Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock Knock Jokes - by Karl Kesel (writer) & Terry Dodson, with Craig Rousseau (Pencils), et al.

Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock Knock Jokes collects Harley Quinn issues 1 through 7, giving readers old and new seven tales of sinister slapstick, sociopathic silliness, and sucker punching shenanigans.

After breaking her beloved Mr. J out of Arkham Asylum yet again, Harley Quinn goes solo.  But she isn't alone for too long, if ever.  After a brief dalliance on a kidnapping job with Two-Face, one that ends with a double-cross, of course, (something that is a frequently reoccurring occurrence in these Gotham based tales) Harley throws a slumber party, of all things, before she starts a gang of her very own, complete with henchmen (whom she dubs the Quinntets).

Being Harley Quinn, her plans result, far more often than not, in plenty of comedically confusing chaos that leaves plenty of angry victims giving chase through the rubble strewn aftermath.

Have I ever mentioned just how much I adore Harley Quinn?  I have?  Then you know that my picking up and cracking open this trade paperback collection was every bit as much of a foregone conclusion as my taking my next breath.  What surprised me, though, was just how different the look and feel of the character (and oh, how I wish I could feel her... wait, that just sounded wrong) was in the hands of writer Karl Kesel and artist Terry Dodson.  Harley's brain isn't quite so bubbly as it was in Batman: Harley & Ivy, and in this book she looks very well suited for a photo shoot as a Playboy Playmate of the Month.  While there is no shortage of whimsical humor in either Harley's character, or her adventures, the stories collected in this book are far more grounded than those in Batman: Harley & Ivy.

That grounding is both a strength and a weakness.  It works very well for the pathos laden conclusion of The Wilde Life, and it works exceptionally well when Harley's origin story gets a slight bit of tweaking in Larger Than Life.  The recreation of Harleen Quinzel's very first interview session tape with the Joker is a stunner, and the rapturous look of adoration that Harleen gives the Joker while he attempts to choke the life from her is chilling in its insane beauty.  It just doesn't work all that well in getting across Harley's wilder, goofy side.

But Harley does manage to break loose from her paneled confines, once or twice.  One moment that truly stood out for me was when Harley freezes the action at the beginning of Gods and Monsters, (the final story in the collection) so she can break the forth wall and speak directly to the reader, so she can explain what is going on.

Now, that is the Harley Quinn I know and love.

Arkham Reborn #1 - 3 (of 3)

Dr. Jeremiah Arkham has rebuilt the notorious Arkham Asylum.  His creed?  Rehabilitation not incarceration.  Unfortunately Dr. Arkham did not do the best of background checks on his staff, it appears that someone far better suited to be an inmate is helping run the asylum.

Arkham Reborn is a very dark, very depressing, and very sad story.  One that can dig under your skin and stay there long after the final line has been read.  Its debt to Edgar Allan Poe is also quite clear, as a great deal of its imagery and plot twists invoke such classic tales as The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, and others.  It also says something that the build-up to the final reveal of who the master mind behind the plot to foil Jeremiah Arkham's good intentions is, is laid out with enough sleight of hand that, unless you are really looking for it, you won't see it coming until the moment that writer David Hine wants you to.  I didn't see it coming, but it made a tragic kind of sense and, looking back and flipping through the various pages to see where the clues had been planted, the misdirection was nicely mapped out.  It's a solid story.

I also liked seeing a rogues gallery of non-human appearing villains, for a change.  Clayface and Killer Croc both get some quality performance time in the story.  It was also nice to see Mr. Freeze again, although he does not get to do all that much, except suffer.  I thought the cover for issue three made it look as if Freeze was going to be helping Batman with the situation at Arkham, but that could not be farther from the truth.  Disappointing.  (My last glimpse of Mr. Freeze was in reformed mode in the animated feature Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, which gives you an idea of just how much I keep up with these super hero franchises.)

The art in the book is excellent.  There are quite a few atmospheric set pieces sprinkled throughout, but Jeremy Haun does not go overboard and turn every panel into a money shot from some gothic horror movie.  There is a nice rhythm to the story.  The images that really need to stand out from the pack, do. 

I look forward to revisiting Arkham Asylum in the future.  Especially if Hine and Haun are acting as tour guides.

Batman: Harley and Ivy - by Paul Dini, Judd Winick (writers) & Ronnie Del Carmen, Joe Chiodo, and Bruce Timm (art)

Three stories starring Joker's "lady love" Harley Quinn and her long suffering partner in crime, and reluctant "best friend," Poison Ivy.

The Bet: Lonely and, um, aching for some male company, Harley goads Ivy into making a rather unique wager.

Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam: Mr. J kicks Harley out, again, and, eager to prove herself worthy of his abusive love, Harley concocts a brilliant scheme that requires the assist of someone "smart, crafty, and a lil bad."  Can you guess who that someone is?

Batman: Harley and Ivy: When Harley screws up, again, and lands both herself and her partner, Poison Ivy, back in Arkham Asylum, Ivy wants nothing more than to get away.  Try as she might, though, she cannot break free of Harley Quinn's affectionate grasp.

While I am not (and never have been) the most avid of super hero comic book series readers (it has been well over two years since I routinely read a super hero comic book series, in any format) there are certain characters that will get me reading again, albeit briefly, should their appearances catch my eye while I am browsing the shelves at the local comic shop.  Batman's Harley Quinn is just one such character.  I knew that, from the moment I first glimpsed her in, I believe, The Batman Superman Movie, I knew that my heart would always belong to her.  If she appeared, I would come.

Wait, that just sounds WRONG.

