Harley Cosplays, battles Cass Cain!

[espanolbot]

Next issue...





They do end up going for a motorcycle chase thingy across town, I think, but I haven't got the issue on hand I'm afraid.

Harley acting all touchyfeely on Tim is... kind of weird. Admittedly she's probably basing what she thinks the standard Batgirl/Robin relationship is from outdated notes (she doesn't know what happened to the original Batgirl, so she decides to just replace her) but is a little weird. Like the time Clayface pretended to be Babs!girl when Supergirl came to Gotham at the start of her series, presuming that Kara (who was being mentored by Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman) wouldn't know where the original went to.

Or it was Jeph Loeb going out of his way to not have Cass in his series, whichever.

Comments

[superfangirl1]

Lol,I enjoy this more then I thought I would. :)

[mishalak]

"Around boys in skintight--"

Hee! Harley should be a member of Scans Daily because she clearly thinks like us.

[freezer]

I don't care if she's playing master-level head games with them - when the hell did Harley gain the fighting skills to keep up with any of those three, let alone all of them?

[cainofdreaming]

Well, while she really doesn't have the skills of even the least trained BatFam member she does have the advantage of being superhuman.

But yes, this is still very much an outlier as far as her showings go.

Wait What squared

[freezer]

Since when is Harley a meta? Before the DCnU, that is? (I assume this is pre Flashpoint).

Re: Wait What squared

[icon_uk]

Her intro in the DCU, Paul Dini's "Harley Quinn" special had Ivy dose Harley with a chemical after she was nearly killed by the Joker (for the first time). The dose meant that she gained immunity to poisons, and enhanced strength and agility. Not a lot, but enough to make her more of a threat that she would have otherwise been.

I agree though, against Dick, Tim and Cass, she shouldn't be THAT much of a threat.

Re: Wait What squared

[jcbaggee]

Maybe, but you have to add in the head games factor. Seeing someone parading about in Babs' Batgirl costume clearly screwed with them.

Re: Wait What squared

[espanolbot]

Pretty much since she was introduced, Poison Ivy gave her some shots that gave her a healing factor and increased her already very good acrobatics to superhuman levels.

It happened in BTAS when they first met up (the shots were initially so Harley wouldn't get poisoned by the chemicals at Ivy's hideout) as well as in her debut mini in No Man's Land (the Joker tried to kill her via launching her into space in a make-shift rocket, it just landed half a mile away and Ivy healed her up out of curiousity).

Re: Wait What squared

[icon_uk]

BTAS never suggested that the shots would increase her abilities, just give her an immunity to the toxins.

[auggie18]

Thanks to a little chemical work by Ivy, Harley's got enhanced strength, agility, and durability. Not sure where she got her fighting technique, but her enhancements might help her fill the gap.

[freezer]

I was not aware of that. That would tend to push this out of "No Fucking Way" territory.

Re: Wait What squared

[cainofdreaming]

Also enhanced immune system. At least when it comes to Ivy's own toxins. The partner enhancement option, if you may.

[rdfox]

One could argue that she based her fighting style on her past as a gymnast, since this run (i.e., the good part) of her solo book also established that she went to college on a gymnastics scholarship.

[auggie18]

I always wonder what villains think happened to Babsgirl. Do they assume she died or retired or what? I'd think that they'd think she died, given Supergirl's reaction when Clayface imitated her and the Batfamily's reaction here.

[espanolbot]

I think that they think that she died or retired, though in Birds of Prey the general public seem to think that she just retired, as they seem enthused when the "real" Batgirl (ie Misfit being an imposter Batgirl) shows up again, on the basis that they both have red hair.

[icon_uk]

The thing people rarely remember is that she'd already retired as Batgirl before TKJ. She hadn't been an active hero for a while when that happened.

[auggie18]

I wonder if villains noticed an attitude change from the Bat-Clan between her retirement period and her Oracle period. If they brought her up. I guess that unless it's a public death/retirement, most villains just don't know where a hero goes when s/he stops heroing.

[jaybee3]

Except for one brief panel (with no lines) in Hush, Loeb pretended Cass didn't exist in there either (though virtually every other member of Bruce's inner circle and even people who hadn't been seen in awhile got name checked in that story arc) even though she was not only Batgirl but had her own solo title where Bruce was a semi-regular- so I don't think its an accident. I think there were several writers on other books during Cass's turn as Batgirl (which lasted almost a decade, no?) who pretended she didn't exist. It's part of the mentality that runs DC still with the idea that Barbara had to be returned as Batgirl (and de-aged to younger than Dick) because no one acknowledges any other Batgirl (in their minds).

