Flashback Friday: Harley Quinn

I can't believe this blog has over 300 posts. Back when this whole thing started, it was on one of those build-your-own-website things. And that lasted for a while, but I eventually ran out of space so I moved it to Blogger. At that point, I thought I had pretty much catalogued everything there was, and I was afraid that if I didn't move it over quickly, I would lose it. So I made a lot of what I called "Super Posts", which were collections of related entries. The idea was that eventually I would go back and give each of those things its own post, but for various reasons that never happened.

Well, eventually comes today. Each Friday, I'll take something from the old Super Posts and give it its own spotlight. The Super Posts will still be there, but the individual entries will be erased and replaced by links to the Flashback Friday posts. And I can't think of anyone better to kick it off than Harley Quinn.

Harley Quinn, to put it simply, is the poster child for canon immigrants. She's not the first, she's arguably not even the most successful, but she's the one everyone knows. But in case you don't know her, what's her story?

Harley Quinn first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favor" (1992), and the only reason she exists is a scene where someone pops out of a cake. The writers went back and forth on the Joker being the one to do it, but that didn't quite work with other scenes. So they wrote her in, and she became a hit. I don't know exactly when they decided to keep using her, but over the course of the series - including The New Batman Adventures - she appeared in 15 episodes, making her second only to the Joker himself in terms of villain appearances.

Her first ever comics appearance was in The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (December 1993), a prestige format one-shot that told her origin story. This Eisner Award-winning story eventually got adapted into "Mad Love", an episode of The New Batman Adventures (1999).

She made many more appearances in the various comics based on the DC Animated Universe over the years, but her first appearance in a comic not related to that world was a surprising choice. Batgirl + Robin: Thrillkiller was an Elseworlds story that reinterpreted Batman's world as part of the 1960s counterculture.  It was followed by a sequel, Batgirl + Batman: Thrillkiller '62 (February 1998) that introduced a character named Hayley Fitzpatrick, who was the partner of Bianca Steeplechase, this world's version of the Joker.

In June 1999, she had a brief mention in Elseworlds 80-Page Giant as part of a folk music group called Harley & Ivy. But her first real appearance in the DC Universe was in Batman: Harley Quinn #1 (August 1999), another prestige format one-shot that once again told her origin. This one-shot was part of the No Man's Land crossover.

As the years went on, Harley's star continually rose. In 2001, she received her own ongoing series that lasted two years. She was featured as the primary villain in the WB's Birds of Prey (2002). She appeared in most Batman adaptations, got a cameo in the Arrow episode "Suicide Squad" (March 2014), was arguably the main character in Suicide Squad (2016), and will be the title character in Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020).

Around the time of the New 52, she really blew up. I can't really say why, although I'm sure it has something to do with her popularity as cosplay at comic-cons. Her first New 52 appearance was Suicide Squad #1 (September 2011), with a new design reminiscent of her appearance in Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) and its sequels.

Since DC Rebirth is in a weird continuity flux that's sort of a continuation of the DCU pre-New 52 and sort of a continuation of the New 52 (which itself is sort of a continuation of pre-New 52 and sort of its own thing), I'll go ahead and mention her first Rebirth appearances as well. Harley appeared in both Harley Quinn #1 and Suicide Squad #1 in August 2016. By this time, her look also evolved to better match Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad (2016), which itself was inspired by her Arkham appearance.

You can read about the first time that look debuted here, and you can also read about her hyenas from the Animated Series, Bud and Lou.

Harley Quinn has left her mark on the canon without a doubt, and I think in time, she'll become one of the characters people forget are canon immigrants entirely, like Perry White and Jimmy Olsen.