Harley Quinn #65 // Review
Grief makes people do strange things. Grief makes strange people do really strange things. For a recovering psycho clown girl, that means making like Lord of the Flies as writer Sam Humphries and artist Sami Basri present Harley Quinn #65. The very deeply introspective issue of Quinn's longest-running series (there are a couple more that'll be showing-up shortly) brings Harley face-to-face with questions of motivation, desire and more. Humphries and Basri balance Harley's tenuous psyche against a host of matters both visceral and cosmic in a very appealing issue that challenges Quinn's sanity at a moment of great triumph in the shadow of significant loss.
As the issue opens, Harley is mourning the loss of her mother while drinking whiskey over a railing on the Coney Island boardwalk. A phantom vision of her late mother inspires her to swim across to a tropical volcanic island off the coast of Coney Island (because evidently, the DC Universe has one of those.) She's chosen to escape reality for a while as Harleen Castaway Pirate Queen. Inevitably, reality sets-in as Herald of the Trials Mirand'r shows-up with a copy of Harley Quinn #65 to help get its title character back on track. Things actually get pretty serious from there.
Humphries has been playing with a lot of different tracks in Harley Quinn over the course of the recent past. The fourth-wall-breaking recovering psychotic clown girl has faced a lot of different things, both physically and symbolically. Humphries juggles all of the weird disparate thematic and dramatic elements with impressive deftness in an issue that feels remarkably coherent in spite of its feverish restlessness. The drama between Harley and Mirand'r that rests at the center of the issue feels remarkably fresh as a down-to-earth cosmic herald tries to rein-in an earthbound psychotic with cosmic-level psychoses. It's a fun journey that still manages to be a profoundly intimate 20 pages with Harley.
For an issue with a fair amount of physical action, there's a lot of inner drama in this issue. Basri delivers on an overwhelmingly moody feeling of soul searching as Harley attempts to escape everything on an old volcanic island inexplicably off the coast of Coney Island. Basri builds a very intricate, little drama out of the distinct interplay of emotions between a war-painted Harley and a tastefully athleisure cosmic herald with a halo of fire over her head. Basri's clean linework and highly kinetic sense of action round out a deeply engaging visual package.
The degree to which Humphries' story works on multiple levels may suffer a bit this issue. The physical action of the issue takes a backseat to a conversational drama that is satisfying in its own way. Without holding a great deal of appeal for anyone who would be interested in the issue on an action/adventure level. This isn't a serious problem as the story is totally engrossing on a dramatic scale.
