Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Helping others for profit, offering to protect and save the ordinary citizen from the exploitation and damage caused by others for recompense and the odd bit of spare change, it used to be said such actions could only ever take place in America. Now, they are creeping in to all corners of society as once more we seem to embrace the greed and desire to have recognition for what we have in the bank account rather than we contribute to the world.
It is in this that Harley Quinn, once television comic addition to the Batman cartoon series but now fully fledged darling of the D.C. graphic novel experience, exemplifies the dichotomy at the heart of such materialistic cravings, that the world somehow should pay you the reward for doing a duty of saving someone’s life or possessions and whilst Harley Quinn’s new team don’t take too much advantage in the business of covetousness or bleeding people dry. Harley Quinn: A Call To Arms shows that the way of American culture, from paying for drugs to keep you alive to paying their politicians for the almost anything goes, is the short road to instability; it may have taken its time but the inevitable outcome could be amongst us.
Beautifully envisaged, Harley Quinn: A Call To Arms gives a different perspective to the character of Harleen Quenzal, prize psychopath she may be, lost in her own psychotherapy room possibly but none the less a woman to whom the world is divided into a much more black and white standpoint that say for example Batman or Superman. You are either nice to her and she will be nice to you, taking your side and showing more loyalty than is perhaps good for her soul, or she will beat you alive, perhaps throw a couple of grenades your way and she will whistle heartily whilst doing so.
It has been noted on many occasions that Amanda Connor and Jim Palmiotti’s work on the beautiful but bordering on insane Harley Quinn is amongst the very best on offer within the D.C. world, the stories are off beat, they capture emotion and the insatiability of the world, the destruction of the dog eat dog mentality. However, they also capture the spectre of love, the friendship formed between two people when the going gets tough and the glimpse of the bond that lays between Harley and Poison Ivy is one to cheer in a regulated and money driven environment.
Harley Quinn: A Call To Arms offers the antidote to such greed, to such self-indulgence and like a drip feed effect, it slowly dawn upon the reader that whilst Ms. Quinn is certifiable, she certainly understands right and wrong, loyalty and treachery all too well.
An insightful peek into the world of Harley Quinn, one perhaps more than any other volume so far which gives the reader such a view.
Harley Quinn: Volume 4 A Call To Arms is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall