Two Shades of Harley, Ivy, Tim and Azrael in a Not-So-BatChat Roundup

Gotham City has its own gravity. Sooner or later, everyone is drawn back to it. Sometimes, though, when the protagonistic eye of the Batman is not on them, they get to live lives of their own … and that’s when Not-So-BatChat drops in.

This week, we look at Tim Drake’s new solo series as he explores life in a new city, and the thrill of dating so soon after coming out, in Tim Drake: Robin #1, written by Meghan Fitzmartin, drawn by Riley Rossmo, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Tom Napolitano.

Next, it’s a double dose of Harley Quinn — someone’s killed her, and it’s up to Kevin to find a way to bring her back, in Harley Quinn #22, written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Matteo Lolli and David Baldeón, colored by Rain Beredo and lettered by AndWorld Design.

For fans of Harley’s animated series, we pick up right where the show left off — the moment just after, in fact, as Harley tries to figure out where she falls on the hero/villain line, just as Ivy takes up a new position as leader of the Legion of Doom, in Harley Quinn, the Animated Series: Legion of Bats #1, written by Tee Franklin, penciled by Shae Beagle, inked by Roberto Poggia and Beagle, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Taylor Esposito.

Speaking of Poison Ivy, her plans to end all life as we know it are interrupted by her creator and former mentor, Jason Woodrue, who plans to end HER life as we know it. With Ivy already on the brink of death, the odds are not in her favor in Poison Ivy #5, written by G. Willow Wilson, drawn by Marcio Takara and Brian Level, inked by Stefano Guadiano, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Lastly … Azrael fights Satan. ‘Nuff said. Find out what happens in Sword of Azrael #3, written by Dan Watters, drawn by Nikola Čižmešija, colored by Marissa Louise and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Armaan Babu: Those are a lot of comics there, Matt. I would find it intimidating to write about ‘em all if I hadn’t so thoroughly enjoyed them. Still, I’m hoping the Harley Quinn books slow down a bit soon. I’m fond of them, but there’s been a lot of back-to-back Harley these past few weeks, even for me! 

Matt Lazorwitz: Well, now that we’re past Harley’s big 3-0, I think we’ll see a little less. But this is what you get when you want to cover Bat books. It’s a never-ending supply, and lately, they’ve been mostly pretty darn good.

Tim Drake: Robin

Armaan: Correct me if I’m wrong, but we share a favorite Robin in Tim Drake, do we not? 

Matt: Yes, we do, Armaan. I started reading comics, really reading them, with Batman #445, so we’re within six months of Tim being introduced. I grew up with Tim, and he is the character I most personally associate with. He’s the Robin who was a big Batman fan before he became Robin. He’s the Robin who’s a brain. I love that about him.

Armaan: I’m thrilled to see him have his own series again. It feels like he’s been fairly out of the spotlight since his time helping to run the Bat-team in Detective Comics — and, of course, his recent coming-out in Batman: Urban Legends #6. I like seeing him front and center like this.

Stepping out of the shadow of the Bat, Tim Drake is making a new life for himself in the Gotham Marina, a quirky nigh-junkyard of a home. It’s like a trailer park for boats, and a double-page spread early on in the issue gives us a lovely glimpse into how run down and weird a place it can be. 

Since Bruce Wayne got kicked out of the mansion after “Joker War,” I feel like I’m seeing a lot of Gotham parts we don’t usually get to see. There’s a charm to this place, and I look forward to getting to know it. Now, you know more Gotham lore than I do — has this marina been featured heavily before, Matt?

Matt: It has not. I have begun to think that it’s time for a new guidebook to Gotham, or a story bible that all Bat writers can use. You are correct in that we have gotten a bunch of new neighborhoods, like Little Santa Prisca where Harley was living for a while, but we also have seen some older ones rise to prominence, like The Hill over in Batgirls. The marina seems to take some of the boho chic of Burnside (the outer borough created for Batgirl in the DCYou era) but places it more in Gotham proper. It’s an area I’d like to see explored some more.

