Comic Book / Harley Quinn (New 52)

New 52 School.

Harley Quinn is a Comic Book that started in January 2014 and featuring Harley Quinn. Written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Chad Hardinwith, it is part of DC’s Rebirth line.

The series ran for 31 issues from January 2014 to September 2016, and had a number of specials. The series follows Harley and her antics on Coney Island after she inherits an apartment complex there.

The series it got a Spin-Off miniseries by Palmiotti, Conner, and Justin Gray, Harley Quinn/Power Girl, recounting a lost adventure set during the duo's partnership in the main series, featuring Vartox of Power Girl fame. In December of the same year, DC launched a second spin-off miniseries called Harley's Little Black Book, by Palmiotti and Conner, a The Brave and the Bold-style Team-Up Series that features Harley partnering with a different DC hero or villain in each issue. In April 2016, it got a third spin-off, the miniseries Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys, written by Palmiotti and Frank Tieri.

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Harley Quinn (New 52) provides examples of:

• Accidental Innuendo: Bernie, Harley's taxidermy beaver, is subject to this in-universe, such as when Harley asks Ivy if she wants to "meet [her] beaver", which Ivy misinterprets sexually before seeing what Bernie is.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Poison Ivy spends most of Issue 7 being exasperated at Harley, but she lets out a brief laugh after Harley says the assassin ripped in half by a fence "went Splitsville".
• All Just a Dream: Most of issue 0 takes place in a dream Harley is having after wishing for her own comic. It's a very crazy dream where she talks with the comic's writers and holds auditions for artists to draw her comic.
• All There in the Manual: The fifth graphic novel collection, The Joker's Last Laugh, has a bonus story, "Be Careful What You Wish For", which introduces ex-genie Jimm Salabim.
• Alter Kocker: Sy Borgman is an old man who speaks Yiddish almost every time he opens his mouth.
• Alternate Self:
  • The Power Girl who shows up in the series is the Kara from Conner's pre-Flashpoint series, not the New 52 Kara, saying in Harley Quinn/Power Girl that she's the sole survivor of her timeline and had that whole Earth-2 thing happen. How she ended up crashlanding near Harley is left mysterious.
  • Harley meets her own alternate self when she visits the Bombshells world in Little Black Book #4, which has... unexpected consequences.
• Anti-Hero: Harley doesn't try to cause trouble, it just happens, and she enforces justice in her own way, like freeing a neglected dog and punishing the owner, and rescuing an old woman who was robbed and giving her some money despite her own day going wrong in every way possible.
• Armed with Canon: 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 complete mess of being Harley, Harley pistol-whips her.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Almost literally. The criminals on the van in Issue 3 are an arsonist, eight murderers, two mass murderers, two serial killers, and a pervert.
• Art Shift: In issue 0, Harley realizes that she needs an artist to draw her comic. The writers give her seventeen to choose from. Artists include Amanda Conner, Jim Lee, Bruce Timm, and Art Baltazar. In the end, she settles on Chad Hardin as her artist.
  Harley: Seventeen artists to tell me how good I look? Eat your heart out, Pud'n!
• Ascended Fangirl: The first issue of Harley's Little Black Book reveals that Harley is a huge Wonder Woman fan, and in the book Harley gets to team up with her.
• Asshole Victim: 99 percent of the people Harley kills are other crooks and hitmen trying to kill her. animal abusers, and other horrible people. The only real exception is in #20 where the airport loses her luggage and the clerk is uncooperative, so Harley kills her and stuffs her in a suitcase.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Happens to Harley a lot. In one issue she plans to break into Arkham to rescue Ivy, but is distracted by the pizza in the restaurant she parachutes into.
• Author Avatar: In issue 0, the comic's writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, appear to Harley as disembodied voices. Jimmy's speech balloon is blue and Amanda's is green. They appear in person in Darwyn Cooke's segment.
• Bachelor Auction: In the Harley Quinn Valentine's Day Special #1, Bruce Wayne is New York for a charity bachelor auction, and Harley decides she has to be the one to win a dream date with The DCU's most eligible bachelor.
• Badass Biker: Harley rides around in a Harley Davidson and tends to wear a red and black biker jacket.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Issue 2 opens up with Harley back together with the Joker, but it turns out that it was just a wax statue of him.
  • Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (2019) #6 reveals that, back in #2, Harley unknowingly carried off and drove away with an exact double of Ivy that the real Ivy accidentally created in #1, and Ivy was the one hunting down the two of them all along.
  • In number 16, theres a scene where Harley and Ivy are at a movie and Harley is loudly talking during it. The two people sitting behind her are understandably annoyed and tell her to shut up. She turns around, looks like she is about to punch them.. only to smile and politely say she's sorry and didn't realize her voice was so loud. Even better, Ivy points out after that Harley seems to be learning to control her temper better.
• Beautiful Dreamer: In issue 2, Ivy wakes up in bed with a sleeping Harley surrounded by several cuddly cats and dogs. She says "Aww…my cute little psycho" and kisses Harley's cheek before wandering off.
• Benevolent Boss: This version of Harley is actually pretty nice to her followers (some of whom are more than just followers.)
• Big-Breast Pride: In #22, Harley is briefing the Gang of Harleys when she notices that Harley Queen is topless. She asks Queen why, and Queen replies:
  "Number one, just look at these! Number two... Well, just look at 'em!"
• Big Damn Heroes: Big Tony shoots a hitwoman that was sneaking up on Harley while she was relaxing.
