Surely, She Jests.

Harley Quinn (aka Harlequin, aka Dr. Harleen Quinzel) is one of my favorite DC characters because she's so colorful and off-the-wall.  She's a former psychiatrist who turns to crime and falls in love with the Joker.  What a concept!  A love interest for Joker?  Who'd have ever thought anyone could fall in love with a pasty whackjob like him?  It was a bizarre love story 50 years in the making. 

I wasn't reading comics when Harley was given her first solo monthly series from 2001-2003, but I was fortunate to have been around when Gotham City Sirens was published from 2009-2011, a series starring Harley, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman.  It was a decent series and it humanized Harley, showing us her friendship/kinship with other women, especially her closeness to Pamela (Poison Ivy).  It also portrayed her as in between a hero and a villain, much like Catwoman. 

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a lot of inconsistency in developing Harley's character/personality over the years.  With DC Comics' New 52 reboot, Harley has another new, more violent personality; she's a member of the Suicide Squad; and she's wearing a much different costume.  She's also a lot more methodical and serious, which is kind of disappointing because her goofiness, innocence, and naivety were her biggest appealing qualities and what set her apart from other villainesses.  And, although I like the idea of her new costume, I think it could be a lot less skimpy/slutty.  Her former costume was head-to-toe covering, which seemed a little silly (like her), but the slutty look is a bit too extreme, too.  She's not Harley anymore, and she doesn't have that personality that would make me think she'd fall in love with the Joker.  

Now, in late 2013, Harley is being given a chance at a second solo monthly series.   DC Comics recently released Harley Quinn #0.  What should have been an origin story was kind of a throwaway issue.  It featured Harley breaking the fourth wall (like John Byrne successfully did with She-Hulk back in the 1980s) and going from scene to scene, but there didn't feel like there was any flow or story whatsoever.  It was basically a showcase for different artists.  A multitude of artists contributed to the issue, with the supposed hunt for a permanent artist for the series. Why Amanda Conner (one of the co-writers) doesn't illustrate it, I have no idea.  She did an AMAZING job with Before Watchmen's Silk Spectre, and it's evident from her cover art that she could produce a beautiful Harley Quinn comic. 

Anyway, I look forward to reading Harley's misadventures in her own comic outside of Suicide Squad, but I hope the zero issue wasn't any indication of how future issues will be.  Harley and her readers deserve better. 

Amanda Conner Shines on Silk Spectre

 I wanted to like The Watchmen.  I really did.  Unfortunately, it was ultimately a bit boring for me.  I tried reading the maxi-series back in the 1980s when it first came out and didn't get beyond the first issue.  Compared to my favorite comics at the time (Marv Wolfman and George Perez' The New Teen Titans, John Byrne's Fantastic Four, and Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men), it lacked a lot, both in story and in art.  

I again tried to read the entire collection in 2009 before the movie came out.  I got about halfway through the graphic novel before finally deciding to put it to rest.  I discovered that I wasn't actually too young at the time to appreciate it in the 80s; it was actually very boring.  Worse, each page consisted of 9 tiny rectangular panels, one after the other.  It didn't vary at all from that formula, making the artwork bland as well.  And each tiny panel had more words in it than should have been allowed.  What happened to showing the story instead of just telling it?   I'm all for dialogue to keep a story flowing.  In fact, I thrive on dialogue much more than descriptions when reading a novel, but too much -- especially in a comic book -- can be incredibly distracting.  

I saw the Watchmen movie and enjoyed it overall, although I felt that it did drag in spots.  Following that, I decided to pick up a few of the Before Watchmen series that DC Comics released in 2012.  I picked up Comedian, Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl, Rorshach, and Silk Spectre.  While I surprisingly enjoyed Nite Owl more than some of the others, it was Silk Spectre that really stood out, both in story and art.  I wasn't that crazy for Amanda Conner's cartoonish art in the short-lived Power Girl series, but in Silk Spectre, she really did an AMAZING job.  The quality rivals Nicola Scott and George Perez, two of my favorite artists.  The characters feel very lifelike and each panel feels like a work of art.  I was VERY impressed.  After seeing what she can do on this book, I'd love to see her on a monthly series. 

The story itself was more interesting than the others, too.  Silk Spectre's mother Sally Jupiter (the first Silk Spectre) is very controlling and self-centered.  She's like the Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard) of superheroes, always concerned about aging and her looks.  She consistently puts down Laurie, making her feel alone and unwanted.  Unlike in the original Watchmen series, in the panel to the right, the author Darwyn Cooke shows how a 9-panel page can tell a LOT about a person (aka Sally) and hold the reader's attention.  Naturally, the excellent artwork by Amanda Conner complements the scene.  

Cooke wraps the Silk Spectre's story up nicely, introducing her to the rest of the Watchmen team, giving us her first impressions. Again, he does this successfully in a page cluttered with words, but Amanda Conner's beautiful art doesn't take a backseat. 

I'm not saying that I'd read any other Watchmen series in the future.  I'm really not that crazy about any of the characters and the world in which they live.  However, I would love Amanda Conner to get another regular monthly gig on a DC Comics series because she's demonstrated that she can do so much more than Power Girl.