Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

When you are young you want to identify as the hero, to be the one who catches the criminals and be seen as a warrior in the war against evil, to be Wonder Woman or Batman, Spiderman or She-Hulk; when you are young you want to be the hero, as you grow older, as you lose the ability to be optimistic and heroically naive, the more you understand the villain, the more you can see the world through their eyes.

Then there are those who walk between the two, the anti-hero and the created psychopath, the one mind that captures both the sense of duty and moral outrage in one soul; a life framed by abuse, an existance scorned as they do their upmost to keep track of their sanity, but who eventually fall head first, and willingly, into the clutches and mind of a killer.

In Stjepan Sejic’s deeply analytical graphic novel, Harleen, the moment of true surrender, the introduction of Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel to the Gotham underworld, and that especially of The Joker, is given an injection of life that the faithful graphic novel reader did not know they needed, but one that is hugely appreciated as arguably one of the finest characters to have been brought to life, her deterioration into madness, of hybristophilia and the struggle with the two sides of her emotional strength and instability are brought to firmly, and resolutely, to bare and to witness.

Remarkably, it is the inclusion of Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent, Gotham’s dedicated prosecuting counsel, and his descent from hero to unhinged maniac which is a reflection of Harleen’s own personality split, and one that is explained through art in incredible detail by Mr. Sejic, arguably in a way that few have been able to do so before.

Not only is the graphic novel a glory in artwork and narrative, but it is one that probes the psychology and the nature of the ease in which we can all fall to such a place that will destroy us, an analyst’s dream, a frenzy of will being driven in colour that implores upon the reader to understand that Harley Quinn is not actually evil, but that the ego has been allowed to feel the happiness and freedom that anarchy supplies.

Examining, brutal, sensational, Harleen is D.C. pedigree, on par with any of the true classics of the last 20 years.

Ian D. Hall