Harley Quinn gets to be a villain and a hero: Fair or Foul

[Nite-Wing]

The new Birds of Prey movie has got me thinking

I know the concept of an anti hero and anti villain is not a new thing but lately it seems like DC wants to have its cake and eat it to.

Harley Quinn is a member of the Suicide Squad that is usually her status quo. She commits crimes and has to serve her sentence there
This allows her some immense flexibility as well. The missions she's allowed to go out on create an excuse for why she is out running free wherever she may be in the DCU
So now you might see her featured in Gotham with Ivy or Selina or working with the JL(really not a fan of this)
Someone even pointed out to me in a recent annual for teen titans she killed a teen girl on a mission for the squad right under the nose of kid flash

Harley Quinn also has her own solo adventures which are of course also in continuity but not along the same track as the above timeline. They are in the "future" where she is no longer a member of the skwad and has been released to do whatever she wants out in the world.

Then you have the black label series which are doing their own thing and are basically elseworlds stories but you are seeing storylines where she's more heroic like in Batman: The White Knight and Curse of the White Knight, Also Joker/ Harley criminal sanity.
Then you have the books with a more villainous slant like Harleen and Batman: The damned

That's a lot of different takes heroic and villainous

The only other characters I see straddling the line like that in DC is Jason Todd and Lobo but of course they don't appear as much as Harley

[dietrich]

The new Birds of Prey movie has got me thinking

I know the concept of an anti hero and anti villain is not a new thing but lately it seems like DC wants to have its cake and eat it to.

Harley Quinn is a member of the Suicide Squad that is usually her status quo. She commits crimes and has to serve her sentence there
This allows her some immense flexibility as well. The missions she's allowed to go out on create an excuse for why she is out running free wherever she may be in the DCU
So now you might see her featured in Gotham with Ivy or Selina or working with the JL(really not a fan of this)
Someone even pointed out to me in a recent annual for teen titans she killed a teen girl on a mission for the squad right under the nose of kid flash

Harley Quinn also has her own solo adventures which are of course also in continuity but not along the same track as the above timeline. They are in the "future" where she is no longer a member of the skwad and has been released to do whatever she wants out in the world.

Then you have the black label series which are doing their own thing and are basically elseworlds stories but you are seeing storylines where she's more heroic like in Batman: The White Knight and Curse of the White Knight, Also Joker/ Harley criminal sanity.
Then you have the books with a more villainous slant like Harleen and Batman: The damned

That's a lot of different takes heroic and villainous

The only other characters I see straddling the line like that in DC is Jason Todd and Lobo but of course they don't appear as much as Harley

Narrative wise consistency is better. business wise if there's a demand for both then it's only fair. As a fan I don't have too much of a problem with Harley straddling the line.

If other characters can get away with it then why not Harley?

[Jim Kelly]

When I watch BATWOMAN, the brilliant portrayal of Alice by Rachel Skarsten is what I think Harley would have been if she had been allowed to continue as a villain. I really can't reconcile the Margot Robbie Harley Quinn with the one that was in BTAS. I pretty much have to separate the different Harleys, as completely different characters with different origins.

[Odd Rödney]

I personally enjoyed the Injustice 2 video game version of Harley. With the Joker dead she had started the journey of redeeming herself under Batman's tutelage. Even wore the bat symbol on the back of her jacket.

[Frontier]

That inconsistency with Harley, on-top of how the heroes treat her now, is part of why I'm just kind of over her character right now.

At least in other media they still regard her fairly consistently as a violent, crazy, Supervillain criminal.

[Digifiend]

She should be one or the other. Be consistent. If she's a crook and serving with the Suicide Squad, she shouldn't be hanging out in the Hall of Justice or running scott free in her solo book.

[Nite-Wing]

Narrative wise consistency is better. business wise if there's a demand for both then it's only fair. As a fan I don't have too much of a problem with Harley straddling the line.

If other characters can get away with it then why not Harley?

I remember someone at comic con telling jim lee or didio a lot of kids liked Harley and that DC was doing her a disservice as presenting her so overtly villainous. Someone even complained to Lauren Faust about why Harley Quinn was a villain on DC super hero girls
So I know where the root of all this is born from imo

My only issue is that if DC would just commit to presenting Harley as a straight anti hero who wasn't suddenly besties with every female hero and considered harmless then you could do everything similar to how Marvel is using the Punisher or Deadpool.

[Vakanai]

Eh, it's not that different from Catwoman, just that Harley's moral code is even more broad and grey.

