Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It always seems like an entertaining idea when a crossover in the world of graphic novels presents itself before the reader. Even within the pages of a company such as D.C. where the appearance of Batman and Superman outside of a Justice League story can titillate and tantalise even the most rabid of fans, such a crossover can mean growth, further development and more intriguing aspects that may have gone undeveloped for years. It can in some cases allow the undisguised stink of a money making exercise, the chance to breathe life into a fading, unlikeable character by teaming them up with a big monster of a comic book gem, either way, the fan will have an opinion on it.
Thankfully D.C. Comics didn’t allow the former to happen in the meeting between the beautifully entrancing Harley Quinn and Metropolis’ finest, Superman. What did happen, with the courage of conviction of writer Karl Kesel, is something tremendously exciting, almost brazenly unique and well imagined in that in many ways it is hard to imagine D.C’s main rival Marvel pulling the same thing off with such audacity and flavour; that the villain, be it one of questionable felon like character, actually outshines one of the main flagship heroes of the company throughout the novel.
When Harley Quinn breezes into Gotham City with Poison Ivy astride her motorbike it sets of a chain of events that takes the Joker’s lovelorn associate on a journey to working for the Daily Planet as a love consultant, through the horrors of Hades and the misappropriation of life, all with the tangled feelings of Jimmy Olson and the sincerity of one of the bravest of D.C.’s creations in Thorn in tow.
Where this particular stream of conscious goes in relation to the stories set out by Amanda Connor and Jimmy Palmiotti is an enjoyable feast of taste and structure. Whilst it is fair to say that trying to compete with Ms. Connor’s work is perhaps beyond the vast majority of writers, it nevertheless has all the natural tension and destructive mayhem that fans of Harley Quinn have become used to and with some stirring artwork, especially in the depictions of Hell and the use of Poison Ivy as a sidekick throughout the first portion of the graphic novel, what comes across is the continuing evolution of a character who really strikes a tone for the 21st Century.
In much the same way that D.C. revitalised Aqua Man from one of the most obscene jokes in comic book history to one of the most formidable heroes of the time, the same could be said of Harley Quinn and in Welcome To Metropolis the evolution and revolution in red and blue continues unabated.
Harley Quinn: Welcome to Metropolis is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall