ass. Because Gillian is the greatest human being on the face of the Earth.

#5. "Something about being skeptical or something." Most of these things everybody needs to know are apparently really fucking dumb. I kept the TV Guide for the pictures.

#6. "Mulder and Scully both prefer the Beatles over the Rolling Stones." Whew! I'm glad that's cleared up!

#7. "The X-Files theme has no words because it was written without having any words." It should have lyrics. "Aliens are coming now! Here they come to steal a cow! I think I saw some take my sis! We're almost at the part where we start to whistle."

#8. "If a TV is on in a scene, it is playing a sci-fi horror movie." Really, TV Guide? Every fan would already know that. Do you think amateur television watchers were fans of this show? Snort! I don't think so.

#9. "Sometimes there's subtext." That wasn't paraphrased. That's actually how #9 begins. "Sometimes there's subtext." Holy fuck, TV Guide! You really did your fucking homework on this, didn't you? Although the subtext they discuss is whether or not Scully and Mulder fucked in an elevator in the episode "Paper Clip". Jesus, Guide. Shipping subtext discussion? That's barely even worthy of Intro to The X-Files 101.

#10. "And sometimes there's no subtext." I would be dead right now after reading that if I owned a gun. I did point out at the beginning that this was going to be TV Guide level journalism!

#11. "Sometimes the show doesn't make it past the censors." Apparently Fox didn't want a character on the show who fucked corpses so the character became a death fetishist. But incest was okay! Kind of.

#12. "The episode names are purposefully inscrutable." Like I even knew what the episodes were called when I watched them airing for the first time anyway. I doubt I even realized episodes of television had names back when The X-Files first aired!

#13. "Gillian's worst experience was wrestling with a fake cat covered in rabbit fur." Suddenly I have an erection.

#14. "Duchovny finds maggots gross." The real story isn't that David finds them disgusting because that's just being a fairly typical person. The real story is why he finds them off-putting. It's because they're "so needy." That sounds about right.

#15. "Gillian never ate that cricket in that episode about freaks written by that guy who wrote the best episode of all time starring the master of everything Charles Nelson Reilly." The truth? She spit it out! Move over Woodward and Bernstein! Here comes TV Guide!

#16. "The best items Gillian and Duchovny received from fans." Okay, I'm going to just transcribe this entire one because it's quotes from Gillian and David, two of my favorite people on the planet (probably just under my mom's parents): "What kind of offerings do the starts receive from X-philes? A fan once sent Anderson a tape of a song he wrote called 'Oh Scully, When Will You Kiss Mulder?' 'It was this twangy hillbilly song,' Anderson says. 'It was fabulous.' Duchovny's most unusual gift? A sexually explicit jigsaw puzzle from a female admirer. 'I spent the whole afternoon working on it,' Duchovny says. 'It took me a long time to put it together.'" My god, they're both so droll. They say so much without saying so much! They're too smart for average fans!

#17. "Some famous people like the show." Famous fans include Stephen Spielberg and Tony Bennett. You would think they could have come up with a few more.

#18. "There will be a movie." Thanks, TV Guide! I was probably excited to hear about this when this came out.

#19. "Big named actors want to guest star in The X-Files but Carter won't cast them." Is that a slam against Charles Nelson Reilly because I won't stand for it!

#20. "Three things will never happen on The X-Files." Those three things are any paired relationship between Mulder, Scully, and Skinner. Probably because it would confuse everybody at every X-Files convention since somebody saying "Scinner" would just be confused for "Skinner" and "Skulder" and "Sculder" sound exactly alike.

I own one other TV Guide and it has the Tiny Toons on the cover. What surprised me most about the TV Guide is that people actually sent letters to them. But no editor took the time to answer them even though the letters seem to have mostly been written by idiots. I should just buy up as many TV Guides as I can find and answer the letters. Maybe I should just save that idea for a book!

One last thing. Here's almost certainly what I watched on the night of April 7th, 1996 on Channel 54 in San Francisco Bay Area: Blake's 7, Robotech, Robotech, Doctor Who.

