The raucous party continues full throttle with Harley Quinn #2. Writers Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti are having a decidedly good time with Quinn and her more exuberant personality traits. Nothing’s really happened yet, outside of Quinn being marked for death, but this is a whole new dawn for the sexy sidekick, one that could take some exploring before settling down.
Quinn is now a landlord. She lives in the top floor of an apartment complex in New York, one with a bizarre collection of tenants. First up is Madame Macabre, a voluptuous fortune teller with a wax museum of serial killers in Quinn’s building. Last issue, we met the Danzig clone and his goat-faced buddy. Outside of meeting her tenants, Quinn is suffering through the same things all new tenants do. Granted, her needs are very different. For example, Quinn needs a huge refrigerator. Why? Well, not just for food but also to keep the bodies of the hired killers she keeps dropping.
Being new is lonely, even if you have a burnt, stuffed squirrel that you talk to, so Quinn calls Poison Ivy. The two have a girls’ night out that consists of freeing a massive amount of animals from a kill shelter. During the fracas, another hired killer takes a run at Harley. He’s quickly stopped and, when the ravenous dogs now living in Harley’s apartment start trying to eat the stuffed squirrel, turned into dog food. As the issue rolls to a close, the one behind the mark on Quinn is revealed through gross close ups of him eating Jell-O. No faces. No names. Just a grim mouth swallowing green Jell-O.
Conner and Palmiotti are kids in a candy store here. Harley Quinn is wicked, fun and a little mean spirited. There’s also an undercurrent of sexuality that the two writers are not afraid of. When Ivy and Quinn wake up next to each other, barley dressed, the idea of what might have happened hangs heavy in the air, but is never shown or discussed. Palmiotti and Conner know the perverted thoughts the scene will bring, so they ramp it up. It’s like a comic book version of “I Know What Boys Like.” The only downside I see to Harley Quinn is if the zaniness goes for too long and a real story never takes root. I don’t see two writers of this caliber letting that happen, but you never know.
I do find the art to be lacking. Chad Hardin and Stephane Roux are obviously talented, but what they do doesn’t work for the nut house that is Harley Quinn. It’s a little too soft, with pencils that never lock on what they want to be. The ideas here are good, but the execution falls a little short. This needs something along the lines of Humberto Ramos or Tim Sale, even Ed McGuiness. Somebody who can execute over-the-top. Colorist Alex Sinclair doesn’t do much to make the work pop either. It’s all a bit too muted.
I have high hopes for Harley Quinn, but it’ll need a real story and a better artist before it clicks.
(4 Story, 2.5 Art)
