History Comicbook / HarleyQuinn

In 2021, the series was relaunched from #1 again, with Stephanie Phillips as writer and Riley Rossmo as main artist. In contrast to the previous couple of runs, this one was much more strongly tied in to the continuity of ''Batman''-related titles, continuing on from Harley's return to Gotham during the "[[ComicBook/TheJokerWar Joker War]]" event, and depicting her attempts to [[TheAtoner make up for her past actions]] and help redeem other people who fell under the Joker's influence.

* CerebusSyndrome: Takes over during the Rebirth half of the Conner/Palmiotti run -- it never loses the humour or the BloodyHilarious element, but the comic is increasingly taken over by a very long arc about Harley's conflict with the Mayor, who is no longer comically corrupt but [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope utterly evil]], and in the final issues features [[spoiler:one of Harley's love interests being brutally killed off, which leads to an entirely serious RoaringRampageOfRevenge]].

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** Rossmo's new design for Harley gives her playing-card-suit club and diamond tattoos on her shoulders.

* SpecialPersonNormalName: As Harley's sidekick and would-be hero in his own right, Kevin hasn't developed a costumed-character name yet, leading to various characters being underwhelmed when he introduces himself.

-->'''Harley (after Power Girl's soda cup is shot):''' Oh, ''no!'' Don't worry, we can get another cup. Heh, I said ''[[GagBoobs cup]]''.

* UnlimitedWardrobe: Harley's costumes vary a lot throughout the series. She's openly depicted as dressing to fit the theme of an adventure a few times, but often it just seems to be chance (for example, different issues by the same artist may depict her top as anything from a cropped gym singlet to a strapless bustier). They're always red and black, and usually involve BareYourMidriff and ZettaiRyouiki.

* SelfDeprecation: ** In #51-2, when Harley contacts Jonnie DC to report back about Captain Triumph, Jonni is locked into a room with several variants of Donna Troy, attempting to sort out her notorious [[ContinuitySnarl/DonnaTroy Continuity Snarl]].

* ImprovisedWeapon: In issue 3, to stop the love-crazy convicts that are after her, Harley breaks into a tool store to gear up. Her arsenal includes a weed whacker, [[AnAxeToGrind an axe]], [[NailEm a nail gun]], and a [[ExplodingBarrels propane tank]].

* DropTheHammer: Harley's WeaponOfChoice is a huge mallet.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* BikerBabe: Harley rides around in a [[VisualPun Harley Davidson]] and tends to wear a red and black biker jacket.

* ByronicHero: A rare female example. Harley drops a lot of her HeroicComedicSociopath schtick and reveals a deeper self-loathing over the things she did as The Joker's minion. She's intelligent, athletic, and conventionally attractive, but she's also ''extremely'' psychologically warped and damaged by her past relationships. She knows that she can never make up for the atrocities she helped him commit or all of the lives she helped destroy, but tries regardless because it's the only way she can live with herself. This vulnerability is what allows people, even someone like Batman, to take pity on her, and make her a tentative unofficial member of the extended Bat-Family.
** It's also one of the reasons she genuinely hates [[EvilCounterpart Punchline]], as she can't help but see a version of herself in Joker's new sidekick, but one with absolutely ''zero'' redemptive qualities.

* ByronicHero: A rare female example. Harley drops a lot of her HeroicComedicSociopath schtick and reveals a deeper self-loathing over the things she did as the Joker's minion. She knows that she can never make up for the atrocities she helped him commit or all of the lives she helped destroy, but tries regardless because it's the only way she can live with herself. This vulnerability is what allows people, even someone like Batman, to take pity on her, and make her a tentative unofficial member of the extended Bat-Family.

'''''Note: This isn't a character page.''''' This page is about Harley's various solo series and the tropes therein. For character tropes related to all appearances by Franchise/TheDCU incarnation of the character, see [[Characters/HarleyQuinnTheCharacter here]], or for her Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse live-action version [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/DCEUHarleyQuinn here]]. Or you can just [[SelfDemonstrating/HarleyQuinn ask her yourself]]. The original version can be found [[Characters/DCAUHarleyQuinn here]].

'''''Note: This isn't a character page.''''' This page is about Harley's various solo series and the tropes therein. For character tropes related to all appearances by Franchise/TheDCU incarnation of the character, see [[Characters/HarleyQuinnTheCharacter here]]. Or you can just [[SelfDemonstrating/HarleyQuinn ask her yourself]]. The original version can be found [[Characters/DCAUHarleyQuinn here]].

