Harleen, the early days of Dr. Harleen Quinzel’s involvement with the Joker, is an intensely uncomfortable read.
Oh, in the second issue, there is a great appearance of Two-Face, and other villains are cameoed, but it’s really all Harleen and Joker. The setup of the imbalanced romance. The plotting, the encircling, the sowing of doubt. The sew and sew. Bob and weave. How the spider spins a trap before the beautiful Harleen can fly away.
It’s uncomfortably inevitable, I fear. But the going is so intricately choreographed, it’s like a macabre dance. A true tragedy in the making.
Superbly written and illustrated by Stjepan Sejic, this book is a tour-de-force in comic storytelling. Truly excellent.
DC Comics, Harleen #2, $7.99 for 66 pages of content. Black Label imprint, for Mature readers.
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