Old Lady Harley #2 Review

The Gross of Harley Future

Writer: Frank Tieri
Artist: Inaki Miranda
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: November 28, 2018
Cover Price: $3.99

I really liked the first issue of Old Lady Harley and not just for the parody of the Old Man books over at Marvel, but because I actually laughed reading a Harley book.  Believe me, it's been months since that happened and I won't point fingers, but you know that I am not-so-secretly pointing fingers.  Does Frank Tieri keep tickling my funny bone and do I want him to stop?  The answer to the latter is no, but let's see about the former...


We open with another newscast that pokes fun at politics and PC culture and really, how can I not like a book where Wayne Gretzky is the zombie Prime Minister of Canada?  Like Wayne did in the 81-82 season, Tieri is scoring early and often with me here!

After a messed up infomercial for the Monster Hurler 3000, we head back in time to remind us that Harley did get back with the Joker and it did go wrong...again.  We then get to the meat and cheese of the issue and see what happened after the first issue's cool cliffhanger.  It's pretty messed up.

I have enjoyed Red Tool since he first showed up in Harley's solo book and he is kickass here as well.  He goes full ham on Batman and while it doesn't do much to the Dark Knight, we do find out the who, what and where of the Bat.  This is where the Tieri takes a break (almost) from the jokes and gives the reader some really cool alt-future goodness and it didn't hurt that it involved Nightwing...though it feels like this might have been done to finally shut Dan Didio up once and for all!

The story continues with Batman pointing Harley and Tool towards Catwoman and while the overall story is about the Joker being alive or not, it's more about the journey than the destination...especially when the journey involves Eggy hanging with Egghead and Arkham being a retirement home for old villains!

After some chuckles, Harley talks to Catwoman and her husband (who also is one of Harley's ex-husbands) and we get the story of Joker's death.  It all points to a cool Justice League, Lobo, and Las Vegas.  The cliffhanger, however, takes our expanding roster of heroes and villains somewhere that nobody in this book wants to go to...and no, I don't mean Las Vegas!

I am having a great time with this mini-series.  A lot of people were hung up on the "Old Lady-Old Man" bit, but if you just go into it looking for a fun, tongue-in-cheek alt-future Elseworlds type story, there is a lot of fun to be had.  Frank Tieri throws a ton at the reader and most of it hits.  That's all I really want from a Harley book and this one delivers.

I also love Inaki Miranda's art and can't see why anybody wouldn't.  Everything looks fantastic and the art is giving you as many (maybe more) laughs than the story itself.

Bits and Pieces:

I saw a bunch of reviewers having a bunch of problems with the first issue of this mini and I just want to tell them to chill out and have some fun for once.  Most of them give crazy high scores to books that "humanize" our heroes with misery and death, but I'd rather have this type of book any day of the week...and twice on Sundays!  Frank Tieri and Inaki Miranda give Harley readers an alt-future of her solo book that is way more fun than her current solo book by a mile.

8.7/10