This Clown Ain’t Funny At All — Reviewing ‘Harley & Ivy: Life & Crimes’ #2

Romance is never easy. Especially when one partner’s psychotic clown ex-boyfriend is blowing up the city to frame the duo. It’s a totally plausible situation that could happen to anyone…okay maybe just Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.

Either way, their burgeoning love is headed for the proverbial rocks as Erica Henderson and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou keep peeling back the layers in Harley & Ivy: Life & Crimes #2.

What seems like it should have a soft edge is anything but that in this series. Which is something I love quite a bit.

Henderson is not pulling punches here as the duo is pushed through the wringer at the hands of the Joker. Watching in real time as Harley comes to grips with her past and the toxic connection she had with Joker all these years. We’re here to witness that it was not just some instant love connection for the two leading women. Instead, it was a trial by fire that required a level of trust and connection to be born, through the toughest of circumstances.

Naturally Henderson’s work has a softer tone to it with the particular style and some of the color choices she uses. Yet, there is also an undercurrent of rougher textures woven through the whole mix. That contrast in the art and the subject matter makes it hit even harder because so much of the Joker and Harley relationship is often filtered through this “romantic but a little dark” lens at times.

Sure, many comics and things show how broken, flawed, and toxic the whole thing might be. At the same time, we lived through a time when the marketing for the first (shudder) Suicide Squad film tried to make it seem romantic. As did so many fans, who cheer for their pairing and wish to turn back the clock.

Granted, some of those potentially are also grinding an axe about a queer romance taking its place. It’s never hard to draw the line between the two.

Henderson frames things so neatly and epically throughout. Putting us in point of view shots, creating shots that feel cinematic in scale, and really live in the space. Giving everything a denser and thicker feeling. Letting everything take deep sustaining breaths.

Playing into that is the lettering choices that are always exceptional by Otsmane-Elhaou. So colorful, bold, bigger than life, and perfectly atmospheric. Never settling for just simple fonts and bubbles or boxes. Instead, he gives each voice, be it from a person or ambient noises, powerful uniqueness. Doing out of the box things like having the television broadcast be floating words through the panel, makes sure we’re still ‘hearing it’ through the main action.

Because that’s how spaces and real-life work. Mirroring that so easily with such a simple tool is artistically inspiring stuff.

Harley & Ivy: Life & Crimes #2 is now available from DC Comics.