2. Harley Quinn #0 by Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti et al. (DC)
In anticipation of Harley's new monthly series starting next month, comes this special #0 issue featuring the art of 17 incredible artists, written by husband and wife team Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. Harley goes on a junk food binge, passes out, and goes into a sugary, booze-fuelled dream sequence where she's a rock star, a giant robot, in Thelma and Louise with Ivy, and multiple other outrageous scenarios. Conner and Palmiotti are the two voices in her head accompanying her chaotic journey as Harley breaks the fourth wall, interacting with the two writers and commenting on the artists drawing her, by name, as she decides on who'll be drawing her series! It's a great idea that keeps things lively and fresh, and I love that approach anyway (I'm a big Deadpool fan!). The comic is tremendous fun with simply incredible art throughout. Becky Cloonan's page is awesome with Harley as lead singer of her band, The Quinn Reapers, and I loved Walt Simonson's page where he makes her literally kill all of the artists who've drawn her before - with ninja stars! Jim Lee digitally tweaks some of his classic Batman panels, giving Harley an updated outfit and Harley even shows up in Art Baltazar's Tiny Titans. One of the best pages is Bruce Timm's where he re-imagines a famous scene from the classic comic he did with Paul Dini - Mad Love - as a stage play. You know the controversial scene - "Don'tcha wanna rev up your Harley?" - but she gets stage fright and forgets her lines. The reference is terrific (and if you've never read Mad Love, check it out, that book is one of the best Batman books of all time) and Timm's art is still as beautiful and iconic as ever. A while back, DC ran a competition for newcomer artists to illustrate a controversial panel of Harley committing suicide which was met with criticism by people who thought DC were making suicide appear less serious than it is - it should be noted that after all of that, DC didn't run the drawing in the end, despite making sense in the context of the issue. The scene is Harley explaining to Conner/Palmiotti that she's a part of Suicide Squad and Conner/Palmiotti, feigning ignorance, speculating on what that means.
I won't list every artist's page but I will say that Tradd Moore's Thelma and Louise page was great, as was Darwyn Cooke's, who works in the two authors into the story. The final page sets up Harley's story to follow in issue #1 next month, but this issue was an utter blast! Great fun, amazing art, all I can say is that I loved it and if this is an indicator of where the series proper is headed, DC have a monster hit on their hands. Check this one out, puddin'!