Armaan: Tim Drake has a great supporting cast. The ever-upbeat Bernard, a partner-in-fighting-crime, former Robin Darcy Thomas, a detective who wants to do right by the city even if that means working with the caped crowd, and a marina full of oddball characters dropping in and out of the page. Unfortunately, though, this issue, two of the latter drop dead, which is where this mystery starts. Building off the bizarre storyline from DC Pride: Tim Drake Special, we have holographic animals recreating classic mystery stories, rampaging through the city, to be defeated by … vague interpretations of narrative closure. 

It’s a weird one, and while I’m enjoying the story, I’m not sure how satisfied I feel with this resolution. Then again, we’re only at the first issue, so I’m willing to give this “Gumshoe” villain a few more shots.

Matt: I really like Darcy as Tim’s sidekick, and while I know she first appeared in Future State: Robin Eternal, I wonder why none of the other Robins were used, as there were plenty: Shug-R, their tech/info person might have worked. And honestly, I really wish she had a different last name. Darcy Thomas is way too close to Duke Thomas as names go for me.

Bernard is great. I love the relationship that is being built between Tim and him. It feels organic, and he is supportive in a way that is different from Stephanie. He went into this dating TIM, as opposed to Spoiler dating Robin, which is something I feel always tinted the relationship between the two: They could never just be Tim and Stephanie no matter how hard they tried. I’m curious to see what happens when (not if) Bernard learns Tim’s secret.

Armaan: Now, it pains me to say this, but the art is another thing that I’m not sure if I’m enjoying. It’s strange because I love Riley Rossmo as an artist and have always enjoyed Lee Loughridge’s colors. The problem is that I don’t know if Rossmo is the best fit for this book. He’s doing a great job in this issue — the double page spread of the Marina was one of my favorite pieces of art that came out that week — but the mood of this book is fairly subdued. The colors are appropriately dark, moody, at once eerie and welcoming, but it doesn’t feel like the best fit for Rossmo, whose art thrives on vibrancy. It’s not like Loughridge can’t do vibrancy — we see a lot of gorgeously bright colors in a Harley Quinn book this same week — it’s the book itself.

This is not a vibrant book, and Rossmo’s art feels a lot more subdued. Despite the appearance of a raging holographic orangutan, the book seems to be calling for a more serious tone, one Rossmo’s art isn’t quite matching up with.

Is this just me, or have I gotten too used to the Riley Rossmo/Ivan Plascencia team over on Harley Quinn? 

Matt: I could not agree with you more. I’ve loved Rossmo’s work since his Bigfoot-Meets-Hellboy Image series with Alex Grecian, Proof, and I’ve loved seeing him make the big time, but this book doesn’t feel like it’s in his wheelhouse. If this is indeed going to be a mystery book, a book where clues are key, Rossmo’s busy layouts and detail-laden panels (something I would never complain about in a series like Harley Quinn that is all about, as you say, vibrancy) are going to make it harder to piece together those specific details when they are lost among everything else.

The double page spreads in this issue, and the half page of Tim’s boat, use circles to pull specific details into better focus or spotlight certain characters. I don’t want to have that used as easy shorthand for what I assume will be pages where there are crimes and clues. I want to try to piece that all together myself. But that might also be a personal pet peeve.

Harley Quinn

Armaan: Speaking of the art on Harley Quinn, though, here we have David Baldeón focusing on the present and Matteo Lolli handling the flashbacks. I’m liking Baldeón for this — the style he brings to the page, marrying cartoony and cool, feels perfect for this book. Especially given the ending, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In this story, we see Kevin approach … a rather dramatic looking leader of a sect of the League of Assassins. Matt, I need your comics expertise on this again. Who is this lady, and why does Stephanie Phillips assume everyone knows who she is? Seriously, her name isn’t mentioned once in the entire issue! I love her design, though.

Matt: Her name gets mentioned once, but Angel Breaker is such an odd name, I can completely see how you might have thought that was descriptive or just something weird Kevin was saying.

Angel Breaker is a very new character. She first appeared during “Shadow War” and was one of Talia’s loyalists, and apparently was trained by Black Canary, although the details on that latter bit remains fuzzy. She was one of a bunch of new LoA characters introduced in that crossover, and here, my friend, is where we run into trouble. She didn’t get a lot of character development there (although more than the rest), so while I recognized her, it took me a minute to remember her name, too.

