Harley Quinn
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Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel) is the name of a cartoon character owned by DC . She had her first appearance on September 11, 1992 in the animated series Batman: The Animated Series . It was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm , who were instrumental in Batman: The Animated Series .
The name Harley Quinn is a play on words, derived from her real name, and alludes to the English word Harlequin for the harlequin . Her clothes are based on the traditional costume of a harlequin or a medieval court jester , according to her name . Harley occasionally refers to himself as the Cupid of Crime (in German about "Amor des Verbrechens").
Emergence
Harley Quinn is one of the few Batman characters who were first created for the Batman animated series and only subsequently incorporated into the Batman comics.
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The character first appeared in episode # 22 ( Joker's Favor ) of the Batman animated series by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, which first aired in the United States on September 11, 1992. This was followed by several appearances in Elseworldstories such as Batman Thrillkillers 62 (1997) or Batman of the Future - The Joker Comes back before Harley Quinn first appeared in a DC comic in 1994 ( The Batman Adventures: Mad Love ).
Comics and Publication History
The graphic novel Mad Love (1994) first told the story of Harley Quinn's origin within the continuity of the Batman animated series and thus integrated it into the official DC canon. The story (implemented by Dini and Timm) was very popular and received an Eisner and a Harvey award for Best Single Issue Comic of the Year . The comic was also filmed in 1999 in an episode of the same name in the animated series The New Batman Adventures .
The 1999 comic book Batman: Harley Quinn by Paul Dini took the character completely into the DC universe . In 2000, Karl Kessel published the eponymous comic series Batman: Harley Quinn with a total of 38 volumes over four years. In the tradition of the series Batman: Animated Series , the series focused entirely on Harley as the title heroine and followed her over numerous adventures in which other Batman villains and DC characters also made their appearances, e.g. B. Superman or Bizarro .
In 2009 DC published the comic series Gotham City Sirens (by Paul Dini and Peter Calloway), in which the three Batman villains Harley Quinn, Catwoman and Poison Ivy team up to protect each other. The series contributed to a deeper characterization of Harley Quinn, showing her as a loyal partner beyond her relationship with the Joker.
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As part of The New 52 Reboot, in which DC announced fundamental changes to 52 of their comic series, Harley Quinn was also visually redesigned. Instead of her clownish outfit, in the Suicide Squad Comics (2011) she wears two-tone braids and a white make-up face, similar to the Joker. The depiction in an impractical-looking corset with shorts sparked discussions about the sexualization of the figure in the sense of a "male gaze". Harley Quinn's personality also changed to a more vicious version of herself. Her backstory also went through some changes. In The Hunt for Harley Quinn by Adam Glass, Harley also helps the Joker to escape the Arkham Asylum, but instead of voluntarily joining his side, the Joker plunges her into a barrel of ACE chemicals and leads her to the same fate that befell him is. Harley is wilder, crazier and thus the ideal "crazy sidekick", which is also visually reminiscent of the Joker.
From 2013 the new version of the Harley Quinn Comics appeared, which initially gained notoriety with a controversy. As part of a talent competition, DC asked artists to draw Harley Quinn in a bizarre suicide scene, including a. Standing in the mouth of a whale or naked in a bathtub, surrounded by electrical devices. Several organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention , sharply criticized the action and the sexualization of suicide associated with it, and fans called for a boycott of DC merchandise. DC Comics then issued an apology. The series also featured intimate interactions between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, among others. a. a tender kiss on the cheek, but their romantic relationship was only confirmed by DC in a tweet in 2015.
In the 2019 comic book Batman: Curse of The White Knight , Harley reappears as Harleen Quinzel, who has left the Joker and is expecting a child. In autumn 2019, the first volume in the Harleen series was released under the DC Black Label, in which Stjepan Šejić reinterprets the story of Harley Quinn's origin.
characterization
Powers and abilities
Typical for a cartoon character, Harley Quinn has unusual powers and abilities. She possesses superhuman agility and strength, as well as a peculiar immunity to poisons of all kinds, by an agent given to her by Poison Ivy. Your favorite weapon is a huge hammer.
