Part origin, part prequel-ish tale from before Joker became Batman’s legendary nemesis and Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn, maybe even alternate world story, Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity sees Harley on the side of the Gotham City PD as they team up to stop the Joker’s art-influenced serial killings.
Criminal Sanity is essentially an art book with the slenderest of stories - and a pretty bad one at that! Looking at it from a purely narrative perspective, this didn’t need to be 9 oversized issues long. You get a fast and shallow origin story for Joker, then he starts his art killings and Harley chases after him - repeat this multiple times until she inevitably stops him.
Joker’s origin - actually his entire character - is uninspired and stoopid. He was abused by a comically evil stepfather (Harley has a similarly cartoonishly demented mother) and bullied at school - which obviously means he turns into a serial killer?! It’s so unconvincing. And why does he kill with an art theme, posing his victims in the style of Da Vinci, Dali, etc.? Because he likes art, duh! Why does he have a thing for Harley? Because she’s hot and smart. Rubbish characterisation - Kami Garcia’s Joker is one of the worst I’ve read.
Garcia beefs up the thin story by copy and pasting information on serial killers and psychopaths from Wikipedia as well as tracts on art history, to no real effect. And, while Batman is refreshingly kept out of the book almost entirely, it’s weird that he (sort of) plays a part in Joker’s mother’s death, which is the catalyst for his becoming the Joker, when he was a kid. Meaning Batman was around and being Batman when this Joker was a kid, so he’s got at least 15-20 years on him? It’s not important because Batman’s barely in this book but it’s still an odd detail.
However: looking at this book from a purely artistic perspective and it’s amazing. Industry legend Mike Mayhew draws a number of flashback pages in the early part of the book and his painted art is so photorealistic it looks like someone took a picture and applied an Instagram filter over it. Mico Suayan draws nearly all the pages set in the present and he’s a master of black and white art, and Jason Badower takes over from Mayhew, drawing the rest of the flashbacks and all of the pages from Joker’s perspective in the present. He’s not as accomplished as Mayhew but his pages look stunning regardless.
Mayhew:
Suayan:
Badower:
Mack:
The Joker Secret Files issue is entirely superfluous - it’s supposed to be Harley’s file on Joker and all it does is tell us things we already know from the story but in tedious psychologist-speak - though we do get David Mack drawing most of it too and he’s a terrific artist as well. Also, if you’re a fan of hunky Joker, you’ll love this book - this dude is buff AF and looks like a rock star! And hats off to Annette Kwok for her incredible colours throughout, in particular on Badower’s pages - they were utterly gorgeous to look at.
It’s appropriate that Garcia’s Joker is art-obsessed given that the book is only worth picking up for the art and not her flat writing. Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity is an instantly forgettable and one-note Joker/Harley story with some of the best art these characters have ever had.
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