REBOOTS WHY I HATE THEM SOMETIMES:
This time I’m not talking about the reboot that was done on Spider-Man, though still not happy with that, but this time it’s about a character that I like even more than Spidey (yeah there is one). Harley Quinn. This is my most liked character of all characters. She’s funny, she’s cool, she can actually tag Batman a few times before he takes her down, she’s totally insane, and she’s very sexy with a really cool costume. All of which is what makes me like the character and it’s being taken away.

In past posts I’ve talked about the new line ups that DC Comics have done with all 52 of their titles. While the new 52 include some new characters as well as starting the numbering system over again, it also includes changing the characters themselves. Most are still the same with some minor tweaks to the costumes and personalities. Like having Superman being younger and Batman as well, and one Superman has a slightly different suit where is no more red shorts on the outside of the suit but just a solid blue suit, there’s also the other Superman that wears the t-shirt and jeans. Thing is with these changes, even though it’s been changed it’s not really changed, more liked tweaked. What was the big changes in Supermans suit? No more red underoos and instead of the blue tights he’s got a t-shirt and jeans yet the S shield, red cape, and blue remain there, all of the most important aspect of the look of the character. Same goes with Batman, his suit is still gray and black with the bat symbol on his chest. The only change is the way the suit looks more like it’s wearable armor than just spandex and the bat symbol looks like a bat. Thing with Batman is that they’ve always done this to his suit, the shades of the gray and black change some, the bat goes from a flat bat to a bat in the yellow oval, but still pretty much the same.

Now with my most favorite character Harley Quinn, this new change is not just tweaking a few parts of her but creating a whole new character. Before I talk or show the differences between the old and new character, let me make this statement about how different they are. 3 months have passed since the relaunch of 52 new titles, during that time I have looked at every single cover to each of the 52, and on the cover of Suicide Squad #1, the very first issue, is Harley Quinn but I didn’t even know that was supposed to be her. They changed the way she looks so dramatically that she looks nothing like the way she used to. As I said, some tweaks is fine, look at the Harley Quinn used on the games Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, she’s wearing a white shirt and skirt with a red corset but also keeps with the red and black theme on the two sides, she still has the white face, and the black mask, changed but still looks like Harley Quinn, not one I care for that much though, I want that to be known also but still looks good and looks like the character.

So let me talk about how the new Harley Quinn looks.
This new character is wearing a small little cape. A freaking cape! Why is Harley Quinn wearing a cape? That makes no sense to me. As for the rest of her costume, well don’t expect much cause there’s not much there. She now is only wearing a corset that barely covers her and a pair of shorts that is about the size of a quarter with a set of gun holster like pouches hanging off a bullet belt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that she should be covered more because I’m a prude, I’m not, the look is sexy, it’s very sexy and it does have a very cool appeal to it but that’s not my problem. My problem is that it looks nothing like Harley Quinn. They gave her hair the two tone color of red and black and put it in pig tails, they’ve also gave her the two tone color arm bands with the diamonds on them, but until I was told that this was Harley Quinn I had to actually look at her and then I realized, ok yeah that’s her patterns but that’s not her.
I loved the way they had her hair in the mask that has the two hanging parts, that’s just cool. But I also liked the fact that she painted her face white, she was just a normal woman who went crazy. This Harley Quinn has a skin problem that makes her face white like that. So what does that make her now the female version of the Joker?

This new look, yeah I’ll eventually grow to tolerate her, I might like her at some point, but with this new look I will never love her. I will not be going out to my comic shop in Fort Mill to buy a $100 statue or like on this Wednesday how I was talking about buying the $325 statue of Harley and her pet hyenas, which I’ve bought a few of the statues, not the $325 but that one is soon coming. This new Harley Quinn, she gets a figure made that cost 10 bucks I’ll think about buying just because it has the name Harley Quinn on it, but above that $10 price tag I will never buy one with her looking like this. All I see in this new version of Harley Quinn is the run of the mill female character that’s being put out to attract the attention of teenage male readers to bring new readers into the comics. Like I said she does look sexy, but she also looks like any other 1000 female characters that have come and gone without any memory because they just look the same with that sleezy look that brings nothing to the character because the company is betting that some hormonial teenager is going to buy it because she is nearly nude (which is true they will) but they soon stop buying them because some other company has one that looks different with her smaller clothes and readers like me, the ones that buy that same title each month for years on end will end up not liking the character because there is no real character to her other than her looks and now even those don’t have character or style just the same nothing like every other female character, and now well I don’t want to read about it making me not feel bad at all about no longer buying those titles.

So DC, change some, tweak the looks of the character to improve on them, most of the time it will look good, but to change the character so drastically that the character no longer even looks like that character, it’s too much. And yes I have seen that there are a lot of supporters on this new look, but I would bet and have seen, that these supporters are teenage to early 20’s males who like this look of Harley Quinn only because you have taken away that full body suit to showing legs, stomach, and a very huge amount of cleavage. Cover up that skin and cleavage, do it with something that would work with the corset and little panty shorts, and I bet there would be an outcry at how she looks horrible and it would be these teenage boys who is doing the out crying cause they want skin.