• Big Eater: This Harley sure can stuff her face.
  Nate (the hot dog stand guy): When you eat that much, where does it all go?
  Harley: Ha! You'll figure it out when I walk away from here.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  • Dan DiDio shows up in the Comic-Con special, where among other things he mentions that the next New 52 September event will have 4-D covers - basically 3-D, with the 4th D standing for DiDio, as he'll be in the background of every issue - that involved mining one of the most remote places on Earth and melting part of the South Pole in the process, and that DC will be launching a line with no editors to overlook the content which they don't expect to sell at all, so they're giving them a low print run.
  • Harley's comic faces rejection at Comic-Con because DC isn't looking for anything new or original.
  • In #8, Harley launches a barrage of dog poop with the Scatapult at the DC office, where a "Gnu 52" reboot (where a villain forces Zatanna to turn everyone into antelope and wildebeest) is being pitched by DiDio. You can also see Jim Lee and Geoff Johns there.
  • The name of the boss demon in Harley's Little Black Book #3 is Nad Oidid.
• Black Comedy: A good deal of the book is focused on this, but the crowning example has to be when Ivy and Harley are betting on which side of a fence a corpse stuck on it will fall on. They also use scientific analysis to justify their predictions. As it turns out, the body splits in half and falls on both sides, making both correct.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Harley has a twisted sense of right and wrong. When she sees a dog getting neglected by his owner, she frees the dog and drags the owner by her motorcycle.
• Blood Knight: She really likes fighting, in particular melee combat with blunt instruments. Even when "off-duty" she loves full contact sports like boxing and roller derby.
• Bondage Is Bad: Harley seems to be a fan of this, both as the dominant and the submissive. To give an obvious example, one issue starts with her waking up in her rather messy apartment with last night's date behind her, duct-taped to the wall; two pages later, she sees a patient dressed in a gimp outfit (her treatment consists of "integral psychotherapy" through "introspection and dissection", a fancy way of saying she hogties him). Unfortunately, this leads to a horrific nightmare where she's in bed with Mason, who turns into "Mistuh Jay" mid-embrace.
• Bound and Gagged: The comic has had a heavy emphasis on ballgags, with Harley using one to gag a victim at least once per issue as they have progressed. Harley herself was bound and gagged in the first issue of Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys.
• The Boxing Episode: In Harley's Little Black Book #5 Harley and Superman square off in the boxing ring in a story that's an homage/parody of the famous Superman vs Muhammad Ali comic.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Issue 0 has Harley and the writers breaking the fourth wall so much, it'll give Deadpool a run for his money. The end of the issue has them swear they'll stop breaking the fourth wall by issue 1. (That doesn't stop them jumping up and down on the pieces of the wall later on, though.)
  • At the end of Harley's Little Black Book 2, Harley kisses Hal Jordan and squeezes his butt. Why? She's seen this on the cover.
• Brick Joke:
  • In Issue 0, Harley likes artist Stephane Roux's art and says she'll have him draw half of issue 2. He does.
  • At the end of Issue 3, Harley throws an aphrodisiac plant Ivy gave her out of her window, after she suffered some Love Potion shenanigans because of it, and it lands in the sea lion pool at the zoo. Many issues later, there's a newspaper headline about a sea lion baby boom.
  • In the annual, Harley fantasizes about being Godzilla when hurtling across New York city via catapult. The mass hallucination she induces later includes a scene of Harley as Godzilla.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While Harley may be crazy and has an unusual appearance, she's still a licensed psychiatrist, and manages to secure a job as a therapist. Subverted in that her appearance is never noticed by others, and that she dresses up as Harleen for her job.
• The Bus Came Back: Captain Horatio Strong, an obscure character from the '70s Superman comics.
• Calacas: Harley Sinn has facial tattoos in a calaca design.
• Call-Back: In the Comic-Con special, Harley's got a score to settle with Amanda and Jimmy from back in issue #0. (Yes, that was a dream. Harley's relationship with the fourth wall appears to be just as quirky as everything else in her life.)
• The Cameo:
  • Mr. Mind shows up in the first page of Harley Quinn/Power Girl #1... only to be puked on by a motion-sick Harley.
  • Harley Quinn/Power Girl #3 has Grant Morrison pop up in the middle of a Mushroom Samba. Which is fitting, considering.
  • Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen show up for two pages in the Road Trip Special, tying into the Bizarro miniseries.
  • Little Black Book #2 has a guest appearance from Geoff Johns as a Green Lantern fanboy bidding against Harley for a real GL ring.
  • Issue 30 features cameos from numerous DC characters in Harley's dream, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Suicide Squad, several Bat-villains, and several of Conner's previous characters (Power Girl, Starfire, Terra).
• Captain Ersatz:
  • Captain Horatio Strong is the DC version of Popeye.
  • Harley faces a talkative and crazy mercenary in a full red and black suit called Red Tool. Sounds familiar, eh?
  • The first three issues of Harley's Little Black Book include a British superhero called Pub Crawler, who uses his alcohol-induced bodily secretions to fight crime. As such he's a combination of a Spider-Man parody with the Viz Drunken Master Deconstructive Parody superhero Brown Bottle.
• Captain Ethnic: Intentionally invoked with the Gang of Harleys. The Jewish member is dubbed Hanuquin, while the Indian member is dubbed Bolly Quinn. Averted with Harley Queens. She's Chinese-American, but Harley chose to give her a name that reflects the fact that she lives in Queens, rather than anything pertaining to her ethnicity.