Anyway, Harley Quinn has made her way back to Los Angeles. She didn't have much time for airport hilarity last time so she takes care of it in this issue.

Normally I'd say people demanding apologies are ruining the inherent idea of apologies as showing true remorse but here the lady did offer to give Harley one. She gets what she deserves: stuffed into a suitcase full of strawberry jam. Ha ha! Humiliated but not actually hurt. Good one, Harley.

Harley's mission is to save some girl named Sparrow from a cult. But the job was first offered to Deadshot who isn't happy to have been taken out of the loop without his hundred grand. He's got a point. He most likely lost other sources of income preparing for this job. Assassins and Mercenaries must be allowed the same rights other businesses have to protect their revenue stream. I always charge businesses who change the locks on their doors without alerting me prior to my scheduled floor cleaning visit!

Harley winds up at some naked guy's party and ends up in a fight with some home invaders. She winds up stealing a cop car and driving around with a guy dressed up like a cowboy named Cowboy. Look, it's Harley Quinn. If that all doesn't make enough sense, you should probably be reading Batman.

Mission accomplished!

I hope when Deadshot comes busting into the Motel, he makes a crack about that time Harley called her vagina a clown car!

After tying the girl up, Harley and Cowboy leave her in the motel room to go get something to eat. They pass by Grauman's Chinese Theatre so that Harley can interact with the actors in superhero costumes. She considers getting Batman and Superman to kiss, assaults the "Special Occasion" version of herself, and is propositioned by Wonder Woman. So you know, all the shit that's been written about already twelve dozen times in fanfiction.

Harley beats up a pink pussy while eating pink tacos. I think this might be one of those scenes with subtext. Unless it's one of those scenes without subtext. I don't think there are any other options.

After they eat, they head back to the motel where Deadshot arrives to shoot Cowboy in the chest which probably makes Harley's clown car flood.

Harley Quinn #20 Rating: No change. Does Harley Quinn's comic even need to be reviewed by anybody? Even if it maybe sucks sometimes or tends to be derivative of itself or is just a vehicle for commentary on comic book culture, it's still going to sell a ton of copies. I don't know what it would take for Harley to suddenly not be popular. Her fans are going to purchase anything she's in and I kind of get the feeling we're only going to see an uptick in her popularity when the Suicide Squad movie comes out. Although I think a lot of people are going to be confused when they realize comic book Deadshot looks more like Orange is the New Black's Pornstache than Will Smith. Maybe Deadshot will keep his mask on during this story to avoid confusion.

Harley Quinn #16

Everybody in the whole cell block was doing something that's too vulgar to type that rhymes with "block"!

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have decided to take in a movie. Harley Quinn lies to Pamela and tries to tell her that Mad Max was "sooo cool." No! Wrong! Mad Max was boring shit with a sort of interesting idea that led to two of the greatest movie sequels to ever be made! But Mad Max was a boring piece of shit! If you're currently arguing with me, then you're probably only remembering the five or six minutes of Mad Max that weren't a total snorefest!

Even for its time it wasn't amazing! But she did say "in the first film," so I'm going to assume that she's just mentioning the first movie to set up her description of the beauty that was The Road Warrior and the orgy of action sadness and Tina Turner's chainmail tits that was Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome!

More important than telling everybody that they're wrong in their opinions if they thought Mad Max was a decent film is this conundrum: How the fuck did Harley and Pamela get tickets to see a screening of the new Road Warrior movie!? Do movies come out sooner in the DC Universe? Because this is the first time that I've ever wanted to truly be a comic book character! Let me see the movie now!

Harley and Pamela walk out of the movies because Harley needs to take a breath after not beating somebody's ass because they told her to shut the fuck up. Good for Harley! Fucking loud ass movie assholes. I mean she was being one of those so it would have been wrong for her to pretend that the people asking her to be quiet were being the dicks. They decide to duck into the DC version of Fifty Shades of Grey.

