Review — Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder #4 — Tales Out of Arkham
Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder #4 cover, via DC Comics.
Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder #4 — Zoe Thorogood, Writer/Artist; Kyle Starks, Sean Lewis, Writers; Chris Schweizer, Hayden Sherman, Artist
Ray — 9/10
Ray: Another trio of acclaimed indie creator teams puts their stamp on Harley this month, including one of the fastest-rising cartoonists in the world at the moment.
Welcome to the madhouse. Via DC Comics.
“Harley Quinn and the Seven Sidekicks” is written and drawn by the award-winning Zoe Thorogood, and it’s exactly as bizarre as you’d expect from the creator who gave us some of the most thought-provoking recent OGNs. This story finds Harley in the throes of a breakup, and she decides she needs some sidekicks. Enter seven pint-sized chaos agents who indulge her worst instincts, all pulling her in different directions, but it’s clear there’s something else under the surface here. Harley here doesn’t really seem like any version we’ve seen before, especially towards the end, but it does feel like this is speaking both to Harley’s story and to some of the anxiety Thorogood has explored in her other works.
Starks and Schweizer are the creative team on “A Voice Traveling,” and these two are known for some seriously out-there, funny comics. This is no exception, as Harley makes a scene of herself in a restaurant only to be met by an old friend from college. They catch up, and the friend — now a criminal psychologist — wants Harley’s help to track down an old bully of theirs who is now a criminal overlord who just escaped from prison. This leads to one of the funniest and most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in comics in a while, no surprise from Starks — whose recent Peacemaker series upped the ante and perfectly played on the character’s new prominence due to the James Gunn TV series.
Finally, Sean Lewis and Hayden Sherman, creators of multiple acclaimed Image series, take the helm on “Golden Years.” Harley is now an old woman living in a retirement home and obsessed with her “Stories” — until a broadcast interruption at a critical moment. The culprit? A visiting Alien that’s tearing up the cables to try to make a broadcast to space. Harley, naturally, will have to grab her hammer and deal with this — arthritis be damned. We’ve seen an odd number of Old Lady Harley stories lately, but this one doesn’t feel like a generic edgy future — it feels very funny and oddly in character for Harley, along with some great surreal visuals.
Overall, another three excellent stories by teams I hope to see more of at DC.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
