Harley Quinn: A Call to Arms

Finished reading Harley Quinn: A Call to Arms, with her very own gang of Harley's writers Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti continue to expand Harley Quinn's supporting cast with her own team as they become a group that helps the people in the community for a price. The book opens with Harley giving a roll call of the new Gang of Harley's as her friend Sy Borgman is spying on the mayor who he quickly finds dirt on. With evidence of the mayor taking money for himself Harley uses this to blackmail him into allowing her new gang to operate freely without the authorities getting in their way. This backfires badly when the mayor has Harley spied on and arresting her date for the night Mason Macabre after his mum help brake him out of prison earlier in the series. The next morning Harley and her gang get their first major job to find a missing fisherman who has discovered some strange seaweed that he quickly gets addicted to as it makes him near invulnerable. The second story see's Harley going to Hollywood to find a girl named Sparrow, after Harley's coworker had put a bounty on her daughter in hoping to bring her back home. However things don't go according to plan when it turns out that Harley's coworker had also offered the job to Deadshot who meets with Harley all guns blazing. The final story begins with Harley getting a call from her mum telling her the bad news that her uncle Louie has passed away in his home in California. With Harley joined by Poison Ivy and Catwoman the three of them embark on a cross country road trip back home with the open roof car and trailer that Harley's uncle left her. Overall this was a great book as it brings a new element in to Harley's life with her own gang that instantly have their background reviled within a few pages, which is a credit to the writing team of Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. The way that Harley's training as a physiatrist helps to layer her character with how there is more to her than just the clown makeup and also helps to layer the book by not just making it a full on comedy as it links to situations that can happen in real life, just that the book tends to exaggerate a little. The comedy through out the book is great thanks to some nicely timed visual gags and the different situations Harley finds herself in along with the multiple pop culture references are used perfectly. The artwork throughout is great as the dream sequences are depicted extremely well as they feel less realistic than the feast of the book thanks to their tone and layout. While the rest of the book continues to capture the unpredictability of Harley's fighting style and also helps to make the locations feel as much as a character as the people in the forefront. 8/10.