[icon_uk]

Given my opinion of Hush, that just highlights that whoever was writing Batgirl at the time was smart.

[espanolbot]

I don't think that Cass (or Steph) were in Hush, although Cass did show up briefly in Superman/Batman (where Lex drugged her and hit her in the face with a pole).

When the gimmick of Hush was that it included the majority of the Batman cast of both villains and heroes, that was... kind of a glaring pair of omissions.

[jaybee3]

Cir-El also appeared in that Superman/Batman story so I don't think it meant anything from Loeb's point of view to have Cass in it. It's very telling how easily he disposed of her.

Like I said, I think there were (and ARE) writers/editors at DC who would like to forget Cass (and Steph) ever existed and when they are included to basically look like incompetents. This usually applies to Steph (who I don't think many people at DC have ANY respect for for some reason) but to Cass as well. Remember Adam Beechan had Tim fight Cass to a draw? Well his editor on that run was Peter Tomasi (who he credited with helping create Evil Cass) who would later on write Batman and Robin where we had that infamous scene of Bruce and his boys (minus Jason) talking about how nice it was that the "family" was all together. As if Cass didn't exist (even though Morrison had already name-checked her in Batman Inc.). For every Scott Snyder, Gail Simone and even Grant Morrison who say they want to use Cass and Steph I'm sure there are plenty more who are exactly the opposite. It's sad.

[skemono]

So how did she know Cassandra's name?

[katya]

Tim calls her Cassandra in the first panel, before he sees her face and realizes it's an impostor Batgirl.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, that's a very poor showing from Tim. You don't use real names if you're NOT sure.

[bariman]

It seems to be a repeated flaw of Tim's. When he first met Connor Hawke, and wasn't even sure the guy was a hero yet, he freely used Spoiler's real first name in front of Connor. And yet, he wouldn't even give Stephanie or his Young Justice friends a fake name (Alvin Draper), let alone his real one, for a long time.

[icon_uk]

When Starfire first saw Dick in his Nightwing outfit in The Judas Contract, she asked "Dick is that you?" despite the fact that both she and he were shackled by the HIVE in a large chamber filled with HIVE guys at the time.

Even Terra, who was standing nearby, commented on how her use of his real name in front of a roomful of baddies was a really bad idea.

[azure_flame_god003]

Flyin' Fish of Finkleson's Fjord? Doctor Strange called Harley he wants his alliteration back. :)

[beoweasel]

That is one seriously cheese-cakey shot in the last panel.

[rdfox]

The good part (about the first two years) of Harley's solo title was written by Karl Kesel and drawn by the Dodsons. The second half of that sentence explains why she's pretty cheesecakey, though with Harley, it *could* be her trying to use her ass to put the boys off-guard.

[espanolbot]

I liked the latter part of Harley's series, it wasn't as endearingly silly as the first half, but it was interesting to see them flesh her out as an actual person a bit more, as opposed to Plucky Comedy Relief.

Like the story where she retired from supervillainy, forged some new degrees and got a job as a legit psychotherapist, even getting sent some police officers as patients, who she treated as if they were anyone else without attempting mindgames on them.

The issue where she went on a date with one of her former patients (who she befriended during his sessions and agreed to have dinner with after his time as her patient was over), only for the Joker to keep interupting due to him being baffled by the idea that Harley would be interested in anyone other than him, was really good. Him trying to justify it to himself as Harley trying to manipulate the guy into helping with a robbery, only to get increasingly more confused when they just go to a fair and stuff, was pretty funny.

[icon_uk]

Given the general assumptions made about the Bat boys, one wonders why she bothered! ;)

[akodo_rokku]

Being intentionally cheesecakey has always been one of Harley's tools, really. Even in BTAS.

[leoboiko]

“Lucky you found one who likes it” → now I had to picture Joker & Harley into cane S&M.

[icon_uk]

Given the incredibly abusive nature of their relationship, cane S&M would probably be amateur night for them

[his_spiffynesss]

You know, if Harley had actually reformed and taken up the Batgirl mantle full time, that would have been a really fun book.

[mullon]

You'd think the voice would have been a dead giveaway.

[icon_uk]

Joker might have coached her in how to impersonate the voice as part of a scam, not being aware that he himself had put an end to her Batgirl career.

[espanolbot]

Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure there is a comic somewhere where Joker and Harley impersonate Batman and Batgirl...

[goattoucher]

That last panel always gets me.

I want a Mutual of Omaha narrator telling me how the female of the species presents.

[autohobbs]

Last panel...