[lucius121]

It’s funny how people on this board complain about Harley, she committed crimes and got sent to prison where she was forced to be a part of the suicide squad. What crimes is she now committing that you are referring to? It’s not like members of the suicide squad have a choice. I see complaints about DC consistency but how is Harley worse than Catwoman or Ivy. It’s just the fact that she’s popular.

[Jackalope89]

It’s funny how people on this board complain about Harley, she committed crimes and got sent to prison where she was forced to be a part of the suicide squad. What crimes is she now committing that you are referring to? It’s not like members of the suicide squad have a choice. I see complaints about DC consistency but how is Harley worse than Catwoman or Ivy. It’s just the fact that she’s popular.

Ivy? No. But she's an ecoterrorist half the time anyway. Selina? She's a thief. She doesn't go around bashing other people's brains in and hooking up with a demented clown that goes on his own terror sprees. Hell, even the comparison to Jason Todd is way off. Jason may kill, but only in extreme cases. Harley practically revels in it.

[Rac7d*]

Eh, it's not that different from Catwoman, just that Harley's moral code is even more broad and grey.

Harley is an accessory to so many murder spreees and since they insist on joker never really having control or making her into what she is then she is responsible for all her actions with him

[Zaresh]

Well, I don't care much for Harley, mostly, because I don't get the appeal nowadays. I liked Dini's Harley, the TAS characterization, though. And she has cool desings and a cool attitude. But ultimately, she's a pochie that I don't think I care for (weird, because I like Gwenpool, and she's the same kind of character when reduced to their very basic traits, I think)

Mostly, because she is being written doing honest to God unvelieabable feats and befriending some unbelieabable friendships now and then. Because she's popular and she sells.

I don't have a problem with her being now heroic, now villanious, to very different degrees. The hero of a stoy can be the villain of another, and people change as well, etcetera. It happens. The problem that I have with her, as I say, is that I can't find her belieavable most of the time.

But I'm not a fan, so eh, psssh? If her fans and readers are fine with it, all is good.

That being said, the movie looks like a lot of fun. I migh go watch it. The trailers are very promising. I can understand pushing her, because people are crazy for her, but eh, I would have liked putting in a Batgirl too, regardless (unless Cass is in as BG? But I don't think that's the case)

[Frontier]

I remember someone at comic con telling jim lee or didio a lot of kids liked Harley and that DC was doing her a disservice as presenting her so overtly villainous. Someone even complained to Lauren Faust about why Harley Quinn was a villain on DC super hero girls
So I know where the root of all this is born from imo

My only issue is that if DC would just commit to presenting Harley as a straight anti hero who wasn't suddenly besties with every female hero and considered harmless then you could do everything similar to how Marvel is using the Punisher or Deadpool.

It's hard to really disassociate a character that was, from inception, meant to be a villain.

Catwoman at least has being Batman's love interest that pulls her back from being a complete villain now but I don't think DC can keep making their female villains less villainous just because they end up popular. Because they ended up being popular as villains.

[Otto Gruenwald]

The problem with Harley being a hero is the same problem a lot of X-men villains who made the jump to hero have. You have to scrub a LOT of her history for her to not be in jail to the point that you might as well say she never was Harley Quinn to begin with.

Say she was manipulated. Say she never directly killed anyone. Okay, she still served as the Manson girl to Charles Manson plus by her own volition. She was still the henchwoman to a guy with a 4 digit body count. Even if all she did was help move his stuff and make faces at the hostages that's still enough for her to never be out of a jail cell for the rest of her life.

You have to seriously alter what being Harley Quinn meant for her to get a hero pass.

[Restingvoice]

I haven't read in a long time but I did saw a few panels so all I can say is this
If she's still in a Suicide Squad she shouldn't be on Coney Island
If DC wants to have both series, then have the Coney Island one an Elseworld, or vice versa depending on what DC wants
Likewise, unless she's kidnapped by Brainiac, become a backup during that one JL vs SS story, or freed to help the heroes during Dark Knights Metal, she shouldn't be anywhere near the Justice League as an ally.

That's about her presence and her job.

Now about her personality and morality. What is her actual stance on murder and what are the heroes' stance on murder?
Has she crossed a line? Has she atoned? Does her Suicide Squad work count in canon as atonement?
Do they have an understanding of her insanity as an excuse or is it portrayed as more complex?

In other words, do all characters' actions and motivations in stories make sense or are her presence just marketing ploy?
I'm not gonna say anything if her presence in an ad is just an ad while the story makes sense, but if she's only there as an ad in both the ad and in the story, meaning they don't even bother to make the story make sense, then I have a problem