• Carry a Big Stick: Harley's preferred weapon is a huge mallet.
• Carnival of Killers: The $2 million bounty placed on Harley's head brings a veritable army of hired killers out the woodwork looking to claim it.
• The Casanova: Big Tony claims to have a lot of devotees.
• Catchphrase: Harley very frequently says "Holee [awful rhyme fitting the situation]" (emphasis on the ho), such as "Holee Tracheotomolee!" when she throws a knife into a would-be assassin's throat.
  • Harley also says several variations on "I think I died and went to Heaven!"
  • Also "Whoopsie daisies!" whenever she screws up.
• Clark Kenting: Harley tries to give an amnesiac Power Girl a secret identity by way of this. Remedied by adding a ponytail.
  Power Girl: (about the glasses-only disguise) You must think I'm an idiot. Only a moron couldn't tell the difference.
• Cleavage Window: Harley puts a diamond-shaped one on her superhero costume, and another one above her backside.
• Cliffhanger: Subverted in issue 4. Harley and Sy get caught in an explosion. The ending narration starts off with the typical "Will they survive?" thing before admitting that of course they'll live.
• Comic-Book Time: Harley was a huge fan of Wonder Woman when she was a little girl...which makes no sense given the timeline. Given this series, the discrepancy was almost certainly intentional.
• Companion Cube: Bernie, Harley's stuffed beaver, whom she also imagines speaking. He's pretty snarky.
• Continuity Snarl: The series doesn't even attempt to explain how Harley's life and adventures in Brooklyn fit in with her situation in the simultaneously-published Suicide Squad, although a couple of jokes lampshade the issue.
• Cool Old Guy: Sy Borgman, retired bioaugmented secret agent who can still inflict damage from his invalid scooter and ends up as a sort of surrogate uncle to Harley.
• Cut and Paste Comic: The same panel is reused three times when Harley and Ivy are looking out the window and making the aforementioned bet. In Issue 4, the art is mostly reused for both times Harley drives away (after knocking down the opposing roller derby team, and after releasing the Rubenstein family.)
• Cute and Psycho: Harley, as usual. Acknowledged when Poison Ivy calls a sleeping Harley "my cute little psycho".
• Cuteness Overload: Harley when faced with an alien hydra in Harley Quinn/Power Girl #1.
• Daydream Surprise: In #14, Harley's been having a really crappy day, but things are finally starting to look up for her... then she gets a nasty Joker-flavored surprise and wakes up.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bernie, pretty much every time his voice issues out into Harley's mind.
  • Ivy, although her snark isn't nearly as venomous as before the New 52:
  Harley: Is everyone as excited as I am?
  Ivy: No. It's not possible.
  • Santa here, after removing a humbug from Harley's ear:
  Harley: That... That itty-bitty thing is what drove me insane?
  Santa: Something tells me you had a pretty good head start.
• Defecting for Love: Zena changes sides for Sy.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • While she's drawn by several artists in issue 0, the colors of her clothes and hair alternate between "red and black" or "red and blue". Her permanent artist goes for the red and black colors.
  • Whenever Amanda Conner herself draws Harley on covers and occasionally inside, she seems to be either wearing pink blusher on her cheekbones, or to have some natural color there. The other artists on the series all draw her with her normal dead white skin.
• Destructo-Nookie: Harley, Ivy and Catwoman spend a wild night together at a hotel. The next morning, the bed is destroyed and there are claw marks on the wall.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: The first issue of Harley's Little Black Book includes a British costumed villain called the Barmy Bugger, which is yet another example of how US writers aren't aware of how offensive and insulting the word "bugger" actually is in British English — it's not something that even a villain would voluntarily call themselves^note  In U.S. lingo, calling yourself "Barmy Bugger" would be like someone calling themselves "Crazy Butt-Fucker".
• Different World, Different Movies:
  • Averted in issue #0. The comics Harley is reading are all from DC Comics' New 52. Near the end, she picks up a comic, not realizing that it's her own. If you look closely, you can see that it foreshadows how issue #0 will end.
  • Harley's Dream Sequence in issue #30 has her going to see The Kill Yourself Crew.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Harley tends to go overboard when it comes to people she thinks are bad. Even merely rude people are demmed worthy of murder.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Miz Diangelis takes a wooden spoon to her teenage daughters for lying about their age to join Harley's gang. Subverted a few issues later when Harley advises a client against beating her rebellious daughter, reasoning that "a good old-fashioned beating" would only alienate her further in her current state.
• Double Entendre: A good helping of it, mainly coming from Harley. Complete with That's What She Said.
• Easter Egg: In Issue 7, a rather creepy grinning face can be seen under Harley's bed.
• Egg Folk: Eggsy is for unknown reasons a sentient egg in power armor.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: After being abducted and knocked out by Red Tool, Harley wakes up with a red hammer and Red Tool's phone number tattooed on her ass. Harley, needless to say, is pissed at this turn of events.
• Episode Zero: The Beginning: The series starts off on issue #0 with Harley choosing which artist to draw her comic. It also has her getting some property in Coney Island where the series will take place.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • In the first issue, Harley drags a man behind her motorcycle after she catches him hurting a dog.
  • In issue #4, Harley kidnaps a family that she believes is neglecting their grandmother. Just as she's about to drown the Bound and Gagged hostages, she learns that the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding, and releases them.
