Last month, I called the 2024 annual the Harley Quinn Book of the Year. Though that excellent outing was the product of a guest creative team, this reviewer has strong hopes that editorial can build on that momentum. We open with Harley meeting up once again with Mr. Freeze to discuss his ongoing offers for her to begin working with his crew.
Apparently working on spec, Harley begins by training two new Freeze recruits, two wannabe Willans with what are simply top tier DC silly villain names: Harmada (her overall theming is around Spanish battleships from the Middle Ages? Excellent) and Vampire Squid (he’s a vampire-squid-type man in an old-timely deep sea diving suit? Fantastic.) The quick bit of training is some of the expected pointers, i.e. cut it out with the pompous posturing and gimmicks unless you want to give your combat opponent a clear opening to strike, but it’s enough to catch the attention of Mr. Freeze, who assigns the newbies a mission to be carried out later in the week under Harley’s auspices.
Thinking quickly, Harley convinces her new buddy Maxie Zeus (continuing a delightful odd-couple friendship) to secretly arrive on the scene of the upcoming mission in order to raise the stakes for the new Freeze recruits and hopefully fast-track their progress by scaring them sinful. This goes not well for everyone not named Maxie, however. Only assigned to jump out and scare the new hires as they attempt to steal a prized hockey trophy, (an ice-themed crime— this book surely is settling into a tone) he predictably goes a bit overboard with his henchperson initiation and seemingly summons the wrath of the GCPD. Turns out, though, Mr. Freeze tipped the police off to this heist, and that Harley and the hapless hired help have walked right into a trap; why would Freeze want them to be caught? What is he planning?
Mr. Freeze is a solid addition to the world that Tini Howard is setting up here for Harley. Howard’s fun-loving script is able to take the brooding A-list villain back to his charmingly corny territory, complete with ice puns and parka-clad uniformed henchmen. Harley herself, of course, continues to have herself a blast bouncing back and forth between straight-laced professor and her old criminal self. Even when it gets her in trouble here, the reader is along for an enjoyable ride.
Natacha Bustos here offers little that we haven’t seen from the book so far artistically, save for a flashback sequence covering a bit more of Maxie Zeus’ past (didn’t we get one of those last month?) It’s a thematically appropriate and consistently serviceable illustration effort, and features a good deal of expressively zany character moments for HQ. 40 issues in, this title is not anything groundbreaking or newsworthy, but it feels like it’s hitting its stride.
Score: 7.5/10
Backup: Scales of Justice
Back to school for Harley Quinn! Gotham’s Loveable Duchess of Crime finds herself inexplicably enrolled for a day the Quintessence Academy of Vice and Virtue, a boarding school for the “superpowerdly inclined”. This Xavier-Academy-Hogwarts-Hybrid is a lot for Harls to take in all at once… can she find someone as cool as her, or is she destined to wander the halls solo, an independent spirit among the nerd herd? And how the heck did she end up there in the first place?
Grace Ellis’ conceit for this backup is cute, and the art is playful, with Hannah Kemplet having Harley revert to an even more cartoonish version of herself when she’s especially excited. It’s all a bit thinly executed, however. But fret not: if you’re not thrilled with the idea of Harley spending a great deal of time at a boarding school, I wouldn’t worry about getting attached to any sort of backup status quo.
Score: 5.5/10
Recommend if…
You get a kick out of delightfully dumb D-list DC villains
You wish modern incarnations of Mr. Freeze had just a touch of Schwarzenegger
You want to see Harley continuing to flex her teaching muscles
Overall: This is a build-up issue done right. We get enough fun stuff in the forms of visual gags and character moments to justify a whole issue’s worth of storytelling, while adeptly setting up a larger looming conflict. A lackluster backup needn’t scare fans away: this issue is another lukewarm win.
Overall score: 6.5/10
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