8 Things DC Want You To Forget About Harley Quinn

1. Her New 52 Origin

Harley Quinn New 52 Origin
DC Comics

Until 2011 - when the aforementioned New 52 relaunched DC continuity for the worse - Harley's origin was set in stone, for the most part. It followed on from her roots in BTAS, with the story of a psychologist falling for Gotham's most notorious criminal and becoming his righthand woman proving to be the origin of choice.

While the Joker's deception in manipulating Quinzel to break him out of Arkham continues to be the best Harley origin going, the New 52 opted to spice things up, conjuring a very literal transformation for Harley instead of the more believable and better known one produced years before.

In this newer origin - imitated in last year's Suicide Squad film - the Joker launches Harley into the same chemical bath that, ostensibly, changed him. It's a very on the nose change, and takes away the agency the doctor had in her original origin story, further eroding the significance of the very real and very harmful aspects of her relationship with the Joker.

Here, she's more Joker, less Harley. It doesn't work.

-

What do you think of Harley's most recent changes? Are you a fan? Let us know in the comments below!

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.