This is the first we’ve seen her as the head of a LoA faction. She went into hiding at the end of “Shadow War” and I guess is leading this group while Talia, freed by the DEO to be their inside person in the story’s epilogue, is leading the group we see over in Ram V’s Detective Comics? I guess.

Armaan: Matt, I can never state enough just how much this column needs you. 

Kevin’s come here to reveal that Harley Quinn is dead, and he needs the Lazarus Pits to bring her back, which prompts a flashback to the hours leading up to her death — a series of circumstances that are weird in the way only Harley can manage. 

Her last arc saw her receive a significant sum, and a trip to Vegas ended with her receiving a weird, pink, tentacle-faced alien she’s disguised (terribly) as a cat. This site has me writing the weirdest of sentences. 

A well-funded Harley’s going all in on ridiculous purchases, surprising no one but concerning Kevin, who clearly has no idea what comic he’s in when he expresses concern about Harley’s apparent financial irresponsibility. What do you think of the way Kevin and Harley’s disagreement plays out?

Matt: We have slowly watched Kevin grow more assertive over the course of this series. The Kevin of the first arc would never have said any of this to Harley, so it is nice to see him having grown that much. I wish we had a better idea of why this particularly triggered Kevin. Why is Harley now being capricious something that bugs him so much? Is this fallout from the Verdict arc? We haven’t seen them together since he was used by a supervillain to get close to Harley, so there might be something going on there, too.

Armaan: The flashback ends with Harley being shot by a mysterious figure, and we cut back to the present — Kevin’s plea does not fall on deaf ears, and Harley is resurrected. We know that those who go into the Lazarus Pits don’t necessarily come out right, and that’s been especially true in recent times. As she emerges, Baldeón draws a particularly gruesome looking Harley; her recent, more gentle look abandoned in favor of something a lot more unhinged and violently hungry. 

This run constantly pits Harley Quinn against the worst version of herself. It’s been done compellingly in the past — most recently in the flashback that showed us Verdict’s origin — but I’m a little apprehensive about the monstrous version we see here. Is this about returning Harley to a less sanitized version of herself, or another part of herself the Harley we’ve come to know seems to fear?

For now, it’s a little too early to tell.

Matt: To be fair, the Pit Madness is usually a temporary thing, but with everything that’s happened with the pits, between the Great Darkness and the Devil Nezha, who knows? This might be part of the run-up to Lazarus Planet, but I agree, we just have to wait and find out.

… and the Animated Harley Quinn

Armaan: I am very grateful that this comic exists! I have been loving the animated series, and Tee Franklin’s comics set in the world of the animated series capture the series’ voice fantastically. As we wait for Season 4 to come around, impatient fans get a real treat, as the comic picks up the instant after the last moment of the show.

Have you been following the animated series, Matt? And what do you think of this issue here?

Matt: I have been following the animated series, and I get a real kick out of it. This series, and its predecessors, really do feel a part of that world. 

Armaan: What I cherish about this series is that, after years and years of getting “they’re just gals being pals!” storylines between Harley and Ivy, DC’s now all in on this relationship, and this book lets us see the more mundane side of things. The two of them snuggling in bed, talking about their work days, lazing about the apartment and spending a lot of page time in rather steamy, intimate scenes. 

While things definitely heat up on the page, it never feels lecherous. Shae Beagle imbues this pair with so much personality, energy and joy. There’s so much affection between these two, so much happiness in each other’s company.

Matt: Beagle’s art is excellent. The character designs are of course in line with the show, but the energy is cranked up even higher. This is a bit more broad in style than the series itself, but the characters’ faces are amazing. So much about this series, both the comic and the animated series, is about the emotions of the characters, so you need an artist who can really sell that, and Beagle definitely does.

Armaan: It’s not all smiles and floaty hearts, though — there’s a complication growing between them that’s going to be increasingly hard to ignore. Season 3 of the show ended with Harley deciding to try her hand at heroism with the Bat family, at the same time that Ivy’s figuring out how to lead the Legion of Doom. These are career paths that come into direct conflict with each other (as an aside, one of my favorite parts of this series is how they write heroism and villainy as career paths rather than as dramatized callings). Harley’s keeping secrets, and she’s feeling pretty guilty about that. 

In the meantime, Ivy may have a few secrets of her own coming out of the woodwork, as this universe’s version of the Gardener makes her last-page reveal. Y’know, it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, I love seeing new takes and altered origins for familiar characters showing up in a different storied universe.

