Review:
At a flea market one time, I found a bookseller with graphic novels. As I browsed, I observed one young girl, maybe 8 years old, lobbying hard for her parents to buy her a copy of this book - teaming the sometimes-cartoonish, always-risque Harley Quinn with the peekaboo-wearing Power Girl. She succeeded in the end and left with her treasure. I suspect her parents were not aware what they were buying, as this is decidedly not a PG-13 book.
Befitting the Queen of Crazy, the oddball anti-hero of the DC Universe, Harley Quinn, this six-part mini-series is zany, corny, violent and with more than a little sexual innuendo. All-star creative team Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, who know Harley Quinn so well from their work on her solo titles and ongoing series, team with Justin Gray to pen a cross-dimensional love story - well, sorta.
If, by "love story," we mean one-sided obsession, gender-bending role reversals and a giant floating Head-of-God bent on destroying everything in entire galaxies.
The plot sees Power Girl and Harley Quinn as an albeit temporary Superhero duo team, with Harley as the comic-relief sidekick to the more powerful and much more straight-laced Power Girl - Peej or PG for short, in Harley-speak. Mid-battle, they are sent to and stranded in another dimension. Their quest begins, to find another trans-dimensional ring portal that can return them home.
They throw in their lot with Groovius, a jive-talking, Afro-sporting loyal citizen of Valeran and its currently-captured and imprisoned ruler Vartox. But Vartox, with mutton chops and a mustache out of a porn film, already knows Kara AKA Power Girl. It turns out he has met her before, or at least one of her from yet another dimension. And he has fallen madly, hopelessly, obsessively (but not exclusively, let's not go too crazy) in love. To the point of going all Stepford Wives on her. Not to mention the shrines and statuary erected to her. The affection is decidedly not mutual, and so begins Vartox's efforts to woo and wed Power Girl.
All of which happens between the battles to rescue Vartox, defeat his captor Oreth Odeox and finally clear the Boss-Level giant floating head who, it turns out, is no match for the mixed-up mind of Harley Quinn. But the biggest challenge of all? Persuading Vartox to let go of his love and send them home.
Stephane Roux leads the charge in the art department and keeps things moving with a little nudity, a little more phallic imagery, and a lot of visual innuendo. It exudes the visual vibe of the Sexploitation and Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. At key moments he gets an assist from Elliot Fernandez and Morritat, whose style differences take over for a swirly-green flashback sequence here, and there a little sepia-toned trip into a sweeter era (well, except for the killer-mother version of Power Girl).
This book is loads of light fun. Definitely not for 8-year-olds, though!
Description:
Spinning out of the hit series HARLEY QUINN, this six-issue miniseries tells the story-within-the-story of the unlikely super-duo's adventures in outer space!
Hey, remember the panel gutter between panels 3 and 4 of page 20 of HARLEY QUINN #12? What? You don't? It's only, like, the most memorable panel gutter of the twenty-first century! We'll jog your memory - our heroes, Harley Quinn and Power Girl, were tossed through a teleportation ring, dropping them into galaxies unknown.
It's a cosmic adventure beyond your wildest imaginings: Power Girl and Harley Quinn, stranded in a forgotten dimension, on the homeworld of the amorous warlord Vartox! They'll sacrifice anything they have to in order to get home - except their dignity. Kidding! That'll be the first thing to go.
Collects: the complete 6-issue mini-series
Authors: Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti
Artists: Stephane Roux
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: March 8, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN: 978-1401259747
Pages: 152 pages
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