• Even the Girls Want Her: After watching Harley (non-fatally) mow down a group of rival derby girls with her car, one of her teammates remarks "Wow. That was kinda hot."
• Even the Guys Want Him: Both the male and female news reporters confess a desire to go on the auctioned date with Bruce Wayne.
• Fanservice: Harley dresses quite revealingly and gets a lot of male gaze, as do several of the other regular female characters, and there's a lot of mildly erotic sex humour. Taken to an extreme in the "Gotham City Sirens reunion" Road Trip special, which was criticized by some reviewers for being very little but fanservice.
• Fight Club: After being rapidly banned from her initial roller derby league for being too violent, Harley gets recruited to a "skate club" that is an illegal no-rules fight club on roller skates. And we mean "no rules" — Harley has even been known to accidentally kill or maim members of the audience with no consequences.
• Flash Forward: The Futures End tie-in, as part of the theme for the New 52 comics that month, flashes five years ahead to feature Harley meeting up with the Joker on a desert island (and dropping hints as to what's about to happen in the present day).
• Friend to All Living Things: Harley goes so far as to volunteer her time at a pet shelter on Christmas, then breaks into a home to make sure the owners aren't mistreating an adopted dog.
• Funetik Aksent: Harley's Brooklyn accent (although it's rather inconsistent), and several of the Russian bad guys fought by Harley and Sy.
• Gang of Hats: Harley creates a gang who all dress like her in order to help her fight crime and organise her life.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: The burlesque play in issue 9 where Queenie kisses Harley gets a very positive reaction from the crowd.
• Handicapped Badass: This series introduces several new ones to the DCU. Sy Borgman and the blind Coach of the Gang of Harleys are prime examples of this trope.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Red Tool initially behaves in a very creepy Stalker with a Crush way towards Harley, but she forgives him, accepts him into her circle of friends, and is implied to occasionally sleep with him.
  • Harley Sinn is the villain of the Gang of Harleys miniseries, but after getting released from Arkham becomes part of her crew.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Harley does this a lot.
  Harley (after Power Girl's soda cup is shot): Oh, no! Don't worry, we can get another cup. Heh, I said cup.
  Harley (after Manos calls for his pipe organ): HA! He said Cosmic Organ.
• Hired Guns: Harley has to deal with all sorts of mercenaries and bounty hunters since she has a bounty on her head worth over $2 million.
• Humongous Mecha: In issue 29 Harley fights a man with both using giant transforming mecha.
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: In Harley's fight with Captain Strong, he gives a Hurricane of Euphemisms for defecation, she responds with one for vomiting.
• Hypocritical Humor: Harley points out the obvious case of Steven Ulysses Perhero surrounding Sy Borgman's name. Never mind that her own name is Harleen Quinzel.
• I Call It "Vera": In #5, we learn that Harley calls that huge hammer "Beatrice." "She never runs out of bullets."
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Harley Sinn has her secret hideout on the Island of Horrible Death. Presumably she named the place herself.
• I See Dead People: According to Harley's Little Black Book #3, Harley's been able to see ghosts at least since medical school. Zatanna has no idea why.
• I Take Offence to That Last One: In Harley's Little Black Book #5, an alien conqueror tells Big Tony "Quiet, whimpering maggot!". Tony replies:
  "What? I don't whimper!"
• Imagine the Audience Naked: In #0, Harley finds herself dreaming that she is performing in front of an audience of comic book fans. She forgets her lines and tries to remember this piece of advice, but gets confused as to whether she is supposed to imagine the audience naked or herself naked. Ultimately she imagines herself naked and starts belting out her lines, only the dream changes so she is now in church.
• Improbable Weapon User: At one point, Harley uses some linked model trains as a whip.
• Improvised Weapon: 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, an axe, a nail gun, and a propane tank.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Summer absolutely loves how brutal Harley can get in the roller derby - and out too, as seen by her reaction when Harley takes her car and runs over a rival team who had just defeated the Bruisers in her absence in #4. The others are pretty horrified, but Summer thinks it was "kinda hot".
• Ironic Nickname: One of Harley's tenants is a short guy named Big Tony.
• Irony: Before her chemical bath (and, technically, before the New 52), Harleen had to wear makeup to become Harley. Now, Harley has to wear makeup to become Harleen for a job.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight, Harley has a surprisingly good heart. In addition to being an extreme Animal Lover, she seems to be given to whims of kindness in general, even (occasionally) to superheroes and other people who are techincally her enemies. This version of her also has a civilian identity where she is still a psychiatrist, and she really does seem to care about her patients.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Issue 30, the last before the DC Rebirth relaunch, is something of a commentary on Rebirth, with Harley refusing to let things be changed and standing up for the past, and Ivy finding a solution that combines the best of both worlds, in line with Rebirth's intended ethos.
• Lighter and Softer: Than most of the other books in the New 52, which tended to be very serious, despite this one having a lot of death and even some gore.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted, as she's shown to have different outfits, most of them in the red and black jester-themed pattern she's known for. She wonders how Superman can wear the same thing all the time.
• Loony Fan/Stalker with a Crush: Harley discovers she has one in issue 9. She sympathises, thanks to her own obsessive issues... and manages to persuade him to get some therapy. But later the Joker manages to get in touch with the guy and things go way down south...
• Loves My Alter Ego: According to the Valentine's Day Special, Harley prefers Bruce Wayne over Batman, particularly when it comes to kissing (Bruce doesn't reciprocate).