Matt: This leaves me with some very particular questions related to this series and its fit in the universe. There is a lot of stuff that could heavily affect Season 4 going on in here: Ivy forming her new Legion of Doom, Harley working closer with the Bat family and the cracks already showing in Harlivy. How much can a tie-in comic that a small percentage of the people who watch the animated series read really alter the status quo? That is the main problem with tie-in comics in general; they have to put the toys back pretty much where they found them. It doesn’t mean you won’t get a good story, it just means you can only expect so much character progression. But we’ll see where it goes, and I’m looking forward to whatever might come next. 

Poison Ivy

Armaan: Harley Quinn, the Animated Series: Legion of Bats #1 makes a quick reference to Jason Woodrue, and that felt especially icky given his appearance in Poison Ivy #5. 

I have been loving this series about Ivy’s attempts to wipe out humanity, but given that DC is unlikely to ever let Ivy complete her goal, the question that’s been looming over every issue is this: What stops her? Does someone else come in and ruin her plans, or does Ivy get to choose for herself? How much agency does she get to have, ultimately, in her own story?

At the moment, we seem to have the worst possible answer to those questions, as the man who helped make her who she is today sweeps in and seems to take control of her completely.

Matt: I have expected Ivy to come around based on her interactions with the better of humanity, but maybe it’s the fact that Woodrue, who is more Floronic than Man at this point, is still just as crappy as he was when he was her sleazy professor that helps bring her around.

What I’m curious about is when this will wrap up. Like Ivy’s fellow channeler of the Green, Swamp Thing, this series has been extended, in this case from six to 12 issues. I don’t know if that means we’re going to get a second, different arc, or if Wilson had enough time to expand her initial plot to 12 issues. Woodrue appearing now seems to make me think of the former, but it might be the latter and this is the Empire Strikes Back-esque battle between our protagonist and the big bad before an even bigger one appears.

Armaan: Throughout the series, the spores killing Ivy have been growing stronger, increasing the intensity of her hallucinations and letting the art team just go absolutely nuts. One scene early on that I really enjoyed was her interaction with a hallucination of Batman. I like that that’s her go-to for rational thought and sensible planning. The two have never really been friends, but they’ve moved on from a traditional hero-villain relationship to being occasional uneasy allies when their goals align. That Batman shows up here speaks to a certain respect she holds for him that I can’t imagine she’d ever actually admit to.

Matt: Never! But I think this also might be a little of Harley’s influence, as more than Ivy, Harley has sought out Batman’s approval, so maybe a little bit of that hero worship has rubbed off on Ivy. Still, I think Batman probably feels pretty bad about Ivy’s fate, since it was him bringing her to Sanctuary that caused her death in Heroes in Crisis and led to her evolution to Queen Ivy, so I agree that he probably has more of an interest in her going on/staying on the straighter and narrower than before.

Armaan: Jason Woodrue here is absolutely monstrous. Where Ivy at the height of her power has been depicted as a Phoenix-like goddess, burning the world away for its own salvation, Woodrue is all acid green and inhumanly wide grins. He is toxic and monstrous. His silhouette barely resembles a human; he’s left his humanity gleefully behind in his need for power.

That said, the ways in which he’s monstrous are … pretty disgustingly human. He’s gross, lecherous, he assumes the world revolves around him. I’ve rarely seen a villain so joyfully assured of his own power, and that joy is what’s more disturbing than anything else. His need to prove his power over Ivy is the focus of this issue — he turns her own spores against her, robbing her of her agency quite definitively by the end of the issue. This issue’s a great showcase for a horrible villain it’s going to be so good to see defeated.

Matt: Oh, this is Woodrue at his worst. When it comes to Swamp Thing, Woodrue is almost a Renfield, this lesser being who aspires to what the master has, although more willing to take out his master than Renfield is. 

When it comes to Ivy, not only is he about the removal of her agency, but from jump he’s about the abuse of power. He was in a position of power over her when he turned her into Poison Ivy, and now he wants to once again be in a position to lord his own power over her. In an industry that has been dogged by accusations of grooming among high-profile creators, Jason Woodrue is an avatar of what those kinds of awful men do. And that makes for all the more satisfaction when he gets his comeuppance.

