Harley Quinn #20 Review and **SPOILERS**

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Parents Just Won’t Comprehend

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner 

Artists: John Timms, Joseph Michael Linsner 

Back-up Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Paul Dini 

Back-up Pencils: Bret Blevins 

Back-up Inks: J. Bone 

Colors: Alex Sinclair 

Letters: Dave Sharpe 

Cover: Amanda Conner & Alex Sinclair 

Cover Price: $2.99 

On Sale Date: May 17, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

So that arc with the cannibals is finished, such as it is, so now we begin a brand-new story arc in Harley Quinn! Well, not “brand new” since you know Palmiotti and Conner seeded it months ago as per the routine. But I have it on good authority that this begins that future Bat-fan assassinating Harley Quinn thing that was the highlight of so many recent issues! So let’s not delay and dive right into my review of issue #20, right now!

Explain It!

There are like twenty islands in the waterways around the four large islands that comprise most of New York City, and I want to visit almost all of them. Some of them I have visited because they’re open to the public, like Roosevelt Island and Governor’s Island, and some I don’t actually want to visit, like Riker’s Island. But I’ve long wanted to check out Hart Island, just south of City Island off the coast of the Bronx. I can’t, though, because it serves as New York City’s potter’s field, and I guess they need every square food available to inter the unnamed. So that’s a fact we learn up front in this issue of Harley Quinn, while a bunch of loose ends are tied up for like the first four pages of the book. There’s a long conversation between Harley and Chief Spoonsdale that might foretell him being mayor down the line, but I found their whole time together to be strange and unnerving and kind of out of character for the both of them. Then, it’s back to Harley’s pad, where she’s tending to an injured Red Tool while attempting to clean up the absolute pig sty that is her apartment building before Harley’s parents visit. Harley’s parents? Uhh…this is gonna be awkward. Then Harley Sinn calls and is like “Heyy I captured Madame and Mason Macabre, ‘k? Buh bye” and that’s it. So we’ll be coping with that down the line in some form or fashion, you can bet!

Okay, so on with the actual story: Bat-fan from the future zips back to the present day, and winds up right in the Batcave! And not that sterile, new Batcave with like a dozen platforms covered in computers, but the old school Batcave with all the cool Batmobiles and a giant penny and a dinosaur visible in many scenes. Bat-fan uses the Bat-computer to find Harley Quinn, which takes about a second, then heads over to Harley’s apartment and just busts in right through the kitchen wall while she’s talking to Tony! Harley and Bat-fan tussle for a while, then Harley injures Bat-fan with her own green laser like an older brother asking “why are you hitting yourself?” and overpowers Bat-fan enough to put her in the scatapult and fling her across the bay. The end. For now.

The back-up, well it’s more of this Paul Dini-written story that might have been in an issue of Batman Adventures back in the day. In this one, the Joker seems about to tell Harley he loves her, but she passes out while he says actually nice things. So, this was a pretty uninspired start to a story I’ve been looking forward to reading for like five or six issues, ever since it got seeded. Half of the issue was just a lot of comic book housekeeping (and actual housekeeping, in the comic book) and then there was a big fight and that’s it. I guess it could be worse—it could have been all chatter and no big fight at all!

Bits and Pieces:

This begins an arc I've been waiting for, and maybe the anticipation was too great on my end. All the nuts and bolts of comic bookery are in place, it was just a slow starter. I think this story could go places, and I hope it gets there sooner rather than nine dollars from now.

6.5/10