• Male Gaze: There are many panels in the series focused squarely on Harley's butt.
  • Issue 13 has one panel which is just the backside of her Power Girl outfit showing off the outfit's butt window.
  • Issue 26 has a panel where her butt is dead center as a leering guy with a metal detector makes an unwelcome comment about it as she walks by.
  • Issue 29 takes it up a level, with a panel focused on the butt of a Transforming Mecha in Harley's image.
• Match Cut: A scene transitions from an imminent decapitation to a meatball falling on a diner floor.
• Meaningful Name: Sy Borgman, also known as Syborg, got cybernetic limbs at some point in his life.
• Miranda Rights: Spoofed in #9 because Harley won't shut up about its terms (and even throws in a reference to Daredevil at the lawyer part).
• Ms. Fanservice: Even more than the pre-New 52 version. She often is half-naked and object of Male Gaze.
  • In Little Black Book #6 she actually has a whole fight scene battling a monster fully naked. The naughty bits are censored of course, but just barely.
• Mugged for Disguise: The first issue of Harley's Little Black Book has Harley knocking Wonder Woman unconscious so she can steal her costume.
• Mugging the Monster: Parodied in the Gang of Harleys miniseries, when one of Harley Sinn's Psychos for Hire minions stumbles across a group of homeless men in an alley and pretends to think that they're trying to mug him, so that he can kill them for fun. Harlem Harley intervenes before he can harm anyone.
• Mushroom Samba:
  • Many issues of the comic involve Harley getting dosed with something and having weird hallucinations. Comes from being... close friends... with Poison Ivy.
  • A good portion of Issue 3 of Harley Quinn/Power Girl ends up turning into some weird version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Issue 0 has a few.
    • Harley notices that Jim Lee's page is a remake of a scene from Batman: Hush, except that this time, she beats Batman.
    • Harley references her time in the Suicide Squad, which is misinterpreted by the artist.
    • Bruce Timm's page not only has Harley in her Batman: The Animated Series costume, but she also does a theater version of her "Rev up your Harley" scene where she forgets her lines.
    • Harley's original costume also appears in a portrait of her in Art Baltazar's page.
    • When Amanda Conner appears in person, she's wearing a Cleavage Window dress in reference to her previous comic, Power Girl. She can also kick butt like Power Girl, as she demonstrates on Harley.
  • Issue 1 has Harley's pre-New 52 headwear sitting on top of her luggage.
  • Her Loony Fan's collection in issue 9 features a number of pictures and memorabilia of Harley in her original costume - including her outfit from her time as a psychologist.
  • Harley encountering the Clock King, as both were products of Batman: The Animated Series.
  • The Road Trip Special is a Gotham City Sirens reunion, as Harley, Ivy and Selina team up for the titular road trip. Also, one of Harley's kid photos features her dressed as Golden Age Wonder Woman.
  • In issue 26, Harley gets a makeover bringing her closer to her Suicide Squad (2016) film look.
  • In "Be Careful What You Wish For", Harley wishes to be Wonder Woman. Jimm Salabim asks which Wonder Woman she wants to be - the classic warrior on horseback, the TV one, the '70s comics one with the white slacks, the Perez-era one, the New 52 one... Harley asks how he knows this, given he's been stuck in a bottle for the last few centuries. Jimm says it's genie powers whose workings he doesn't understand.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In #25, when the Joker tries to convince Harley to let him out when she comes to rescue Mason, Harley goes right into his cell and beats him up and follows it up by telling him she's over him and threatening to kill him if she ever hears from him again or if he ever threatens her friends and family.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The second time Harley and Power Girl go to another dimension is skipped over.
  • In Harley Quinn Annual #1 there is a bit where she, Ivy, and a few other characters meet Eggsy, a giant talking egg. They try to guess his Origin Story, only for him to get mad and refuse to tell. They say they're really sorry, and he says he'll tell. We (the readers) don't get to hear it, but it apparently takes three hours to tell, and is tragic enough that Harley decides to let him live at her place indefinitely.
• Note from Ed.: Queenie asks if they can't use another colour in the costumes of the Gang of Harleys, since using just red and black makes the place look like the bargain basement section at Hot Topic. Editor Chris Conroy takes the opportunity to plug the official Harley merchandise at Hot Topic.
• Nice Girl: Harley Quinn is this as she is sweet, kind, polite and friendly towards everyone even toward her enemies which even some are turned over to her because of her kindness and she is also pretty friendly towards the superheroes as well even though that some of them are her enemies as well. She also loves animals as she rescues a dog from being abused by his owner and even opens up a floor for the animals from the vet so that they could have a place to live at.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The story takes Harley and Power Girl to a space dimension after being sent through the Clock King's portal. However, once they return to Earth, they are promptly sent back through. The book cuts to their second return. What happened in between was subsequently depicted in full in the entire Harley Quinn & Power Girl spin-off miniseries.
• The One Guy: Harvey Quinn is the only guy in the Gang of Harleys.
• Out of the Frying Pan: When Clock King and Sportsmaster attack the boat where Harley is having dinner with her parents, they end up randomly teleporting to get away from her... only to materialise in Power Girl's bathroom. While she's naked in the shower.
• Parking Payback: In Harley Quinn Holiday Special #1, Harley is looking for a car to steal and decides to steal the one that is taking up two parking spaces because it is taking two parking spaces.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Harley's not shy about killing those who try to kill her. In issue #2, a hitman tries to run her over. She ties him up and later throws him to her hungry new pets to save her stuffed beaver. The next morning, there's nothing but his bones left.