Azrael

Armaan: I’ll admit, I haven’t been following The Sword of Azrael. It’s not until I was looking up the comics we’d be rounding up this week that I realized that his series falls under this column’s purview as well. I caught up quickly enough — we’re only on #3 — and let me tell you, I’m glad I did.

I don’t dislike Azrael, but he’s always been one of the least interesting Bat-characters for me. Comics obsessed with religious guilt tend to wear me out quickly, and that’s usually what you get when the story focuses on Azrael. Even in this series, if you take a drink anytime someone says “holy,” you’ll be knocked out before you get to the end of the first issue. 

Something about this series, though, balances religious themes with deeply engaging weirdness. We have a Venom-like back and forth between Jean-Paul Valley and his violent Azrael persona, a character with an absolutely crazy superhero origin whose bizarreness I’ve never really appreciated until now. Dan Watters has managed to take what makes Azrael so weird and present it in a way that’s more fun than it is a mess of religious and scientific jibber jabber and guilt-ridden brooding.

Matt: Yes, Will and I covered issues #1 and 2 over on BatChat, but with all the other Bat books, we couldn’t squeeze in issue #3, so I’m glad I’m still able to talk about it here. Watters has been slowly evolving Azrael in his work on the character, starting with his serial in Urban Legends, and then in the miniseries Arkham City: The Order of the World, so now we’re getting some pure, unadulterated Azrael weirdness in this book, and I am here for that.

Armaan: In this issue, we have a rare instance of Azrael and Jean-Paul working together for once, as they explore their own origin in a hidden lair at the heart of a volcano; peak comics there. 

We learn that Azrael’s origins — the origins of the Order of Saint Dumas, in fact — spring from our Apokoliptian buddy Orion, who dropped a mother box on Earth in the middle of battle. I gotta say, I’m getting pretty heavy flashbacks to Gorr, here — religious themes, mortals who see cosmic beings fight and assume they’re heavenly beings, a fallen weapon that empowers these mortals for several millennia … though in this case we have a Mother Box instead of a Necrosword. 

I suddenly regret not ever having finished Justice League Odyssey, a series that also featured Azrael and Apokaliptik connections. Is this here a new revelation, Matt, or has Mother Box technology always been a part of the Azrael mythos?

Matt: This is new. I was pretty shocked by it, but not in a bad way. It actually makes the Order of St. Dumas’ post-Rebirth era crazy tech make a lot more sense. In the pre-Flashpoint days, they didn’t really have anything more high-tech beyond The System, but we saw some hardcore AI and tech in Batman and Robin Eternal and James Tynion IV’s Detective Comics runs. Them having some exposure to that level of tech now makes the fact that they can do these things make a lot more sense.

Armaan: The art here is a delight. The colors are eerie and hypnotic, glowing Halloween colors amid masses of shadow. It’s ghastly by way of cartoony, it’s cute enough to make the horror more awesome than scary, especially when a Frankensteined “angel” walks in. It’s a giant that’s undergone a similar transformation to what Jean-Paul was subjected to, calling himself Satan.

While most lettering is a lot like stunt work — if they’re doing a good job, you almost don’t notice it — Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou comes to play. We’ve seen his dizzied letters drifting in and out of Poison Ivy in her comic. Here, the letters of the angels look like they’ve been scratched into the darkness with bleeding daggers. There’s one panel where Satan’s “afraid” echoes in its own speech bubble, and it’s a pretty effective moment. 

I love this fight — Azrael is utterly outclassed, despite giving it his all. Satan barely breaks a sweat. The ease with which he takes Azrael down, and begins to take out his heart, gives us a real monster on the page. He’s scary in the same way lightning is — when he strikes, the best you can hope for is that you’re not in its path.

I’m having a lot of fun with this comic.

Matt: The art here is definitely a joy. Nikola Čižmešija worked with Watters on the Urban Legends shorts, but it was Dani who did the art on Arkham City, and their style is VERY different. I like them both, but the art on this book suits it. This is much less grimy and street level than Arkham City, which is where Dani shines. This book, with its angels designed straight out of the medieval and Satan, needs a dab hand at superhero art, and so I think Čižmešija is well suited for it.