Kami Garcia reimagines Harley Quinn’s origin where she didn’t first meet Mistah J while working as a psychologist at Arkham but tangentially working as a freelance profiler for the GCPD, examining his murders from afar with a personal twist: the Joker killed her roommate Edie years ago.
I’m not opposed to retconning Harley’s past for the sake of a new story - it’s just a shame that story couldn’t be any good. Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity doesn’t even feel remotely like a Harley Quinn comic, not least because it’s missing her post-crazy Deadpool-esque banter, but because sane Harley isn’t particularly memorable or distinct. Honestly, with her leather jacket and tied-back blonde hair, she looks more like Black Canary.
So the first issue of CSI: Harley ain’t exactly gripping reading. There’s a lot of tedious police procedural stuff, a grim story of child abuse, Harley’s roommate’s murder, and a section that reads like Garcia regurgitating a lot of material on serial killers gleaned from Wikipedia. Ho hum.
What really stands out is the art. I’ve been a fan of Mico Suayan’s since his impressive work on Jeff Lemire’s Bloodshot Reborn series over at Valiant (well worth a look if you haven’t already) and his art here is fantastic, especially the Vitruvian Man crime scene.
And then there’s industry legend Mike Mayhew whose photorealistic painted art is nothing short of breathtaking. Every panel honestly looks like someone’s taken a photo on a high-end phone and put a filter over it. He draws the flashback scenes, with Suayan drawing the present-day scenes, and the details and the colours are incredible, particularly in contrast to Suayan’s black and white pages.
It’s a right purty comic but quite boring to read. Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #1 is just another rushed-out “hey let’s capitalise on Harley’s popularity!” book for undiscriminating fans only.
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