• Peking Duck Christmas: In Harley Quinn Holiday Special #1, Harley takes a Mall Santa out for dinner on Christmas Eve to thank him from saving her from a humbug that was stuck in her ear (Makes Just as Much Sense in Context). The only place that is open is a kosher deli.
• Personal Raincloud: Harley gets one on Valentine's Day in Issue 3, blurring the lines of reality by soaking her hair, which stays wet until the scene changes.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In issue 1, Harley rescues a neglected dog from his owner and keeps him as her own. The dog is much happier living with her.
  • In issue 2, Harley and Poison Ivy break into an animal shelter that euthanizes its unwanted animals and free them all. They turn Harley's studio into an indoor park and keep them there.
  • There's also the time when she gives a woman who was robbed some money after the robbers got away. And another where she shares her pizza with a homeless man and gives him a hug.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Bolly Quinn is shown doing this in the 'meet the gang' page of Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #1.
• Polyamory: Amanda and Jimmy refer to Harley and Ivy as "girlfriends without the jealousy of monogamy". During their run, Harley has at the very least serious flirtations and probably outright sexual relationships with Ivy, Mason, and Red Tool at much the same time, and none of them object despite their seeming awareness.
• Psycho Psychologist: Surprisingly averted. Harley takes a psychiatric position at an old peoples' home, and does her best to help them, usually succeeding. She also sometimes goes into benevolent psychiatrist mode with antagonists who she feels sorry for, especially Harley Sinn, and Sparrow in #21. Of course, given that she's more than a little off, her tactics for therapy sometimes stray into a mental equivalent of Meatgrinder Surgery...
• Punny Name:
  • Sy Borgman, and most of the Russians, whose names are actually pretty subtle until read out loud. They include: Ivana Brekemoff ^note  I wanna break 'em off, Kosta Armanoleg ^note  Cost an arm and a leg , Borya Tatierski ^note  Bore you to tears, Yuri Beyznatofin ^note  Pays not often and Zena Bendemova ^note  Bend 'em over .
  • Edgar's full name is Edgar Fullerton Yeung. In other words, egg foo yung.
• A Rare Sentence: From Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #6:
  Harvey Quinn: One of Power Girl's robot boobs saved your life. Well, that's a sentence I never thought I was gonna say.
• Rasputinian Death: One of Sy's enemies is an old man in a coma. Sy cuts his life support, but he doesn't die. Sy cuts his breathing tube, but still doesn't die. Then Harley takes a crack at it and blows into the breathing tube, making the man's arteries explode. That finally does it.
• Reimagining the Artifact: Edgar "Eggsy" Fullerton Young, the freakiest of all Harley's pals (an inexplicably sentient egg in Power Armor), is an attempt to produce a tolerable new version of Silver Age Wonder Woman villain Egg Fu, a massively despised character due to his ludicrous nature and gross ethnic stereotyping.
• Resolved Noodle Incident:
  • The Harley Quinn & Power Girl miniseries described what happened during Harley's and Kara's second dimensional trip in the New 52 issue 12.
  • One of the stories in the 25th Anniversary special depicts Harley, Ivy, and Selina throwing an utterly out-of-control party in their hotel suite in Las Vegas, which was a Gilligan Cut Noodle Incident in the Road Trip special.
• Retired Badass: Issue 4 introduces Sy Borgman, a former government agent of the Sixties who got blown up taking out a Russian terrorist group. His arm, leg and eye were replaced with state-of-the-art (for the time, at least) bionics, but in his old age, they're just extra weight.
• Reunion Show: The Road Trip Special features Harley with Ivy and Catwoman, and is hence a revival of the 2009-11 Gotham City Sirens series featuring the three of them.
• Road Trip Plot: The special one shot Harley Quinn Road Trip Special features Harley, Ivy, and Selina travelling together to get the ashes of Harley's beloved uncle. Hijinks ensue with Fanservice and a dream/hallucination sequence included.
• Robot Buddy: Edgar Fullerton Yeung, or "Eggy" as Harley calls him. Either a robot or cyborg (the comic cuts away when he begins telling Harley and company his origin, returning when he finishes) shaped like an egg on a floating platform who can assimilate a variety of robotic torsos. Originally, he captured Harley simply out of loneliness, but now works as a handyman in her apartment. His later recounting of his family background implies he's a cyborg, as he mentions having parents.
• Rollerblade Good: In order to pay the bills of her new home, Harley tries out for a roller derby team. She absolutely demolishes her competition and the team leader is proud to have her aboard.
• Running Gag:
  • There's much Lampshade Hanging of the many Dream Sequences and Mushroom Sambas in the series.
  • Harley's repeated fangirling at Comic-Con, which consists of "Hey, it's that guy/girl who [long-winded summary of their most famous roles]. I LOVE that guy/girl!"
  • Edgar's secret origin, which involves an astonishing number of Noodle Implements.
• Scenery Censor: Used a lot in issue #8, when Harley and Ivy visit Sy's holiday camp in Florida, which they haven't been told is a nudist colony.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • In issue 0, Harley and Catwoman try to rob a yacht and the book's writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, try to stop them. Amanda tells Jimmy not to hurt Harley because she's gonna pay their bills. Catwoman then riffs on Jimmy's other comics, All-Star Western and Batwing.
