Harley Quinn #54 // Review
There are people who are concerned Harley is missing. The flyers that are being posted regarding the disappearance aren’t all that optimistic. The header: “Have You Kiiled Me?” Beneath that is a police mgshot of Harley. So maybe she’s dead, they just want to know Actually, though: Harley IS missing. And she’s about to discover just how lost dshe is in Harley Quinn #54. Writer Elliott Kalan and artist Carlos Olivares find themselves on a strange journey with Harley. Depth is added to the page courtesy of Marissa Louise. There is some depth to the silliness. But it's still very silly. And it lacks the kind of residence that Harley has had with other stories in the recent past.
Harley wakes up in bed. She's got a headache. Her brain is actually outside of her body. But that's really just an abstract and body of some kind of something that might be worth getting checked out if she ever has the opportunity to do so. There's something strange about the bedsheets in. And there's something strange about the small arsenal firearms that's not far from it. She doesn't really recognize any of it. But when she moves on out of the bedroom, she happens to notice that it's not really a bedroom. And it's not really a house. It's a Winnebago. She's been kidnapped.
Kalan launches Harley into a whole new adventure. The pacing is fun. And as is some of the delivery of plot developments. Things rush along in clever ways. But it's still nowhere near the kind of inspired insanity that Quinn has had over the years. There's some real depth and complexity to what Kalan is delivering to the page. However, it seems a bit lost in the weirdness of the situation. It's nice to see Harley remain Harley, even in the face of all of the confusion. But it lacks any kind of center around which to pull all of the insanity.
Olivares find a nice middle ground between the brutality of the action and everything else that's going on on the page. There is some degree of emotional intensity as Harley moves around in a situation beyond her control. That drama reaches the page with considerable emotional weight, which is quite an accomplishment, considering the overall complexity of the weirdness being a thrust onto the page. There is a clever balance between that to extremes of silliness and emotional depth.Olivares does a pretty good job of making sure that everything is fitting together on the page just right.
The idea that Kalan it is working with us actually one with a great deal of potential. Harley is kidnapped by a pair of maniacs, who really don't seem to have any central concern for her or her safety. It's an interesting echo to her origins. Theoretically, it would be interesting to see her respond a little bit more with a sense of serious reflection over what she has been when confronted with people who are similar to the way she was.
