Harley Quinn #4 // Review
Harley Quinn #4 is written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Riley Rossmo, colored by Ivan Plascencia, and lettered by AndWorld Design. Harley Quinn #4 continues the ‘No Good Deed’ arc of the story.
At the end of Harley Quinn #3, Harley had unexpectedly run into Solomon Grundy in the sewers below Gotham. Fortunately for Harley, he’s not interested in fighting her. Instead, at the beginning of Harley Quinn #4, the two play a game of chess with unconventional pieces, as Harley laments her recent failures. Struggling with self-doubt and guilt following her inability to stop Kevin, former Joker henchman, and her friend from being abducted by Hugo Strange’s men. Harley fears her coming back to Gotham was a mistake. She wants to make amends, not hurt even more people.
She feels like she’s letting Batman down after he gave her another chance. She knows she let Kevin down. Harley confesses to Grundy that she isn’t sure anymore if she can consider herself one of the good guys.
Grundy reminds Harley that she can’t be Batman. She can’t be Batgirl. She can’t be any of the other heroes running around Gotham. She can only be Harley Quinn. And only Harley Quinn can save Kevin.
Meanwhile, back at S.A.F.E. headquarters, Kevin is one of many people being tortured by Hugo Strange in the name of “rehabilitation.” Strange lies to and manipulates Kevin, trying to convince him that Harley won’t come to rescue him. Not only that but that she didn’t change and isn’t good. Strange wants Kevin to think that Harley is irredeemably evil and wants to make Kevin like her. And perhaps this is what Strange truly believes. But that’s not what Harley has shown Kevin, or anyone, thus far.
Of course, there’s the debate that can be had of, can villains redeem themselves, or is there a point where they’ve gone too far? In Harley Quinn #4, Phillips continues to make the case that it is possible for redemption. At least for Harley, and most likely, hopefully, Kevin. Phillips makes Harley sympathetic. She’s done terrible things in the past, but she is trying to be better. She’s not owed forgiveness, and she can’t undo the harm she’s done, but at least she’s trying to fix what she can.
Rossmo’s art is beautifully done. Once again, using implied lines, Rossmo creates very fluid action scenes and non-action scenes that flow across the page. The best example of this is Kevin’s nightmarish drug trip after being injected with a mysterious substance by Strange. The sequence has vivid colors done by Plasencia, while Rossmo’s layout makes things easy to follow.
Plasencia’s colors in Harley Quinn #4 are amazing in most places. However, the shading is done with a lot of small dots and crosshatching. While this does work for the majority of the book, in certain panels, this shading ends up feeling very busy, interrupting the flow of the rest of the colors. This is especially distracting during the sewer scenes involving Harley and Grundy.
I love Harley Quinn the most when she’s acting as a hero, but with morally dubious methods. When she leans more towards the hero part of the antihero trope, but still won’t hesitate to chaos complete and utter chaos. And that’s the Harley we’ve seen thus far in this run.