  Harley: Is she serious?
  Catwoman: You see the numbers on All-Star Western and Batwing? ^note They weren't very high.
  Harley: Yeah, let's go easy on him. Maim, not kill.
  • In the same issue Bernie calls Jimmy the cowboy guy because he writes All-Star Western. He also calls Amanda the one who draws the girls with the big...
  Amanda Conner: Hey, I'm talented! I can draw a lot of different-sized boobs!
  • In #16, letterer John J. Hill breaks the fourth wall to complain about the lack of consideration he gets from Amanda and Jimmy, having to reletter the comic three or four times over with all the changes to the scripts they throw at him. (He also appears to be chained up.)
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Devani "Batfan" Kage and possibly Red Tool, although it's anyone's guess just how much of what he told Devani was true are sent back from a potential future to kill Harley, since in that future she is generally believed to have killed Batman.
• Sexy Jester: A lot of Harley outfits have a design and color pattern similar to that of a typical court jester and show off a lot of skin.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • In issue 4, one of Harley's patients is a elderly woman who is sad that her family rarely sees her. Sickened, Harley goes to the family's house, kidnaps them, forgets about them for a while, remembers them, takes them to the pier, and berates them for neglecting their elder. However, the elderly woman's son reveals that they see her all the time; she just has Alzheimer's disease, which makes her forget. Harley then realizes she should've looked at the files first.
  • Poison Ivy's plan to end the hit on Harley. While she successfully finds out who placed the hit (it was Harley herself; turns out she did that while sleepwalking to ensure no one would try to disturb her in her new life - regardless of how counterproductive the whole thing may seem), some assassins come in and destroy the computer before she can take over and cancel the bounty, leaving Harley to deal with the problem.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Harley doesn't seem to care who sees her naked or how comfortable they are with it.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Issue 1, a blue and green van called the Munchie Machine can be seen at the roller derby.
  • When Harley enters Coney Island, a man can be seen wearing V's mask.
  • Harley begins singing "The Hills Are Alive" when she realizes that the entire fourth floor of her building is her apartment.
  • In issue 2, a wax statue of Jason Voorhees can be seen in the wax museum.
  • In issue 4, Harley stomps on a train set while saying that she's Godzilla.
  • The diner scene in Issue 4 is one big reference to the "Han shot first" scene in Star Wars: A New Hope.
  • Issue 5, one of the issues where Harley and Sy are fighting his enemies, is called "The Hunt for Red Octogenarians".
  • In issue 9, Harley mentions a blind lawyer she knows in Hell's Kitchen. She also references I Dream of Jeannie.
  • Take a good look at her autograph book in the Comic-Con special. Look familiar?
  • The Valentine's Day special sees Harley re-enacting Titanic (1997) on the Hudson River ferry ("I'm the queen a' the world!").
  • In Issue 2 of Harley Quinn/Power Girl, Harley is confronted by an extermination robot while on a peaceful planet. She asks the people she's with if they happen to have a museum with a Weapons of the Past exhibit.
  • The movie posters at the cinema Harley and Ivy visit in #16 all come from that month's themed variant DC covers, parodying classic movie posters. The films they see are Mad Max: Fury Road and Fifty Shades of Grey.
  • Also in #16, Edgar's using a number of his robotic bodies to multi-task. Harley, noting how the bodies are dressed, wonders if he calls it "the Village People mode".
  • Harley reveals in Harley's Little Black Book #3 that she bought a full set of (non-functional) Ghostbusters equipment in case she ever needed to go ghost-hunting.
  • In #16, Edgar compares the Psycho Serum seaweed Captain Strong is hopped up on to senzu bean, spectrox, and glitterstim. Ivy points out that all of those are fictional and that he watches too much TV.
  • When Harley discovers that Sy has tied and gagged a nursing home worker who was stealing and selling off equipment, she calls him "Irving Klaw", a reference to the NYC porn publisher who was notorious in the 1950s and retrospectively for his softcore bondage material.
  • Issue #29 is called "Destroy All Mobsters!", featuring Harley noting that she can see "Leo an' that blue necklace!" in a Titanic-themed snowglobe, and wondering where Charlton Heston is upon seeing an Omega Bomb.
  • Issue #30 references A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, with the title being "A Tree Blows Up Brooklyn", and Big Tony commenting "This tree grows in Brooklyn, so it's all of ours ta fight for."
• Show Some Leg: During their first team-up, Harley distracts a mugger by showing him her butt window on her leotard until Power Girl swoops in.
• Skinny Dipping: Harley and the roller derby girls go skinny dipping in #10.
• Smarter Than You Look: Harley may be a loony clown girl, but she's actually very smart and used to be a psychiatrist. This is brought up in issue 1, where she interviews for a job as a therapist. She gets the job in issue 2. She uses her psychologist's training to help a Loony Fan and a little girl.
• The Smurfette Principle: Inverted with the Gang Of Harleys (a team of Anti-Heroes that dress like Harley and have superhero names similar to her own). Only one (Harvey Quinn) is male.
• Something Else Also Rises:
  Harley (on Ivy's plant powers): See! She really can make things grow!
  Big Tony: Yer telling me!
• Stripperiffic: While she had a traditionally conservative costume where only her face is uncovered, the New 52 makes her outfit incredibly revealing. This is lampshaded by Harley herself (in the Suicide Squad series), at one point referring to her look as a "stripper clown outfit".