In the movie Suicide Squad as well as in the game Batman Arkham Knight by Rocksteady , Harley mainly uses a baseball bat as a weapon. In the animated series Batman The Animated Series , she uses a cannon, the elements of which can also be found in Arkham Knight .
biography
Harleen Quinzel was an ambitious and highly intelligent, but also reckless young psychiatrist. After high school, she earned a college degree in psychology. Because of her excellent thesis, she got a job as a therapist at Arkham Asylum .
There she was particularly fascinated by the Joker , the most prominent inmate of the institution, whose bizarre charm she finally succumbed to, so that she fell into a form of romantic obsession. He also changed the name Harleen Quinzel - following his leitmotif of humor - into "Harley Quinn". Fascinated by the Joker, she helped him escape from Arkham several times, taking advantage of her position as a doctor. Eventually her superiors found her, revoked her license to practice as a psychiatrist and interned her in Arkham herself. After the earthquake in Gotham City , she managed to escape from the badly damaged institution and abandoned by all employees to the city, where she finally met the Joker again.
After a brief affair with the Joker, he lured her into a supposed death trap (a fairground rocket that actually took off on a fatal flight into the sky) - because he couldn't allow a woman to keep him from his work. Harley survived the Joker's attack and was rescued by Poison Ivy in Robinson Park. She nursed Harley back by giving her a serum that gave her superhuman strength. After that, they both forged revenge plans against Batman and the Joker.
Relationship to the joker
Harley Quinn's relationship with the Joker is characterized by violence and abuse from the start: The Joker regularly punishes Harley, beats her and even tries several times to kill her. Despite the character's originally humorous nature, Harley is defined by the abuse by the Joker. According to comic book writer Bruce Timm , The Joker was never set out to have a girlfriend because a relationship would "humanize" him too much rather than highlighting his creepy and dangerous aspects. It was not until the Batman comic Mad Love that the relationship between Joker and Harley, along with their history, was included in the official DC canon. Harley Quinn called her lover in all variations of the substance as trivializing Puddin ' or Mr. J .
Harley's emotional attachment to the Joker can best be described as a romantic obsession that Joker never shares to the same extent. Although he repeatedly abuses her and does violence to her or her best friend Poison Ivy (whom she calls Red ), Harley always forgives him anew and returns to his arms. Since the Harley Quinn series by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (2013), however, Harley has successfully distanced herself from her violent ex and takes on the role of a refined villain who tries to save herself and her friends. After the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy had been shaped only by queer subtext for two decades, the series finally established a romantic relationship between the two women.
Harley Quinn in other media
Despite her comparatively young history as a character in the DC universe, Harley Quinn has had a decisive impact on pop culture. She is considered one of the most influential comic book characters in the DC universe.
Movie
The film Suicide Squad , released in August 2016, features Harley Quinn. In the following DC movie Birds of Prey: The Emancipation of Harley Quinn she portrays the eponymous eponymous heroine. In both cases she is played by Margot Robbie .
Animation
In the animated series Batman: The Animated Series , Harley Quinn made her debut in episode 22, The Joker's Favor , in which she was dubbed by Arleen Sorkin. Here Harley acted as a humorous plot element: the eternal friend of the crazy joker who is crazy about him, but who doesn't want to know anything about her. The most striking feature of the relationship between the two is the almost voluntaristic ignorance with which Harley, unconditionally devoted to the Joker, loves him, without paying attention to his true, monstrous character.
After one of the numerous quarrels between Harley and the Joker, she met Poison Ivy, another criminal from Gotham, in the series, unlike in the comics, in a museum robbery instead of after an attack on her life by the Joker, and befriended him initially loosely on (episode Harley and Ivy ). Although Ivy finds Harley's erratic and overly temperamental nature annoying, the two are close friends. Ivy, a brilliant botanist, gave Harley a serum she had developed that gave Harley almost superhuman powers: she was stronger and more resilient, faster and more agile than normal people, and also had a more resistant immune system. This relationship had slight lesbian overtones that were hinted at in the comics Batgirl Adventures # 1 (February 1998) and Harley and Ivy (May-June 2004 miniseries).
Ivy and Harley were from then on occasional partners in crime in the series and Ivy took on the role of Harley Quinn's older sister, who she regularly tried to convey how unworthy the Joker Harley's love was and that she shouldn't be treated as his doormat.