I'm pretty sure it's coming from the lap of the blond lady on the end of the aisle.

I don't get why anybody chose to go see Fifty Shades of Grey. Wasn't the allure of the novel that it had graphic sex scenes? So shouldn't the movie have been pornographic? Not the typical porn that the porn industry produces, of course. That's all built on the male gaze. This movie should have been a porn for females. Not a titillating Rated-R movie about two people who fuck and stuff. Not erotica. Just plain old porn! Was the movie porn? I have no idea!

Actually, since I know pretty much nothing about the book or the movie, I'll just shut up about it and move on.

Everybody clears the theater when one of the women's vibrators explodes, so Harley and Pam head off to get something to eat.

I hope it's a gang like the Warriors! Then they can all wear clown paint and drive around in a tiny clown car and have weapons like a bucket full of confetti and razorblades or cream pies full of nitroglycerin or seltzer bottles that shoot bullets!

Harley explains how she's going to buy another building nearby her current building. It will be the headquarters for her gang of Harley riding sexpots! And the name of the building (which was an old hotel) is The Dreamin' Seaman because Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti have the sense of humor of four eighth grade boys.

Pamela goes back to Gotham because she has to file a long overdue rape report on Clayface but she promises to come back in a week to see how badly Harley has fucked everything up and to hear Harley make a joke about washing her beaver.

And then it's time for Harley to interview her prospective assistants! I bet she hires all the women that were spotlighted last issue! And maybe a few more!

A bunch of candidates answer questions in totally hilarious ways for a few pages. One is like "I'm blind and in a wheelchair and I can smell your beaver!" And another one is all "I hate ghosts!" And another one is five girls. And another one is all "I'm a gay man and not a woman!" And another one is "I'm the super cute girl with the chopsticks in the hair from last issue so you know you're going to hire me!" And one is all "I'm the super cute Indian girl from last issue so I'll be hired too!" And one of them is all "I'm the big strappin' black lady who loves to flip people off and look super cute so I'll be hired too!" And one of them is all "I hate clowns and kill babies!" And one of them is all "I'm stuck up!" And one of them is all "ROCK AND ROLL, BITCHES!" And one of them is all "Kids are sucking my tits during the interview. Ha!" And one of them is all "I'm Syborg's niece! Tee hee!" And one of them is all "I'm pregnant Gail Simone!" And one of them is all "I can lick my own asshole!" And one of them is all "I do podcasts where I podcast and I have like so many downloads and likes and reblogs and shizzlenit!" And the last one is all "I have sores all over my body and am obsessed with death!" Woo-ee! It's gonna be tough to pick just twelve of these ladies!

And that's why Harley is going to turn off the lights and make them fight to the death for the job! Or near-death, more probably.

There's the beaver joke! Pam is going to be sorry she missed it.

When the lights go out, the Letterer John J. Hill makes an appearance to whine about how hard his job is. I might be sympathetic to his plight but on the page where the lights go out and he letters all of the Batman Fight Sound Effects for the unseen battle, he adds "FONDLE!" That's just going too far. I'll accept chaos and violence and endless murder and mayhem! But to suggest that one of these women took advantage of one of the other women when the lights were out?! That's just too much. Offense taken, sir. OFFENSE. TAKEN.

I wonder who fondled who's what? Tee hee! Maybe the blind girl accidentally groped a gay guy's nutsack.

When Harley turns the lights back on, every woman still standing gets a job! Even the gay guy!

The blind woman wasn't "still standing" at the end of the fight because she's sitting in her wheelchair but Harley hires her anyway or else she's going to face a lawsuit. And I bet Matt Murdock represents this woman. Not because she's blind and he's blind! Because he's the best Goddamned lawyer in New York! After She-hulk! Also I don't think he practices law in New York anymore. So she's probably represented by She-hulk.

Are any of DC's characters lawyers? I can't think of any! That makes me a bad comic book fan!

And here they are! Your 2015 New York Harleys!