• Sugar Apocalypse: Art Baltazar's page in issue 0 has her visiting the Tiny Titans universe. She hates how sugary sweet the setting is and tries to smash the Titans with her mallet. She gets even more mad when she realizes they don't even bleed.
• Super-Deformed: Harley when pleading with Power Girl in issue 13, her eyes going anime-sized and streaming with tears.
• Take That!:
  • Harley dismisses Batman's origin in #9 as ridiculous.
  • Issue 12 lampoons the cosmic elements of the Marvel Universe, namely Thanos, the Infinity Gauntlet, and the Cosmic Cube.
  • Issue 15 features a potshot at Avengers: Age of Ultron (or perhaps the perception that a billion grossing film can bomb), with a newspaper headline about a superhero Box Office Bomb that features an Ultron stand-in with a Gag Nose, whose failure is somehow blamed on Kim Jong-un.
  • The Valentine's Day Special takes aim at pointless comic crossovers that go nowhere and Wall Street bankers.
  • At the end of the annual, Harley reveals that she stole some of the hallucinogenic gas to share with Ivy. Ivy freaks out, saying that it's powerful enough to cause all of Brooklyn to hallucinate, to which Harley replies that nobody would notice.
  • Issue 30 has Harley making a stand against gentrification.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Harley's auditions for her gang in #16. Played with, as the craziest interviewee turns out not to be a throwaway character, becoming Harley Sinn, the main villain of the Gang of Harleys miniseries.
• There Are No Rules: This is Summer's summary of the underground 'Skate Club' in #10 (also became the trope page's quote):
  Summer: Welcome to Skate Club, kiddo. Two go in, one comes out. Weapons at your disposal in the middle. Anything goes.
  Harley: An' the rules?
  Summer: None.
  Harley: Really?
  Summer: Yep.
  Harley: Yeah?
  Summer: Yeah.
  Harley: WOW!
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Amanda Conner when she beats up Harley and Catwoman in #0:
  Amanda Conner: I'm Amanda Conner, bitches!
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Big Tony is dating Queenie, a fortune teller who towers over the other tenants. In fact, Tony's "type" is Amazonian women.
• Toilet Humor: Under Connor and Palmiotti, Harley makes plenty of fart and poop jokes, including farting herself.
• Token Good Teammate: Eggsy is pretty much the only member of Harley's crew who is usually kind to all and shrinks from violence.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Implied. In Harley's Little Black Book she agrees to spend thirty days in hell with the Devil (Well, A devil, at least) in exchange for him removing someone's curse. When she materializes back on Earth only a day later, she has Tears of Joy running down her face as she exclaims "Let's do it again, an' this time add more spikes, and a big rubber-" before the devil says he just can't deal with her anymore. She even seems kind of disappointed about not being able to spend more time with him.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In Harley's Little Black Book #3, Harley makes a Deal with the Devil that means she has to stay in Hell for thirty days, only to be sent back to Earth before the first day's up for being too annoying.
• Torpedo Tits: In Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #5, the gang wind up fighting a Power Girl robot armed with what Bolly Quinn eloquently describes as 'boob cannons'.
• Trumplica: Richard Brand, ruthless real estate tycoon and the father of Harley Sinn, is blatantly inspired by, and physically resembles, Donald Trump.
• Tyke Bomb: The first issue of Harley's Little Black Book shows that she has always been dangerously close to losing it, such as showing an incident when she was very young where she nearly hangs one of her classmates and smashes another in the face with a book hard enough to break her nose.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: 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 a bare midriff and knee-socks that expose her thighs.
• The Unreveal: Edgar's backstory, which he tells the group after they've recovered from the hallucinogens. Once he starts telling, the comic cuts to another scene.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Harley herself. Justified for her apartment building in that all of the carnival freaks live there, but no one bats an eye anywhere else she goes.
• Valentine's Day Episode:
  • Issue 3 takes place on Valentine's Day and Harley has no Valentine. To cheer herself up, she eats a berry from one of Poison Ivy's plants and goes out for a night in the town. Unfortunately, the berry turns out to be a Love Potion that makes anyone who smells her go crazy for her. And she just happens to pass by a prison bus full of convicts. Bloody hijinks ensue.
  • The Valentine's Day Special sees Harley win a date with Bruce Wayne at auction (the auction gets interrupted by robbery and kidnapping, but they do manage to have the date).
• Vehicle-Roof Body Disposal: Goes comically awry in Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #2. Harlem Quinn and some guys from her neighbourhood attempt to get rid of the unconscious assassin Sandy by dumping him off an an overpass on to a stopped train. However, he wakes up, falls off the roof of the train and gets hit by a train going in the opposite direction.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Harley finds her wanted poster in the shirt of a hitwoman that tried to kill her. Big Tony thought she was searching for something else at first.
• Wake Up Fighting: 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.
• Waterfall Shower: In Harley's Little Black Book #6, Harley and Lobo take a waterfall shower while stranded on an alien planet. It nearly turns into a Shower of Love, but they are interrupted.
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • Harley's Little Black Book #5 is a parody of the famous Superman Vs. Mohammed Ali one-shot from 1975, featuring Superman and drawn by original artist Neal Adams.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: In Harley's Little Black Book Issue 2, Harley gains a Black and Red power ring and it turns her into an homicidal nutjob — well, more of one — who wants to destroy the whole world.
• Yiddish as a Second Language: With all the Yiddish Sy Borgman says, you won't have to wonder if he's Jewish.

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