The Batman: Harley and Ivy trade paperback collection, which gathers together a stand alone story from Batman: Gotham Knights and two Harley and Ivy specials, has its ups and down, both in the writing and in the art.  Luckily there are more ups than there are downs, so they do not cancel each other out, and, I think, the book makes for an entertaining read.

On the up side, the stories are all good.  The Bet is a frothy bit of comedy that ends with a punch line that is rather sweet, but also really sad.  Since that sad and sweet ending involves Harley's obviously unrequited love for Mr. J, Love on the Lam is the perfect story to follow it, as that love is what powers the story.  It also shows that Harley is more than just the bubble headed psychotic she appears to be, and that Ivy's complicated friendship with Harley is rooted in more than simple convenience or criminal need.  That fact is illustrated quite nicely in a moment in the final story when, having managed to escape from the irritating Quinn, Ivy chooses to literally drag Harley along to "help" her with her next caper.  One that will take Harley and Ivy deep into a South American rain forest, before leading them into a nonsensical, albeit very funny, bit of Hollywood satire.  (Every writer that has ever toiled in Hollywood, and Paul Dini certainly has, being one of the creative forces behind Batman: The Animated Series, is required to comedically grind the creative axe about just how stupid of an industry this business they call Show can be.) 

The down sides are just odd little knocks and pings, here and there.  Some of the art isn't very good (there is one illustration of Ivy in Love on the Lam that makes it look as if her legs are seven feet long, while her torso is made to look to be less than two) and the characterization of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Lam seems really off.  But, as I said, I am not the most avid of super hero series readers, and every creative team has a unique way of presenting the characters, but having the Dark Knight help Harley and Ivy, and the out of the blue hand-job joke, just felt wrong to me.  Then there was this completely out of left field Hollywood parody that caps the Harley and Ivy three-parter, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the story that was being set-up in the first two installments.  Yes, it is a fine piece of comedy, but it left me scratching my head and wondering how they hell they got from from Point A (Arkham Asylum) to Point H (Hollywood satire) and what it all meant.

Then again, these are Harley Quinn's stories and she just goes where the fun is, I guess.

The Dark Knight (2008)

"Why so serious?"

Batman (Christian Bale) may have become a hero to the crime plagued citizens of Gotham City, but the city's crime bosses and corrupt police force want the caped vigilante crusader dead.  Enter the Joker (Heath Ledger), an enigmatic psychotic all too eager to do the job.

There is so much more than that to The Dark Knight.  Much, much more.  My all too brief synopsis does not even come close to describing the film's complete story.  The best way to describe that story is to say that watching The Dark Knight is like reading six to twelve months worth of Batman comics in one sitting.  Screenwriter/director Christopher Nolan and his writing partner/brother Jonathan Nolan perfectly capture the sprawling, multi-layered narratives of the serial graphic novel and they give each and every single one of their plot threads a significant amount of detail.

I'd say too much detail.  The Dark Knight is a sprawling and overlong epic that over stays its welcome by a good thirty minutes.  By the time Two-Face finally gets around to going on his murderous rampage of vengeance I was begging for the film to end.

Not that it's a bad movie, far from it.  The writing, as I said before, is solid (the Dent/Two-Face arc is simple perfection) and the direction is top notch.  Then there is the acting.  Everything you have heard about Heath Ledger's amazing performance is true.  His Joker is a terrifying psychotic, a brilliant Clown Prince of Crime that truly does reinvent the character in a way that erases all that has come before him.  I feel sorry for the actor that will have to follow in the deceased Ledger's footsteps.  But Ledger does not steal the show, nor does he overwhelm those around him.  Everyone from Christian Bale to Aaron Eckhart to Gary Oldman to Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers top notch performances.  I don't think anybody did anything truly Oscar worthy (that includes Ledger), but that does not mean their work is somehow less.  It isn't.

Also not less is the brutal violence and gore.  Yes, gore.  Two-Face's visage alone would have earned this movie an R-rating if it had been done by Lionsgate or some other Independent studio.  But since it's "only" a Batman movie from a major Hollywood studio, it is given a pass.  There is nothing I can do about this disgusting double standard, other than to simply point it out.

The only thing I can say in closing is what I said to my companion (who hated the movie) upon leaving the theater.  "Well, the comic geeks can stop complaining now.  They can finally see Frank Miller's Batman and Alan Moore's Joker on the big screen."

Batman: The Ultimate Evil - by Andrew Vachss

When Gotham's Dark Knight vows to take down an organization that provides child molesters with victims, he discovers a painful link to his own past.

Although it might be a Batman novel on the surface, beneath all the pulp novel adventure The Ultimate Evil is 100% Andrew Vachss.  Those familiar with Vachss's Burke novels already know what that means.  If you have yet to read one of Vachss's books, then let me just say that The Ultimate Evil lives up to its title.  The story follows Batman down a very dark path, one that takes the reader into the darkest regions of the human heart with Vachss fearlessly shining a light on the sleazy predators that prey on children.  But the grotesque events are far from being mere fiction.  An appendix educates the reader on just how real the evil the fictional Batman has fought is.  As sickening as they are, none of the descriptions of child abuse and the methods/behavior of child predators that appear in any of Vachss's novels are fictional.  It's all real.

As far as the overall tone of the book, it is considerably lighter than the blacker than pitch Burke novels and, for the Vachss curious, the novel makes for an excellent starting point for those that have yet to read "pure" Vachss and "pure" Vachss, as dark and nasty as it can be at times, is essential reading.  Vachss's books are bursting with enraged energy, a strong sense of both purpose and, most important of all, justice.  The Ultimate Evil is no different.