Suicide Squad #15
Running with the Devil
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Last week was my first taste of Suicide Squad, and with a taste like that, I was eager to come back. Suicide Squad 14 might not have been the most substantive issue of all time, but it had atmosphere to spare and did a great job of making Joker the menacing ex-boyfriend. By the end of the last issue, Joker was ready to strangle the life out of Harley Quinn. Do the couple manage to reconcile their differences, or will the life finally go out of this romance?
In this issue, Joker and Harley come to blows as Waller watches the horror unfold through lenses implanted in Harley.
The Balance of Power
In an interview, Adam Glass, the writer of this series, said he was going to redress the balance of power between Joker and Harley in this issue, and for me, that has been the big draw of this comic. Though Joker and Harley have always made the perfect couple in the minds of many fans, their relationship has not really changed much throughout her inception except for a brief run of Harley Quinn’s ongoing series, but any character development that took place there seems to have been erased in more recent interpretations, so it would be nice to see Harley take back some power.
I do not want to give too much away, but talk about it in general terms, Harley does take back some power, but it lacks much of a punch on Harley’s end. In the end, Joker seems to still end up on top, but it does seem that Harley at least gave Joker something to consider. Joker hints that there is more to the role of Harley Quinn than Harleen Quinzel, and that is a concept rife with potential exploration.
Perplexed
There were some odd choices in this issue. Though it is clear that the Suicide Squad would take a back seat for this issue, they could have been a little more active. There were only about three pages that dealt with Waller’s Squad instead rather than Harley, and even in those few pages, the focus was still on Miss Quinzel. It is not as if there were no room for more story. There are several panels that take up entire pages which could have been condensed to a quarter of the space. It was just a waste of real estate as far as I am concerned.
If you are a fan of Suicide Squad but do not care about Death of the Family, you may as well sit this issue out.
Bat Droppings
It was nice to see Lou and Bud in the comics. I am not sure I have seen them since Batman: TAS.
Perhaps it worked for some, but the fight scene was somewhat undermined for me by the exchange of puns between Joker and Harley Quinn. I can see exchanging barbs if they were just beating each other, but I would think both of them would need to focus a little more in a life or death confrontation…at least on Harley’s end.
(Spoiler) The final panel raises some eyebrows as Deadshot takes a page from Poison Ivy’s playbook to have one of the shortest and least comprehendible resurrections of recent years.
Conclusion 7/10
This was an okay issue, but it did not live up to my hopes from the previous issue. Harley’s physical battle with Joker was just okay, but the emotional battle did land some blows. Still, it feels like they missed the opportunity to include a lot more in this issue, and I am not sure why there was so much space left unused. Regardless, this is worth your money if you are a Harley Quinn fan. If you are considering buying this for the Death of the Family, you should probably buy it, but you might want to flip through it in the store first.
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