'''''Note: This isn't a character page.''''' This page is about Harley's various solo series and the tropes therein. For character tropes related to all appearances by Franchise/TheDCU incarnation of the character, see [[Characters/HarleyQuinn here]]. Or you can just [[SelfDemonstrating/HarleyQuinn ask her yourself]]. The original version can be found [[Characters/DCAUHarleyQuinn here]].

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Harley's encounter with Hugo Strange reveals that she has this to a degree, as a natural consequence of having been in sexual relationships with both [[MasterPoisoner the Joker]] and [[PoisonousPerson Ivy]].

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: Jonni DC, a "continuity cop" and personification of DC continuity.

* ArmedWithCanon:
** The controversy over Harley's New 52 costume redesign (which included some writers who preferred the old costume openly mocking the new one in their own comics) is alluded to in #21, where Harley has a run-in with a character impersonator on Hollywood Boulevard who is wearing her old costume. Harley says that she only wears that costume on "special occasions", and when the impersonator accuses her of making a [[YourCostumeNeedsWork complete mess]] of being Harley, Harley pistol-whips her.
** In the Black Label ''Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey'', Harley asks Huntress her opinion on two possible costumes, one of which is one of her usual costumes from the comics and the other of which is her costume from ''Film/SuicideSquad2016''. When Huntress picks the former, Harley approves.
** Also in that miniseries, Harley mocks Harley Sinn for believing that her heavy tattoos make her "interesting", which seems like a swipe at the depictions of both Harley and the Joker as heavily tattooed in the Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse.

* BookEnds: The first and last arcs of the Humphries run pit Harley against [[ComicBook/NewGods Granny Goodness]]. Despite the lack of obvious in-universe linkage, it's metaphorically appropriate to confront DC's highest-profile survivor of domestic abuse with DC's AnthropomorphicPersonification of child abuse.

* CerebusSyndrome: Takes over during the Rebirth half of the Conner/Palmiotti run -- it never loses the humour or the BloodyHilarious element, but the comic is increasingly taken over by a very long arc about Harley's conflict with the Mayor, who is no longer comically corrupt but [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope utterly evil]], and in the final issues features [[spoiler:one of Harley's love interests being brutally killed off, which leads to an entirely serious RoaringRampageOfRevenge]].
* ChainedHeat: In #57-8, Harley handcuffs herself to Batman as a token of her willingness to co-operate when they investigate a murder that somebody tried to frame her for.

* ContinuityNod: When trying to calm Captain Triumph down, Harley changes into her 1940s-style period costume from the ''DC Comics Bombshells'' crossover in ''Little Black Book''.

* CopsNeedTheVigilante: Chief of Police Spoonsdale moves from tolerating to actively helping Harley as the Mayor increasingly prevents him from fighting the crime that the corrupt mayor is actively involved in.
* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers of #35-6 (the Man-Bat arc) depict Man-Bat-transformed Harley as a CuteMonsterGirl with unchanged facial features. In the interior art, she's depicted with the usual Man-Bat design, including horrific bat head.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: At the end of the Gotham Legion of Doom arc, Condiment King decides to stay in Coney Island and go straight, after his hot-dog-seasoning abilities make him a legit local success.

* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler:As the climax of Harley's RoaringRampageOfRevenge after Mason is killed, the Mayor wakes up in bed with Madison's severed head placed upright between his legs. And yes, Harley probably did mean the obvious symbolism.]]

* TheFutureIsShocking: Obscure Golden Age hero Captain Triumph gets accidentally transported to Harley's era and doesn't deal with it well.

* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Happens when Harley's friends try to subdue her after she becomes a Man-Bat. It doesn't work until [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Francine attacks them]] and arouses her protective instincts.

* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: In the Tieri run, Harley cuts herself off from her friends after Mason's murder makes her think that she's a DoomMagnet. [[spoiler:It's made much worse by Hugo Strange messing with her head.]]
* JennysNumber: Mason Macabre is Prisoner 8675309.

* JunglePrincess: Harley is so upset by her mother's funeral that she retreats to the volcanic island that appeared just of Brooklyn in an earlier issue to play Jungle Princess games.
* KillThePoor: The overarching plot-arc of the Rebirth era has Harley fighting a corrupt mayor of New York, with her pivotal ThisIsUnforgivable moment being when he (it was his second-in-command's idea initially, but he loved it when he heard) hires a South American cannibal cult to "clean the streets" by killing and eating the city's homeless people.

