Harley Quinn #4 discussion and spoilers

[sifighter]

I don't know why this series doesn't get a lot of talk, I feel like people generally like Harley and Stephanie Phillips I have found to be a pretty good writer so far though maybe you aren't entirely sold on Rossmo's art. Either way I'm going to talk about this issue because I like Harley and so far I like this series.

So for those who don't know, the current Mayor of Gotham has made the dumbest move he could probably make which is on purpose hire Hugo Strange to run rehabilitation....yeah I like Harley but I hate that plot point because I genuinely dislike when known insane villains get in positions of highpower. You think someone would call this man out for the whole helping Bane thing or the giant monsters before that and so on but hey then we do not have a story. Anyway, Strange is rounding up clowns from the Joker War and this includes Harley's new friend Kevin and now Harley is a bit down in the dumps (a little literally since this issue opens in a sewer) where she is having a bad time because of her current failures. But she gets some help from a very expected ally, Solomon Grundy and if you think that gave anything away remind you he is on the cover, so yeah I'd say he's a pretty expected ally. But basically she comes to the conclusion that if she's going to fix things she has to do things her way, because she is Harley Quinn and not some trained member of the Bat-family and maybe it's enough to just be herself as she tries to make amends.

And so she busts in to save her friend Kevin whose getting medically tortured by Strange...but it doesn't go well because it pretty much ends with her being cornered by Strange and his goons after she makes it inside. Honestly I like this series more for the Harley parts then I do the Strange parts, because in an era where we are reestablishing parts of the bat-family, establishing a whole new Batman, and new threats like the Magistrate with an interesting plot of the Scarecrow; Hugo feels like a step back for being a pretty obvious villain who doesn't feel like he fits the rest of the stories involving Mayor Nakano and his insistence to stop mask vigilantes and criminals. But it works for me in the adverse of Harley who yes in past series could be whatever she wanted away from Gotham but now that she is back in Gotham, a city she has helped terrorize, she really feels the needs to make amends and work on proving herself as better. I like seeing this because genuinely I've liked over the years Harley change and distance herself from Joker and I like to see characters/the world of dc comics evolve. I do wonder how the series will fair though as we start to get tied into bigger Bat-family stories such as the upcoming Fear State.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

I think a lot of people are turned off by Riley Rossmo's art. I don't really care for it normally, but it works on this book. It fits well in the Gotham City they have setup and Harley trying to find her place in post Joker War Gotham as a not-so-bad guy is good to read in my opinion.