Harley Quinn #16 Rating: +1 Ranking. The art is always terrific and the whimsy is always whimsical. If I were smarter, I would wax philosophical about Harley's life in this closing paragraph but I'm no good at philosophy and I used all of my sex wax on my board earlier this morning. I guess I could leave you with a Jerry Seinfeldian observation? What's the deal with French fries? They're neither French nor fried. Hmm, I think that joke needs a little more work. I hope I didn't offend anybody by it! But I've got to workshop my humor somewhere! Please be kind in your criticisms.

Harley Quinn #15

Have the first fourteen issues and twenty-nine specials just been a long hallucination brought on by swallowing The Joker's jizz?

Just to put the following statement in context, I'm not sexually aroused by cocks. I mean, I get aroused by blow job porn which is essentially just massively hard pricks. But, I mean, that's just because I'm into blow jobs, right? Or am I actually into those throbbing rods full of pulsing veins? I think I'm just really into the women's mouth parts all over the man's man parts (which I'm totally not into at all! Gross!). Although I don't get aroused when I see pictures of women eating popsicles even though those images have all of the same women's mouth parts doing practically the same thing! Do other men find women eating phallic objects sexually pleasing? Maybe it is the cock I'm into! But I always scroll quickly past gay blow job gifs because I'm not interested in them. Or am I uncomfortable with the way my penis twitches as I look at them?! Why did one sentence to provide context suddenly turn into a paragraph of lies! Look, I don't like cock, okay!?

But...I'm just saying...if jizz were hallucinatory, I'd be sucking guys off left and right!

This issue begins with some women in Harlem having a bit of a chat.

I was thoroughly confused by that last image for about a minute. I thought that maybe she was expressing some kind of weird super power.

Harley is currently shopping for birds. No matter how much somebody loves birds, it always struck me as a weird animal to keep as a pet. I'd be okay with a penguin if it had a nice pool to swim in. Maybe. And homing pigeons seem okay, especially if they're kept on a rooftop and they get to fly around a lot. But keeping a flying creature confined to a life of maybe getting to fly up onto the curtain rod and back to its cage just seems awful. I could be wrong though. Maybe birds spend their entire lives just hating to fucking fly anywhere. Kind of how I hate to get in a car and drive somewhere during the day. Maybe birds in captivity just think, "Whew! I'm so fucking lucky that all I have to do is sit here on this perch and learn to sound like the oven timer or the microwave oven. Flying is so overrated!"

I didn't know Mad had a centerfold-in! I bet it's like a picture of three kittens playing with a ball of yarn, then you fold it and...PORN!

On her way home, Harley passes by a building that's on fire. People are trapped on the top floor and she rushes in to rescue them. Because she's a hero? No! Because she's insane! I don't think she's crazy because she's risking her life to save some people. I think she's crazy because the front of the building plainly stated this was a law firm so she's risking her life to save lawyers. There are three kinds of people I'd never risk my life to save: lawyers, police officers, and everybody else.

The person behind the flames is a guy named Tinderbox. He's a second rate Firefly! Or Firebug. Or whatever that other second rate flamethrower villain's name is. Being the second rate version of a second rate character means you're a fourth rate character due to exponents or denominators or something.

Harley calls Tinderbox "Finger-lox" and I suddenly remember that we've seen a Tinderbox before! She was princess of the underground in Ann Nocenti's Catwoman. The reason I suddenly remembered that is that throughout that whole story, I constantly referred to her as something other than "Tinderbox" as well! Harley and I are practically the same person.

After kicking Timberlocks out of a window, Harley Quinn rushes off to save the rest of the people trapped upstairs.

I've never encountered a fire extinguisher that sprays foam. The only ones that I've set off...I mean, been around when they've been set off have basically sprayed chalk dust. It would have been more fun if they sprayed foam. I mean, the fire would have been put out in a more fun way!

While Harley saves all these lawyers who later pretend they're grateful but don't seem to want to spread any cash around to prove it, all of Harley's pet supplies are stolen. That'll teach her that fighting crime doesn't pay.

