The Good
I got the Bombshell variant cover by Ant Lucia. I actually think it’s the better of the two covers because it’s less misleading. Amanda Conner’s cover would have you believe that the smells inside might range from toilets to rotten fish to marijuana. The alternate cover makes no such (unfulfilled) promises.
It was also fun to see Harley actually wearing her bombshell girl outfit as her costume du jour–an appropriate choice since she parachutes into a pizza parlor as preparation to drive to Gotham in a police car so that she can break Poison Ivy out of Arkham Asylum (forget the logistics of this ~ it makes no sense, but apparently Coney Island is 40 minutes from Arkham). Once there, she confronts Doctor Bliss and Doctor Bash who are holding Ivy for experimentations, and, in the process of trying to rescue her, manages to unleash a potent drug that sends them all spiraling into hallucinations.
John Timms does the heavy lifting with the majority of the pages that frame this story. His Harley is fun and shows a great range of emotions. Her features are a little sharper than regular artist Chad Hardin, but she can look both playful and mean (and does so within the matter of one panel to the next). While Timms’ last outing on this book (issue No. 9) felt a little flat to me, everything about his characters, angles, and environments are pitch-perfect here.
The Bad
Something that issue No. 0 did which helped it work with all its myriad artists was that it had a very specific continuity of action (Harley auditioning said artists), and as a consequence the style acrobatics made perfect sense. Here we have a similar structure (though it’s a hallucinogenic experience rather than a dream), but the action is not contiguous; you’re leaping from one person’s head to the next and on first read-through it wasn’t 100% obvious to me at first. So it helps to understand that it’s not just Harley’s trip you’re experiencing–you’re seeing Poison Ivy and Doctors Bliss and Bash as well. Ultimately, it works for the most part, but the trips are inconsequential to the action of the story and some of them are more interesting than others (Doctor Bash’s is the weakest of the bunch, and unfortunately the one we end on).
The Ugly
Let’s face it, $5.99 is a chunk o’change for a single comic book (even one with added content and the scratch n’ snuff gimmick). Given that my olfactory senses are not so great and that most of the smells didn’t especially enhance the story, it’s hard to justify the price tag: your sense of overall value may vary, but I knocked off half a point. Apparently the digital version has other features to make up for the fact of having no smells, though I have no idea what those might be (probably something similar to the “motion” comic function of Batman ‘66, I’m guessing).
Overall
Bordering on a level of insanity that might feel excessive even for a Harley Quinn book, the story nevertheless has a strong throughline and is satisfyingly complete. On the downside, it’s pricey and that stinks (pun thoroughly intended). Is it a must-buy? I think, if you’re just a fringe fan, you can probably skip it, but if you’re buying the regular series, you’ll want to have a complete set. And if you decide not to pick this up, remember that we still have one more Harley special before the year is out (a holiday book coming in December).
Get the full review from Batman News here
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