Harleen: A Masterclass Female Dystopia
The book starts off with an aspiring psychiatrist. The Wayne foundation grants her funding for her brilliant thesis on evil.
She becomes unhinged at Arkham. After interviewing numerous inmates, she fails to grasp all this insanity. She starts losing sleep.
Batman puts Joker back in Arkham. Harleen starts interviewing him and thinks he’s the best candidate for her research. She was extremely scared to interview him at first but at one point she just said f it and went on with it.
She spends a lot of time with Joker. She asks Batman why he doesn’t kill the Joker or other villains. With time she gets attracted to Joker. Meanwhile, DA Harvey Dent is heavily injured by Sal Maroni.
Harvey, or should I say Two-Face, initiates a movement of the executioners. Who decides to kill off the Arkham inmates. Meanwhile, psychologically deteriorating Harley imagines having sex with Joker. Batman understands that she is getting emotionally attached with the Joker and tries to warn her. She doesn’t listen.
All hell breaks loose at Arkham. Gordon is trying to get the situation at hand. Harleen gets inside to find Joker and save him.
Instead, she finds Two-Face who holds her accountable. The likes of her wanted criminals like Joker to be sent to Arkham instead of Blackgate, for study. But they failed to bring out any useful info, and the criminals avoided punishment.
Joker arrives at the scene. Defeats Two-Face in his game.
But now Bronson arrives. He’s a guy who has been very kind to Harleen from the very beginning. Bronson wants to kill Joker as Joker has killed many of his police friends. To save Joker, Harleen picks up Two-Face’s gun and shoots him in the head, killing this kind and pure human being for a vile and nefarious one. Corrupting her own soul for good. A deed dirty enough to make oneself completely lose all sanity.
Harleen was lonely and traumatized. Bronson showed her kindness, but so too did Joker. But Joker’s psychology was more interesting to her, whereas Bronson was just another regular guy.
Nevertheless, here comes the plot twist. Joker had read Harleen’s previous works. And he knew how to make her tick. Harleen was nothing more than a ticket to get out of Arkham for him. Joker used Harleen’s insecurity for unimaginably and extremely selfish gain. Harleen is thinking it’s alright as long as she is with Joker; but the thing is, she’s never with Joker. As Killer Croc said, it’s a Man-Eat-Man world.
But the one with the brawn isn’t the apex predator here, the master manipulator is. Joker is the most dangerous predator. Harleen, an almost successful psychiatrist destroys her whole life for a maniac like Joker.
The book explores the female need to have a soulmate. And the lengths they might go to achieve it. Wherever Harleen goes, there are predators. There’s a gentleman who is Batman, but he looks like a predator. Harleen ends up hooking up with the apex predator. If you look up some irl stories, you’ll find a lot of similar ones.
Nevertheless, this is probably the second best superhero female comic ever written. The art is majestic, writing is also brilliant.