Harley Quinn had other appearances in the series Justice League Unlimited (episode: Wild Cards ) and Static Shock (episode: Hard as Nails ), as well as in the web cartoon Gotham Girls .
In the cartoon Batman of the Future - The Joker Comes Back , which is set in a future world in which Bruce Wayne has passed the Batman cloak to a successor and is an old man, it was finally revealed that Quinn had her supposed death in one later episode of the animated series had survived to then start a family. Ironically, and to Quinn's chagrin , her granddaughters Delia and Deidre Dennis join a gang called The Jokerz in the series to make life difficult for the new Batman.
In the cartoon Batman and Harley Quinn (2017), she works with Batman to stop Poison Ivy .
In the new Batman cartoon series The Batman , Harley appears in the well-known form and is dubbed by Hynden Walch. In 2005 Mattel made a Harley Quinn Barbie doll.
With Harley Quinn , a cartoon series with Harley Quinn as the protagonist was published from November 2019.
Video game
Harley Quinn appeared in the video games The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the SNES and Sega Genesis , as well as Sega CD and in Batman: Chaos in Gotham . Recently you can also find them in "DC Universe Online". She had a supporting role in Batman Vengeance for PlayStation 2 , GameCube , Xbox and Windows . She was dubbed in all games like in the cartoon by Arleen Sorkin . In Lego Batman: The Video Game , she was also represented as a character.
In the Elseworld games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City , in whose key stories Harley Quinn's inventor Paul Dini is involved, it appears, as is usual for Elseworld stories, in a new form with a slightly modified background story. She also wears a new costume in the form of a nurse ( Batman: Arkham Asylum ) and, in the sequel, a costume with leather pants and corsage that is more influenced by grunge and punk. In both cases, the fool's cap is not used. Instead, she wears pigtails, some of which are colored black and red, and keeps her black and white face mask. In the DLC Harley Quinn's Revenge , which appeared for Batman: Arkham Asylum , she does not appear as a playable character, but as a powerful opponent.
In the 2014 multiplayer online battle arena Infinite Crisis from developer turbine, Harley Quinn is part of the character ensemble. In this game, besides the usual Harley Quinn, there are also different versions of her from different parallel universes.
Harley Quinn also appeared in the 2015 video game Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios).
In the video games Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 , she is a playable character. A daughter with the Joker, Lucy Quinzel, is also discussed here. However, this is not part of the official DC universe.
Real series
In the 2002 television series Birds of Prey , Harley Quinn appeared as a major villain. She was played by Sherilyn Fenn in the never-aired pilot in the series, and Mia Sara in the series itself .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Emilee Owens: "It is to laugh". The history of Harley Quinn. In: Shelley E. Barber & Joy M. Perrin (Eds.): The descendence of Harley Quinn. Essays on DC's enigmatic villain. McFarland & Company, 2017, ISBN 978-1-4766-6523-8 .
- ↑ a b c Michileen Martin: The dark history of Harley Quinn. March 14, 2016, Retrieved February 11, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ The Fantabulous Evolution of the Harley Quinn Gaze. In: Crooked Marquee. February 10, 2020, accessed February 11, 2020 (American English).
- ^ Cavan Sieczkowski: Awful Comic Contest Asks For Drawings Of Naked Woman Committing Suicide. September 12, 2013, accessed February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ DC Comics asks artists to show their skill at killing off naked women. September 6, 2013, accessed February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ DC: Yes, they are Girlfriends. In: @DCComics. Twitter, June 12, 2015, accessed February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Phil Archbold: The truth about Harley Quinn and Joker's relationship. January 8, 2020, accessed February 11, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ DC BLACK LABEL REIMAGINES HARLEY QUINN'S ORIGIN IN HARLEEN FROM WRITER AND ARTIST STJEPAN ŠEJIĆ. June 14, 2019, accessed on February 18, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Harley Quinn. In: DC Extended Universe. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Harley Quinn. In: Batman Fandom Wiki. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Shirley Li: Long Live Harley Quinn! February 7, 2020, accessed February 11, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Susana Polo: Birds of Prey is faithful to Harley Quinn's extreme origins. February 7, 2020, accessed on February 11, 2020 .