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Dark Knights of Steel proves Harley Quinn works best when she’s neither a Suicide Squad-style hero nor the Joker’s second fiddle.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Dark Knights of Steel by Tom Taylor and Yasmine Putri now on sale from DC Comics
DC’s new comic Dark Knights of Steel leaves no stone unturned when it comes to re-examining what the classic heroes and villains of its story are at their core. Rather than just transplanting familiar figures like Batman or Wonder Woman into a medieval fantasy setting, the series perpetually digs into the core of those characters’ origins and personalities to tinker around with different elements. Superman’s parents survived his trip to Earth, Batman hunts those with magical abilities rather than criminals, and Harley Quinn is not a bad guy after all.
That last change proves to be a seemingly minor tweak in the grand plot of the series, but it has major consequences when looking at Harley’s character. Over the course of the past few years, her boost in profile saw her star in live-action films and her own animated series while appearing in countless comics all the while. But Dark Knights of Steel proves she’s at her best when she’s a supporting act rather than the main show.
The new comic features a lot of worldbuilding as it deals with titanic figures. Superman’s parents crashland on Earth where they befriend Bruce Wayne’s parents, who reign as the king and queen of a fantastical medieval world. There are rival nations, magical beings, plots of assassination, and bouncing around the periphery of it all is Harley Quinn. Done up as a court jester, an easy transition for the comedically-inclined character into such a setting, Harley proved to feel just like her usual witty self rattling off jokes and prodding fun at Batman for how silly his ears look. And yet, there is something more going on that feels different about the character.
First and foremost is that her villainous background is downplayed. There are many other villains and super-powered entities that inhabit the dungeons beneath the castle, but Harley has free reign to go where she pleases. The humor she uses can have a dark edge to it, but it is nowhere near its level of Deadpool psychopathy it can dip into in other media. Quite the contrary, she almost serves as a voice of reason and conscience grounding the inhumanly-empowered royalty around her with a valuable perspective and that’s the perfect role for her.
First introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, Quinn became a rare example of a character created for animation who became a mainstay in the comics. Originally a partner-in-crime to the Clown Prince of Crime himself, Harley eventually split with the Joker where she’s had massive success in her own related projects. In live-action she became one of the most well-received characters of Suicide Squad, later transferring to the newer The Suicide Squad soft reboot after taking the lead role in Birds of Prey. In animation, she headlines her own self-titled series that itself has been well-received, and in all such iterations she comes off as an anti-hero who is violent and unstable while still being ultimately well-meaning.
But as great as those properties are, and as great as the character herself is, comic fans are suffering from a degree of fatigue from her overexposure. As well as her presence in such other media adaptations, she has become a recurrent figure in the comics as well. Jokey characters can prove quickly grating in high concentrations, and indeed the same overexposure quickly happened with Deadpool over in Marvel. Dark Knights of Steel manages to include Harley in a role that is perfect for her though. She’s still a jokester and has the rest of her personality intact, but taking her out of the spotlight really gives the character a chance to shine.
Such projects with such large casts do well to relegate their characters to roles befitting them. Giant figures like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman can easily swell to the point of dominating such ensemble pieces, so balancing them out with supporting characters while never letting those supporting characters steal more than their fair share of attention is the perfect way to get the best of all possible worlds.
Making Harley a court jester would seem to be a pretty simple move. But the magic of Dark Knights of Steel is that it proves never satisfied to do the bare minimum with any of its ideas, and with a dungeon full of villains to possibly assemble into a Suicide Squad there’s a chance this Harley is going to get the space she deserves just when the time is right.
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