Is Harley Quinn Headed for a Joker-Less Life?
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a great film; it’s got enough style to put a modestly sized Hot Topic to shame, some killer action, and a great cast. I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope it gets the financial success it deserves because it’s easily a top 3 DCEU flick and a pleasant surprise to kick off 2020. There’s a lot to talk about in the film, but one quiet aside sticks out in relation to Harley and what the film is ultimately trying to do.
Note: this post contains spoilers for Birds of Prey and the subtitle I won’t be typing more than once.
The thrust of the film concerns Harley, freshly dumped by the Joker, and her choice to protect preteen pickpocket Cassandra Cain after the kid steals an important diamond from wannabe Gotham crime lord Black Mask. After doing some shoplifting, Harley hides Cass in her not terribly impressive apartment that contains, along with an impressive as hell looking CG hyena named Bruce, a drawing of Joker taped to the wall and several knives thrown at his face. And in a surprising moment, Cass walks over to it and asks who the man in question is.
Yeah, that’s right. Cassandra Cain has no clue who the Joker is. Even when Harley gives her a quick rundown of her former paramour, the kid couldn’t be less impressed. “Sounds like a dick,” she says before leaving to eat some cereal. It’s a minor moment in the grand scheme of the plot, but one that stands out all the same; all the adults in Gotham like Renee Montoya know Joker and Harley’s relationship to the point that Montoya says Harley more or less hit the “single” status on Facebook when she blows up the chemical plant where she was born. But for Cass, who can’t be more than like 12, tops, and presumably has lived in Gotham her whole life, it doesn’t really matter. And for her to know who Harley is, but have no knowledge of her new caretaker’s abusive ex, sort of makes Birds of Prey kind of interesting in relation to other Harley Quinn media.
Since she first showed up in Batman the Animated Series back in 1992, Harley’s always largely been defined by her relationship with the Joker and how abusive it was. Though fans noticed it for years, DC didn’t really make any sort of statement about said relationship until the line wide reboot that was the New 52 in 2011, where she was Joker-less headlining Suicide Squad alongside Deadshot. (She’s since gone on to be a lead character in the Suicide Squad comics going forward, in addition to her own solo books over the years.)
Various DC media have since taken steps of their own at changing their dynamic; Batman: Arkham City, released later that year, ended with Joker straight up dead and Harley now running his crew. Telltale’s short lived Batman games introduced a Harley in its second season who bossed around the man who was infatuated with her and would eventually become the Joker. DC Superhero Girls doesn’t mention the Clown at all, and Harley’s current DC Universe show shakes things up altogether by having her be the one who dumps him. Hell, Netherrealm’s Injustice franchise has turned Harley into a whole hero that’s earned Batman’s trust in the wake Joker’s death and can admit her past sins while beating up a hallucination of her old flame…and also dunking on Wonder Woman.
These various media are all different and have varying styles, creative teams, and voice talent, but they all have come to the same conclusion regarding Harley. She isn’t just the Joker’s ex-girlfriend anymore, she’s her own woman making her mark on the DC universe however she can, and he was just a speed bump on her journey. DC clearly isn’t in any hurry to put the two near each other again. The last time they were near each other, she beat the shit out of him. Joker’s got a new hench by the name of Punchline set to show up in the comics pretty soon, while Harley had her own girl gang in the comics after the 2016 Rebirth relaunch and is currently dating Poison Ivy.
My question then becomes, will WB and DC, at some point in the near future, choose to do away with the Joker connection entirely? Not so much pretend they never met one another, but to get rid of their “romantic” aspects of the relationship and have her maybe find a workaround so her story isn’t so tangled up in him and his bullshit as she was previously. In Birds of Prey, the Joker isn’t seen, and it’s likely he won’t show up again until the whole Batman corner of the DCEU is fully settled.
Birds of Prey is effectively a soft reboot of Harley Quinn as a character, one that excises her from the Joker completely after 2016’s Suicide Squad made her dependent on him, to mixed results. One can’t help but look at Harley now and think of Marvel’s Spider-Gwen, aka Gwen Stacy. In the comics, Gwen was killed in 1973 for basically being Peter Parker’s girlfriend, but turning an alternate version of her into a spider-hero in 2014’s Spider-Verse comic changed everything. Gwen was no longer “the girl who died for being a superhero’s girlfriend,” she was now a superhero in her own right, one who made the jump to Marvel TV and video games, landing with a big smash in 2018’s Spider-Verse movie and now headlining a movie of her own in the near future.
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for Harley this decade. I hope the film gets a long tail much like Spider-Verse, because it’s doing something different and with such courage that it’s hard to dislike. The film ends with her and Cass driving off and planning to start a business where they’re mercenaries or handywomen for hire. It’s an interesting future ahead for Harley with this movie and next year’s Suicide Squad, and I want to see that hypothetical franchise where she’s doing her own thing in all its confident, audacious, and trashy glory.
