Harley!Classic's First Day in Arkham

[espanolbot]

From Paul Dini's Detective Comics run, in which Harley is being taken back to Arkham after being broken out (against her will) by Scarface and Sugar to commit a robbery for them. Bruce had denied her parole application earlier in the day, so he's kind of confused that Harley took the first opportunity to immediately double cross Scarface, inform the cops what was going on, foil the robbery and willing come back to Arkham after the whole thing was over. Particularly since betraying a fellow member of the Gothamite Supervillain Club is kind of against her thing (she's friends with everyone)...









And thus Harley was free, and remained so for some years until she went evil again at the end of Gotham Sirens or something.

Dini Harley is the best Harley, certainly better than Juggalo Harley "My vagina is like a clown car!" Quinn from the new 52.

I ought to cover the Story of Scarface and Sugar at some point, as certainly was interesting in its construction (same as Dini's revamped Hush origin, which is heavily connected to Sugar's backstory as well). Pity that it appeared to end so abruptly during Gotham Underground (Tobias Whale had a Scarface-less Sugar lead away by his men somewhere, in a scene that had... implications of murder or other things).

Comments

[icon_uk]

You know, for some odd reason I don't think I'd ever viewed Ventriloquist/Scarface is being akin to Two-Face before. I wonder if they way she phrased it made Batman t ponder the same thing about Wesker. He gives Two-Face more chances than most after all.

Arnie and Harley bonding over each being in an abusive/co-dependent relationship is also rather sweet, if freaky.

And yes, Dini's take on Joker and Harley is perhaps my favourite. It's perhaps why I am so unimpressed by Morrison's use of the Joker, and why Snyder has his work cut out for him IMHO. Morrison's split-tounged Joker is clever I'm sure, but just nowhere near as INTERESTING as Dini's take on him, and Harley's relationship with him is one of the most interesting things about it.

[espanolbot]

Ah, Snyder's Joker seems good for the story he wants to tell with him. Whether Dini!Joker would work in Death of the Family is up for debate.

[sadoeuphemist]

What? Wasn't one of the, uh, subplots in Dini's run the fact that Joker and Harley were growing apart and weren't really in a relationship anymore? It's why they're okay with setting Harley free in the scans above, partly because she hasn't been seeing the Joker recently.

[icon_uk]

Yes, but that's part of what made it interesting, their relationship altered and, for want of a better term, grew.

[sadoeuphemist]

But I don't think any of that really affected the Joker, did it? It freed up Harley to go on her own adventures and pal around with Ivy and Selina. But the big Joker appearance in Dini's run was Slayride, and Harley wasn't even mentioned there because she didn't matter.

[icon_uk]

Hmm see what you mean if we look at comics alone (And she didn't appear in the Joker / Zatanna two-parter either) but I was including BTAS when I mention Dini's Joker and Harley as it's tended to colour how I read the comics.

[mrstatham]

To be honest, I was always more impressed with the concept of Morrison's Joker rather than the execution; Morrison basically gave him the Batman treatment, said 'hey, he basically changes all the time just like Batman', and then proceeded to make the Joker into something less interesting than the straight-up murderer he already was; I was completely underwhelmed by the 'thin white duke of death' look, and the use of the straight-razors was completely uninspiring. The only touch I did find clever was that after slicing his tongue in two, Hurt and Jet are the only ones who can understand him, seemingly.

So Snyder's already a step-up from Morrison because the face-thing and the idea of purposefully going after every last one of Batman's allies with a reason is at least a relatively new thing (whereas Barbara being Batgirl had nothing to do with why she was shot), especially him going after Alfred.

[mishalak]

"But it showed me there was still a person trapped in that sad, split personality. I'm sorry he never had the chance to get out."

But, but what about that episode of The New Batman Adventures, "Double Talk". I thought Arnold managed to finally escape Scarface. If he did not that is so sad.

[icon_uk]

NBSA Arnold did, comics Arnold didn't it would seem. (Though BTAS had the good fortune to have a much lower turnover rate of product, so could afford to let a villain have a happy ending)

[joeyconqueso]

I don't always like his other work but Dini on Batman seems to always equal gold.

I wonder if Wesker always had a Batman and Joker puppet nearby.

[silverhammerman]

You know, I never liked the idea of Sugar/Scarface. Villains being replaced by "cooler" successors virtually always annoys me.
I do like this scene with the original Scarface, and Harley Quinn is almost always enjoyable.

[mrstatham]

I think 'Sugar' worked because Dini was trying to make something out of a shitty storyline. Sure, it was perhaps a little too contrived that Peyton just so happened to be in the same place Wesker was when he died, and I was never entirely fond of the notion that she could somehow use the Scarface puppet better than Wesker; At the same time, I didn't think Dini set out to make her 'cooler', and I always thought there was something going on in terms of how she used the puppet compared to her predecessor; Whereas Wesker seemed to have a genuine psychological condition, she seemed to be possessed by the doll, frankly. So it was at least a different approach.

[starwolf_oakley]

I still wonder how Scarface/Wesker would have worked in the Nolanverse, or even as one of Bane's flunkies in DARK KNIGHT RISES.

"Now, Mr. Scarface shall read James Gordon's speech about Harvey Dent well Arnold Wesker drinks a glass of water."

*Wesker puts geeky-looking reading glasses on Scarface, "hands" him the speech and starts drinking water*

[espanolbot]

If I was making the Dark Knight Rises, I'd have included Harley showing up somewhere as part of the Joker's gang, as the novelisation said that after tDK they emptied out Arkham to keep him as its sole inmate, so logically he would be around in the City at the time of Bane's take over. Indeed Crane's cameo almost seems like it was originally written with Ledger's Joker in mind sorta...

Harley is possible to do in live-action movie form, but I think that we may have to wait for the NEXT Batman movie reboot to see it.

[eyz]

I miss this simpler much better Bat-universe.
The new one is trying so much tu be edgier/darker...