Meanwhile another character is being introduced. Her name is Shona and her mother and grandmother run an Indian restaurant so she probably smells delicious. Some asshats decide that they don't have to pay for their lunch because they're entitled pricks who believe they deserve to be waited on hand and foot no matter how busy the restaurant might be. Shona and her bat decide to debate them. Her bat presents most of the best arguments.

Her mouth brings up a few good points too.

Shona is kicked out of the restaurant because her mother doesn't approve of using violence to solve problems. But Shona's grandmother does, so she funds Shona's new life as a vigilante! I think she's going to be DC's answer to the Punisher. I mean DC's new answer to the Punisher. I don't remember who their old answer to him was.

Back to Harley, she returns home with another load of pet goodies to find Poison Ivy waiting for her in the tub. Now this is my kind of comic! I mean, it's my kind of porn! I mean...is there supposed to be a difference? Didn't Erik Larson say something about them being basically the same thing on Twitter recently?

The magic of being a guy! This scene is just a sweet moment between two best friends but when I turn my male gaze towards it...ha ha ha! It's now dirty and disgusting!

Seriously though! If this were Batman and Superman, I wouldn't think they were about to fuck. No, wait a second. I would think that. Carry on!

Meanwhile in yet another part of town full of minorities, we meet Carlita! Are we building to a new Roller Derby Team? Here's something that kids today won't get because they think if it happened before they were born, it happened in a time when everybody was a racist dickhole: Is Harley going to start a new 70s gang? All she needs now is an Asian member! Seriously though, remember the 70s when everything was multicultural and diversity was everywhere? Things really seemed like they were chugging along nicely. And then Reagan took office and the moral majority swooped in and suddenly we were all back to living in the whitest, most Christian, homophobic nation on Earth! I don't know who exactly is to blame but back in the 70s, real life seemed to be trending toward the world Tumblr thinks of when they say, "Are you kidding? It's 2015!" Sure, a lot of shit was still wrong but the effort was being made and it seemed like America had come as close as ever to that whole Melting Pot dream of the bicentennial. I think what happened in the eighties was the pendulum just swung back the other way as the Traditionalists (I could also have used "racists" here) pushed back.

Of course, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I may have had a slightly skewed view of America. I grew up watching the gay pride parade on KOFY TV-20 and staying up late for their dance parties. I'm fairly certain the 70s and early 80s were completely different in other parts of America. Every now and then I'll say something about how life was like back then and the Non-Certified Spouse, who grew up in Nebraska, reminds me that I grew up in Oz when compared to much of the rest of the country.

Antonia, Shona, and Carlita are all looking for jobs. I think that's the connection! They're all going to wind up working for Harley Quinn. Maybe as thugs in her new Joker Gang? Or maybe just taking care of her animals and firing the shit catapult.

This is the part where Harley gets into it with her beaver.

This is the part where Harley gets into it with Pamela's beaver.

Dammit! They neutralized my male gaze by making it dirty all on its own! Foiled again!

Mason drops by to let Harley know that he's sorry for having been so upset and he understands that her life is hectic and maybe they can try going on a dinner sex again sometime. He leaves to give Harley and Pamela some time to look for an assistant for Harley so she has more time to save lives and be a real hero. Oh, hey! Remember those three women looking for jobs?! I bet they're perfect for this gig! What luck!

There she is! The textbook cover 70s gang is complete!

Harley Quinn #15 Rating: +2 Ranking. I can't wait for Harley's version of The Joker's Gang! I mean, it's her own gang. I don't know why I bring him up since he's not involved in her life anymore and she's not making decisions based around his stupid male penis. Harley's Gang is going to kick ass. Right now, Shona is my favorite but that's because I love Indian food and also women that hit people with bats. But I think I'll probably like the Asian woman because she has a plushy alien cat creature and swords on her walls and she's reading the help wanted ad as if it were the greatest piece of fanfiction she's ever encountered. Seriously, she might be masturbating to the ad since her right hand is nowhere to be seen.

I did type "dinner date" back there, didn't I?!