10 Most Brutal Villain Beatdowns In All Of Comics
3. Harley Vs The Joker - Harley Quinn #25
A big deciding factor of who goes where on this list is how anticipated the beatdown is. And boy howdy has the comic reading public been waiting for Harley to give Joker the business end of her mallet ever since she first appeared.
When Harley falls for and starts dating an actually somewhat stable guy (comparatively speaking) named Mason, she decides to bust him out of prison when he gets busted. Unfortunately, who should be there but the Joker, ready to put his hooks right back into Harley.
It doesn't work out for him. At all.
Harley mocks him for thinking his mind games would actually work, tells him that she has completely broken his hold on her, and then beats him within an inch of his miserable misbegotten life. And she even complains that she's doing that much, because their relationship has been defined by pain, so she feels like she's undoing a lot of the progress she's made by giving into her violent instincts when she came here with the intent of rescuing someone she actually cares for. She ends the beating by saying that she's done with him, done with all of it, and goes to find Mason.
Tragic, beautiful, brutal, and human. Words that perfectly describe both Quinn and this scene in particular.