Twenty - five years ago today , Batman : The Animated Series air its 7th episode , about the Joker force an average human to help him assassinate Commissioner Gordon . The story was n’t memorable , but the episode always will be — because it featured the first visual aspect of a character that turn into an icon of DC Comics : Harley Quinn .
Although she was only signify to be in that one installment , the Joker ’s dotingly obsessed sidekick - turned - lovemaking interest quickly became a raw material on Batman : The Animated Series . She transitioned to the comedian five years afterward , becoming an establish part of the Bat - canon . There , she remain faithful to her cartoon personification , but with a grimmer tint , create her dangerously psychotic and a bit less quirky than her invigorate counterpart . That duskiness allowed Almighty to occasionally canvas the messed - up , opprobrious nature of her relationship with the Joker , but it mostly led to giving Harley a darker , deadly edge as one of Batman ’s foes .
As DC moved into the 2000s , the earliest steps for Harley propel out of the shadow of the Joker were afoot . In 2001 , Harley received her own on-going serial featuring a wrapping of creative gift like Karl Kesel , Terry Dodson , A.J. Lieberman , and Mike Huddleston — a series that , for the first clock time , was about her first and foremost , really examining Harleen Quinzel as a character apart from her relationship from the Joker . Although the origins of her fixation with him would be explored throughout the record book — this time with the acknowledgement of the trauma it make Harley , with the series terminate with her returning to Arkham as an inmate expect to mend herself self .
The series laid the fundament for the Harley we have in today ’s comic strip , strengthening her relationship to Poison Ivy while also presenting her as an independent fictitious character . Harleen was still morally dubious , but was at the least willing to change herself for the skillful . This was the Harley we ’d meet in serial like Gotham City Sirens , a figure invariably struggling with her villainy , as well as her toxic past tense with the Joker .
When DC rebooted its strip universe in 2011 , Harley was throw to the forefront as one of DC ’s most important comic creations , but take away a whole tone back as an actual lineament . The New 52 iteration of Harley was induce into the reborn Suicide Squad , and return again to her dark incarnation . She was driven to psychotic murderous rampages by the captivity and then - absence seizure of the Joker , becoming a character who was largely fix by her relationship with the Joker … instead of herself .
It would take another treason ( with the restoration of the Joker in the 2012 storyline “ Death of the Family ” ) and another ego - titled , ongoing serial ( begin in the fall of 2013 ) to set Harley back on the path we ascertain before her inductance into the Suicide Squad — a journey start up by , and still being continued today , by Amanda Conner , Jimmy Palmiotti , and Chad Hardin . The ongoing Harley Quinn has spent the past four years becoming one of DC ’s most successful comics , and crucially bear on in the venous blood vessel of her first solo serial , presenting a Harley who wanted more than anything to forget the Joker , Gotham City , and her darker impulses behind her , transmute her into a true antihero . Harley was still quirky and often comically crimson , but also someone who ’d rather expend that fierceness to help other people instead of simply to cause chaos .
The series also do to lastly , unfeignedly abbreviate Harley off from the Joker . Conner , Palmiotti , and Hardin ’s series set up her as as having move on from her relationship with Mr. J , and live on a fresh life with a piebald supporting cast of characters in Coney Island in Brooklyn . In a 2016 story arc , Harley got full closure , and altogether sever their human relationship ina brutally satisfying issuethat laid out once and for all that the Harley of the forward-looking era was her own fair sex , and was candidly sick of the Joker and the distorted clasp he used to have on her .
Unfortunately , for all the progression as a character has made in the comics , the Harley Quinns seen in other media are too often a throwback to her early days rather than who she ’s become . Margot Robbie ’s portrait in Suicide Squad was more about celebrating Harley ’s toxic relationship with the Joker and her unfitness to deplumate herself away from him than it was about her — something we ’re almost sure enough going to see more of with the recently announcedJoker and Harleymovie . And while her recent coming into court in the animated Batman and Harley Quinn movie attempted to acknowledge the character ’s account of being sexually objectify , it alsoundermined her by presenting her as little more than oculus confect .
That ’s not always been the case in other media adaptations , thankfully . For obvious reason , the kid - favorable cartoon series DC Superhero Girls does n’t go into Harley ’s connection to the Joker at all , treating her as just as authoritative and heroical as Wonder Woman or Supergirl . too , the late Injustice video recording game haveportrayed Harleyas having moved on from her villainous , traumatic past with the Joker to become a hero working alongside Batman .
But it ’s unfortunate that , while the comics are currently presenting Harley at her respectable , the character ca n’t seem to shake her past completely , and still gets reduced to being the Joker ’s besotted , abused mate in villainy . Why ca n’t the ethnical image of Harley Quinn move on from her being the Joker ’s lover in the way the amusing book version has spent years doing ?
After all , the reason why we ’re still speak about Harley Quinn today is her risible book evolution into a loveable , nuanced , and autonomous fibre . Harley may not have been created for the funnies , but it ’s been the comics more than anything that have spent the last two and a one-half decennary reforging her into something so much more than just a brother : they have made her one of DC ’s most interesting and layered character of the second .
Harley Quinn has moved on from the Joker , to become one of DC ’s good character . Everyone else should do the same .
DC ComicsHarley Quinn
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