By Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, with Rick Taylor, Tim Harkins & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5512-1 (HB/Digital edition)
Harley Quinn wasn’t supposed to be a star… or even an actual comic book character. As soon became apparent, however, the manic minx always has her own astoundingly askew and off-kilter ideas on the matter… and any other topic you could name: ethics, friendship, ordnance, true love…
Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough television cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iteration, leading to some of the absolute best comic book yarns in the hero’s many decades of existence.
Employing a timeless, all-embracing visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all iterations of the character and, without diluting the power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and the extended team around him into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance and panache only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…
Harley was first seen as the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, extreme abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor, which aired on September 11th 1992. She instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers.
From then on she began popping up in the incredibly successful licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – soon graduated into mainstream DC continuity.
After a period bopping around the DCU, she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint major makeover: regularly appearing as part of a new, gritty-but-still-crazy iteration of the Suicide Squad. However, at heart she’s always been a cartoon glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…
Re-presenting the 1994 one-shot Batman Adventures: Mad Love, this slight and breezy hardcover is made up of mostly recycled material – including writer Paul Dini’s comfortably inviting Foreword and co-plotter/illustrator Bruce Timm’s effusive and candidly informative ‘Mad Love Afterword’.
However, a truly unmissable bonus treat for art-lovers and all those seeking technical insight (perhaps with a view to making comics or animation their day job) is the illustrator’s full monochrome ‘Original Layouts for The Batman Adventures: Mad Love’: displaying how the story materialised page by page. There’s even previous and variant covers to earlier editions and unused painted back cover art plus highly detailed, fully-annotated colour guides for the complete story, offering a perfect “How To” lesson for aspiring creators…
All that being said though, what we want most is a great story, and that magnificently madcap mayhem commences after Police Commissioner James Gordon heads to the dentist. When Batman easily foils the Joker’s latest manic murder attempt, the mountebank of Mirth pettishly realises he’s lost his inspirational spark.
He’s therefore in no mood for lasciviously whining lapdog Harley’s words of comfort or flirtatious pep talks…
As the Dark Knight reviews his files on the Joker’s girlfriend and ponders on how Harleen Frances Quinzel breezed through college and came away with a psychology degree that bought her a staff position at Arkham Asylum, in the now, the larcenous lady in question has gone too far in the Joker’s lair. The trigger is comforting sympathy and telling her “precious pudden” how his baroque murder schemes could be improved…
Kicked out and almost killed (again), Harleen harks back to her first meeting with the devilishly desirable crazy clown and how they instantly clicked. She fondly recalls how her original plan to psychoanalyse the Joker and write a profitable tell-all book was forgotten the moment she fell under his malign spell. In that moment she became his adoring, willing and despised slave…
She also realises that Batman too-quickly scotched their budding eternal love by capturing the grinning psycho-killer she secretly aided and abetted, both before and after she created her own costumed alter ego…
In fact, Batman always spoils her dreams and brutalises her adored “Mistah J”. It’s long past time she took care of him once and for all…
Driven by desperation and fuelled by passion, Harley Quinn appropriates one of the Joker’s abortive schemes and tweaks it.
Before long, the Gotham Gangbuster is duped, doped, bound and destined for certain doom. Sadly, the triumphant Little Woman hasn’t reckoned on how her barmy beloved will react to learning she has done in mere hours what he’s failed to accomplish over many bitter years…
Coloured by Rick Taylor and lettered by Tim Harkins, the classy, classically staged main feature plays very much like a 1940s noir blend of morbid melodrama and cunning crime caper – albeit with outrageous over-the-top gags, sharply biting lines of dialogue and a blend of black humour and bombastic action. This story easily qualifies as one of the top five bat-tales of all time.
A frantic, laugh-packed, action-driven hoot that manages to be daring, deranged and demure by turns, Mad Love is an absolute delight, well worth the price of admission and an irresistible treasure to be enjoyed over and over again.
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