* LegionOfDoom: The first major arc of the Tieri run has the Penguin, still holding a grudge after his confrontation with Harley early in the Rebirth era, inviting every Gotham villain to cause havoc in Coney Island.
* LifeWillKillYou: A major subplot of the Humphries run is Harley's mother dying from cancer, which Harley doesn't react well to.

* MagicKiss: When Harley is dosed with fear gas by Scarecrow, Ivy snaps her out of it with a kiss, powered partly by love and partly by a buttload of oppositely-mind-altering substances.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The cannibal cult laughingly deny being vampires, and they don't show any unambiguous inhuman powers, but they have a very creepy appearance and are very strong.

** In ''Old Lady Harley'', when Harley and her friends visit Lobo's casino in Las Vegas, Harley and Selina are irritated to see exotic dancers dressed in even sexier versions of their costumes. The costumes are based on those that were given to Harley in ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'' and the Patience Phillips Catwoman in ''Film/Catwoman2004''.

* PerfectlyCromulentWord: Harley loves these too. Only in the first page of the ''Rebirth''-branded Issue 4 we have "destructavated" and "vacationating".

* RealityBreakingParadox: The concept of issue #50, caused by Harley reading a {{Doujinshi}} about herself.
* RecursiveCanon: Within this comic, Harley's participation in the ComicBook/DCYearOfTheVillain event is fanfiction about Harley by Meredith Clutterbuck, which includes considerable metafictional debate on whether crossover events are a good or bad thing.

* {{Retool}}: The Humphries run, while not entirely dropping Harley's Coney Island community, features a lot more interactions with the wider DC universe. While the comic issue numbering continued unchanged, the numbering of the [=TPBs=] began at one again.

* SadClown: The ongoing theme of Humphries' run on the title is that Harley's chaotic, thrill-seeking lifestyle and "I'm mad, me" posturing is a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with her very real emotional problems and the darkness of her past, which is beginning to break down. It's unclear if this was planned, but it acts as a plausible transition from the pure black comedy of the Conner-Palmiotti issues to Harley's characterisation in the [[ComicBook/TheJokerWar Joker War]] crossover event and her subsequent relaunched comic spinning off from it.

* SeeksAnothersResurrection: After being made an angel by the Lords of Order and Chaos, Harley tries to force them to resurrect her mother, which fails when her mother doesn't want it.

** In #51-2, when Harley contacts Jonnie DC to report back about Captain Triumph, Jonni is locked into a room with several variants of Donna Troy, attempting to sort out her notorious [[ContinuitySnarl/DonnaTroy Continuity Snarl]].

** An issue in which Harley starts to turn into a giant ant is titled "[[Literature/TheMetamorphosis Metamorphosis]]".

* StalkerWithACrush: During the Humphries run, [[spoiler:Lord Death Man]] develops a crush on her.

* TargetedToHurtTheHero: [[spoiler:In the final Conner/Palmiotti arc, Mason Macabre, Harley's love interest throughout the series, gets his head blown off in front of her by the Mayor in an attempt to intimidate her. She doesn't take it well.]]

* TruerToTheText: Inverted case in ''Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey''. Ostensibly a spin-off from the ''Film/BirdsOfPrey2020'' film, the title's characters are more accurate to their original comic versions instead of the movie's. Harley is the same as from her ''Rebirth'' solo comics, ComicBook/BlackCanary is the traditional blue-eyed-blond white woman, Cassandra Cain is more like her Orphan identity but still mute like back when she first debuted and then was the new ComicBook/{{Batgirl}}, and [[Comicbook/{{Huntress}} Helena Bertinelli]] is a composite of both her pre-''New 52'' and ''Rebirth'' versions, while Renee Montoya is a composite of her [[ComicBook/GothamCentral comic]] and movie versions.
** Issue #2 includes a guest appearance by the original founder of the comics' Birds of Prey herself, [[ComicBook/{{Oracle}} Barbara Gordon]], who wasn't in the movie. Instead of being Oracle, though, she's Batgirl but is out of action due to a broken leg (accident).

* WellDoneSonGuy: Minor Disaster is obsessed with getting her supervillain father Major Disaster to acknowledge her. She finally accepts that he's just an asshole.

** #42 and the subsequent ''Old Lady Harley'' miniseries parody TheApunkalypse in general, but specifically ''Film/MadMax'' (especially ''Fury Road'' in #42 and ''Beyond Thunderdome'' in the miniseries) and Marvel's ''Old Man...'' BadFuture stories.

