Review: Harley Quinn Volume 1 - Hot in the City

Having inherited a building on Coney Island from a fellow Arkham Asylum inmate, Harley Quinn and her pet beaver soon discover that life isn’t so easy out in the real world. With taxes and bills to pay, Harley attempts to stay on the straight and narrow by taking on two jobs to keep herself afloat. All appears to be going well for her until assassins start showing up at her doorstep after a pricy hit is placed on her red and blue head. With the help of her girlfriend Poison Ivy and her new tenants, Harley hopes to uncover the identity of her anonymous foe.

Harley Quinn Volume 1: Hot in the City collects Harley Quinn #0-8, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Chad Hardin and Stephane Roux.

Harley Quinn is one of the funniest, quirkiest, cutest and most creative books to come out in a long time. Its goofy tone and its overall absurdity makes it an incredibly fun read. After seeing a darker and more earnest take on the character in Suicide Squad, Conner and Palmiotti take the character back to her roots by injected some much-needed tongue-in-cheek humour into Harley’s life. They take a similar approach as they had done alongside writer Justin Gray when they launched the beloved Power Girl book way back in 2009. Both titular heroines took a stab at leading a normal life, nabbing a 9-to-5 job, only to find that no hero (or villain in this case) can ever escape their past. Where Power Girl explored a brighter side of the DC Universe with its comedy, Harley Quinn takes a decidedly zanier and more macabre approach to its humour. And it works – extremely well.

Part of what makes Harley Quinn such an enjoyable read is that its creative team understands the lead character and her audience. Absolutely nothing is ever taken seriously and the narrative is consistently pushed to as silly a place as it can be without seeming too ridiculous. From Harley’s “talking” pet stuffed beaver to the heavy-handed homoerotic innuendo between Harley and Ivy, the humour that Conner and Palmiotti exert is nothing short of brilliant. It’s clever and witty, but also immature when it needs to be. Just like Harley. This is further amplified by the beautifully animated art by Hardin and Roux. Hardin, who pencils the majority of the issues collected here, plays up the often outlandish situations Harley finds herself in (and the outrageous things she does) by utilizing over-the-top expressions and compositions. Of course, it certainly helps that the colours are so punchy and the characters themselves look so gorgeous.

Harley gets up to a lot of hijinks in these eight initial issues. In one story, she and Ivy team up to rescue shelter animals before they can be euthanized. In another, she kidnaps a suburban family with the purpose of lecturing them on never going to see their (grand)mother in the retirement facility she’s working in. Harley naturally goes to extremes to accomplish her goals, but what is so fascinating is that there’s nobility in a lot of what she does. She’s a highly reactionary individual, but is typically set off by an injustice of some kind. We see that there’s a heart beneath her wacky exterior. She cares for the people in her life and she has a sincere love for animals. This adds layering to a character who is alternately depicted as eye candy or comic relief.

Some of the best moments in this collection occur when Harley and Ivy are teamed up together. Conner and Palmiotti nail the dynamic between them, with the chemistry and dialogue being consistently on point. The affection both characters have for one another is touching and the mutual understanding of who they are gives them a bond that is incomparable in the realm of comic book villainy. The lesbian jokes are plenty, but are done playfully and only serve to emphasize the surprisingly healthy relationship that exists between these two strong females. My only issue is that Ivy isn’t in every issue!

For anyone who grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn is the book for you. It matches the tone of the character as she was originally conceived, but is adjusted to reflect the age the series’ original audience is today. It’s fresh, modern and thoroughly amusing. The art is consistently stunning and is incredibly expressive, which matches the extremely high quality of the writing by Conner and Palmiotti. This collection really illustrates why it’s no surprise as to why Harley Quinn has been such a hit for DC Comics thus far. 

Rating: A