It’s a Cat and Quinn team-up this month, as Harley heads to Catwoman’s turf in Alleytown to try and track from where Hugo Strange is getting his mind-altering drugs. Catwoman’s none too eager to have Harley around, but as Harley finds out, sometimes you just have to work a little to earn a cat’s trust. Harley Quinn #6 is written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Laura Braga, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by AndWorld Design.
I’ll say it right off at the top here: I miss Riley Rossmo and Ivan Placencia. Their moodily colored, weird, warped and wacky art has been a large part of what makes this comic sing, and often compensated for moments where Stephanie Phillips’ writing dipped. They paint an unstable, intense world, fluid but impactful, as playful as it is sinister. Laura Braga, on the other hand, draws what is very much an extremely adorable, pin-up Harley Quinn that does nothing for the story, and underlines how awkward Harley’s monologuing can get under Phillips’ pen, though Prianto’s colors do strike a good mood.
In what is ostensibly a lead-up to “Fear State,” at least according to the big crossover checklist at the back of this issue, Harley Quinn is taking a proactive approach to knocking Hugo Strange off of his perch. Hugo’s been using some strange drugs in his experimentations with criminal clown patients, and Harley’s trying to figure out where it’s coming from. Honestly, it’s more of a flimsy excuse to get us a Catwoman guest star appearance, but I like Catwoman, so excuse accepted!
As much as I like the character, though, I’ve yet to catch up on the current Catwoman run, which I am told is excellent. There appears to be little from the run I actually needed to know in order to get this issue, thankfully, as long as I know that Catwoman is someone who – like Harley herself – has long flirted with that line between sympathetic anti-hero and outright villain. Considering Harley’s own attempted heroic path, I feel like this issue misses an opportunity to dig into that discussion – there’s a short scene at the end of the issue that covers the topic, but it’s brief, extremely vague, and doesn’t have quite as much impact as it ought to – though that could, of course, simply be because I’m not reading Catwoman.
The team-up itself is standard fare. A cheery, clumsy Harley, a sleek and stylish Catwoman who is just this side of stoic, a lot of henchmen to attack and, heh, Harley gets herself a Save the Cat moment in case anyone was on the fence about the former clown’s alignment. The action, sadly, is not done a lot of favors by Braga’s art, which seems more concerned with adorability than selling movement off of still panels. Two particularly egregious panels see Harley in a friendly leap towards Catwoman, only to find herself suddenly a few steps behind, wrapped in a whip, one foot popped in the air in an “Oh golly me” pose that’s silly for all the wrong reasons.
Harley’s characterization has always felt a little shaky in this series – and in this issue, without the art to back things up, that really shows. Moments meant to bring out her intrinsic humor instead make her come across as rather ditzy. There’s still fun enough to be had – Harley and Catwoman play off each other well – but this is definitely not as good a comic as it usually is.
In addition to the team-up, we also get a little time with Keepsake – a new villain with the seemingly ineffectual gimmick Taking Other People’s Stuff crashes a meeting between Strange and Scarecrow. This is the bit, I believe, that’s meant to lead up to “Fear State“ – letting readers who might not be following Batman know that Scarecrow is a legitimate threat now. I will admit – Braga’s art might not be the best, but her version of Scarecrow’s Jim Jimenez redesign looks great on page. What doesn’t quite sit right with me is Scarecrow using his physical strength to intimidate Keepsake – it feels like the laziest way possible to establish his dominance – but all in all, it feels like this scene did a pretty decent job of doing what it set out to do.
The “Fear State“ crossover (are you ready, excellent editor and half of Bat Chat Matt?) appears to be hijacking Harley Quinn for an issue or two – the next issue also features Laura Braga and is billed as a “Fear State” tie in – so right now I’m just going to be tapping my foot, waiting for this Gotham-centric event to be over. In the meantime, however, perhaps it is finally time for me to get caught up on Catwoman…