In 2021, the series was relaunched from #1 again, with Stephanie Phillips as writer and Riley Rossmo as main artist. In contrast to the previous couple of runs, this one was much more strongly tied in to the continuity of ''Batman''-related titles, continuing on from Harley's return to Gotham during the "[[ComicBook/TheJokerWar Joker War]]" event, and depicting her attempts to [[TheAtoner make up for her past actions]] while clashing with her new EvilCounterpart Punchline.

[[folder:Pre-New 52 series]]

[[folder:New 52/Rebirth series]]

** Vol.3 #69 features barely-camouflaged versions of the Advertising/McDonaldland characters (Hambezzler, Clown [=McCrown=], etc.).

* ColorCodedCharacters: The Gang of Harleys in their mini and Vol. 3.

* EpisodeOfTheDead: Volume 3 starts with Coney Island invaded by zombies. Their origin? An alien named Vertigax crash-landing on a farm and disguising himself as a cow, who accidentally gets butchered. After the meat-processing, we see that Vertigax has been shipped all over as various meat products (particularly Coney Island hot dogs), contaminating everyone who eats him. This, naturally, results in zombies.

* MyEyesAreUpHere:
** In Issue 5 of Volume 3, Harley says this to the Police Chief that is distracted from her legs.
** In Issue 8 of Volume 3, it's Sy's turn to say this to Harley when she meets him at a nudist colony.

** Vol. 3 issue 8 opens with a dream sequence featuring Harley in her original costume.

** In vol. 3 issue 7, Harley is in a superhero-themed BDSM sex club and, on spotting a girl doing a sexy routine with a trapeze bar in a cage, says that she did that once and it was fun, a reference to a WorkoutFanservice scene from ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'' that became notorious through its heavy appearance in the trailers.
** In vol. 3 issue 12, there's a kinda-sorta dream sequence going over the Joker and Harley's history that includes ''Mad Love'', with Harley in her original costume.

** Issue #2 of Volume 3. The green alien that became a cow (and caused a ZombieApocalypse) is a reference to a famous ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story with the Skrulls hypnotised and turned into cows.
** In Volume 3 #5, when Harley first sees herself in the mirror after having her hair styled as a mohican, she exclaims "Holee Wendy O-lee!", a reference to the USA's most famous female mohican-wearer, Wendy O. Williams, lead singer of the band Music/ThePlasmatics.
** In Volume 3 #33, Mason's crates of valuables include one labelled ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' 28, a reference to the famous and extremely collectible issue that introduces the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica to Silver Age DC, and recurring DC universe villain Starro the Conqueror.

* ShowerScene: Several with Harley. Issue 3 of Volume 3 has also Ivy take a shower with her.

** Vol. 3 issue 4 sees Harley going on a crusade against call center scams.
** Vol. 3 #56 is a gigantic parody of the "Gamergate"/"Rabid Puppies"/"Comicsgate" type of misogynist right-wing geek, as Harley attracts the attention of a group of fanatical MRA pet keepers.

** In v3 #6, Tony asks Edgar what he is. Edgar tells him about his upbringing, but not about what he actually is. (He apparently has parents, so there's that.)

* WakeUpFighting:
** In ''Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con International San Diego'', Harley falls asleep beside the hotel pool. When a waiter shakes her awake, she wakes up yelling "Hit! Hit! Hit!" and punches the poor guy.
** At the beginning of volume 3 issue #8, Harley reflexively throws a knife at Eggsy when he wakes her up, killing him. Fortunately it turns out to be a nightmare.

[[folder:Post-"Joker War" series]]
* ByronicHero: A rare female example. Harley drops a lot of her HeroicComedicSociopath schtick and reveals a deeper self-loathing over the things she did as the Joker's minion. She knows that she can never make up for the atrocities she helped him commit or all of the lives she helped destroy, but tries regardless because it's the only way she can live with herself. This vulnerability is what allows people, even someone like Batman, to take pity on her, and make her a tentative unofficial member of the extended Bat-Family.
** It's also one of the reasons she genuinely hates [[EvilCounterpart Punchline]], as she can't help but see a version of herself in Joker's new sidekick, but one with absolutely ''zero'' redemptive qualities.
* {{Retool}}: The series, after some years, brings Harley back to Gotham and is far more closely aligned with ''Batman'' and general DC continuity.
* TamerAndChaster: Harley's new costume designed by Rossmo is basically a tank top and tight full-length pants, in contrast to the extremely revealing costumes that she's been notorious for since the New 52 era. (Although [[DependingOnTheArtist some artists other than Rossmo]] draw it with a ''lot'' of cleavage.)