Truly Madly Deeply

The Definitive Origin of Harley Quinn.

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. Artwork by Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami.
Comic Book Review by Kerey McKenna.

Hello Nerds Who Read!

Back in 2016 the DC Cinematic Universe at Warner Brothers launched its answer to Marvel Universe’s Guardians of the Galaxy with Suicide Squad, a tale of villains forced to do the dirty work for a shadowy US intelligence organization. And the reviews, including my own, were mixed to poor. Frankly I was being charitable when I rated it the 3rd best superhero/anti-hero heist movie, even below a direct-to-video project. Four years later I would have to rate it lower as we got two more comic book heists in the Ant-Man movies.

However, one thing that did work about that poorly written, underlit, glum exercise in franchise building was Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, partner/victim of the murderous clown prince of crime The Joker (no, not either of the Oscar nominated ones). Since Harley’s debut in the epic 1990s Batman: The Animated Series, the character has been a fan favorite, appearing as a mainstay in other Batman projects prior to Suicide Squad (save for the WB movies and the Gotham TV series). Robbie’s performance knocked it out of the park with her Punch and Judy bat capturing the energy of a magic pixie dream girl that’s equal parts Bonnie Parker and Suicide Girl.

And since part of the success of the DC Cinematic Universe course correction was building upon the break-out heroine from another glum movie and giving their fun, larger-than-life characters epic and colorful visual palettes, it makes sense to bring Robbie’s Harley Quinn back to the big screen in Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn premiering today.

To mark the occasion, and to emphasize the Read in Nerds Who Read, I thought I’d do a quick retrospective on the origin comic book of Harley Quinn.

The Eisner award winning 1994 comic Mad Love was not Harley Quinn’s first appearance because, as noted, she had debuted on Batman: The Animated Series two years prior. Harley Quinn was an odd new addition to the Batman rogues gallery, introduced not as a villain in her own right but as a member of Joker’s gang. It seems the Joker, vaudevillain as he is, appreciated a lovely assistant around for certain gags and heists. However what soon became apparent to the creators of the show, and fans, was that Harley Quinn added exciting new possibilities to the Batman formula.

In the tie-in comic Mad Love, Dini and Timm went about giving their creation a proper spotlight and tragic origin story like they had other villains Mister Freeze, Two-Face, and Poison Ivy. They did such a good job that this comic was later adapted into an episode of the animated series, also called “Mad Love,” which certainly contributed to her growing popularity

If you have not seen the animated adaptation or have not seen it in a while I would highly recommend you seek it out. Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn, playing a part that was literally written for her, shows a great deal of range and has amazing chemistry with both Mark Hammil’s Joker and Kevin Conroy’s Batman. Pretty much everything in the show was also in the comic, save for some scenes that were cut presumably for pacing and for standards and practices of what was ostensibly a children's show.

As I discussed in my retrospective of the series as a work of film noir, Dini, Timm, and their collaborators were very much about capturing the feel of classic noir and pulp tales. After its opening scene of Batman preventing Joker and Harley from assassinating Commissioner Gordon, the story pumps the brakes on the action and becomes a story of a woman falling into madness, criminality, and love.

We learn that Harley Quinn used to be Doctor Harleen Quinzell, one of the psychiatrists at Arkham Asylum treating insane criminals, including the Joker. Over the course of their one-on-one therapy sessions, the Joker seemingly opens up to Doctor Quinzell, winning her over with his charms and tales of an abusive alcoholic father. Eventually she falls in love with the Joker and comes to see Batman as the true aggressor and bad guy when he and Joker fight for the fate of Gotham.

Completing the “Good girls don’t, bad girls do” morality play, Doctor Quinzel turns her back on normal society, adopts the name “Harley Quinn,” and joins the Joker in a life of crime. After reflecting upon her fall from grace she starts to face facts that she, the Joker, and Batman are stuck in a Love/Hate Triangle. So she decides it is time to go behind the Joker’s back if she’s going to get where she really wants to be in life.

If you’ve seen the episode you will remember how this ends and if you haven’t...well I’m not going to explain the joke.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham MA May 9, 2020. Check it out at www.watchcityfestival.com.

Check out our review of Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn here at Nerds who Read!

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The Dark Deco Knight

Batman: the Animated Series and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Review by Kerey McKenna.

For our next entry in Noir November I wanted to take a look at the movie and TV series that more than any other imprinted noir and pulp sensibilities into my young mind: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman: the Animated Series. Not only are they among the best iterations of the Batman mythos; they're also a loving tribute to classic film noir.

In 1992, Warner Brothers Animation launched Batman:The Animated Series to much fanfare by old and young fans alike, a pulpy action cartoon with classic film noir aesthetics and sensibilities. Only a year later the production team managed to take their version of Batman to the big screen with the feature length Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, resulting in what I propose is one of the best Batman motion pictures ever made.

The narrative of the film actually takes place in two time periods, the “Present” of the TV series (a version of the 1990’s that looks uncannily like the 1950’s; more on that later) in which Batman is well-established as the protector of Gotham, and ten years prior, when a college-aged Bruce Wayne is about to begin his costumed crusade against crime. Going back and forth between the two eras is actually a great way to do the “Superhero origin story” and I’m a bit disappointed no millennial superhero movie has lifted the trick. A fully formed Batman bursts into action in the very first scene, and over the course of the film we get to peer back in time to see the moments that informed the man he would become. Unlike some origin stories of popular characters, these flashbacks don’t obsess about trying to explain every little piece of Batman’s iconography and signature weapons. Instead the grand insight offered by the flashbacks is Bruce Wayne’s state of mind in becoming Batman; along the way they also provide crucial clues to a mystery playing out in the present.

The film begins with present-day Batman doing a bit of gang busting to break up a counterfeiting ring. However things go sideways when a mysterious cloaked figure uses the chaos of the fight to single out the gang’s ring leader and dispatch him with lethal force.

While trying to uncover the identity and agenda of this mysterious Phantasm, Bruce Wayne is haunted by thoughts of more sanguine times, thanks to the return of old flame Andrea Beaumont to Gotham. We learn that ten years ago, just as young Bruce was taking his first forays into vigilante justice, he crossed paths with Andrea, and his caped crusade almost ended before it began. Andrea could have undone Bruce's plans for vengeance by offering him the alternative of a loving and happy life. Unlike the other women of high society—flighty, vain, and gold digging—Andrea knew tragedy through the death of her mother and could relate to the serious and brooding orphan Bruce Wayne on that level, while still offering him a chance at normalcy.

However it seemed destiny had other plans. Andrea mysteriously called off their engagement, leaving Bruce no choice but to throw himself wholeheartedly into his one-man war on crime.

Meanwhile in the present, the Phantasm appears to be targeting specific mobsters for a very personal, but as yet unknown grievance. A grandstanding politician pins the murders on Batman and sics every cop in Gotham who isn’t Commissioner Gordon on Batman’s trail. Further complicating matters, Batman’s archnemesis, the Joker, is on the Phantasm’s hit list and the Clown Prince of Crime decides the best defense is a good offense...and lots of explosives.

The past and present begin to converge as we learn how the Joker, the politician, the targeted mobsters, and the loss of Bruce’s lady love ten years ago are all connected.

With great pacing and a character-defining voice cast (Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, voicing Batman and Joker respectively, would reprise these roles many times over the next twenty odd years), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a great entry in the superhero canon. But why am I bringing it up as noir?

Dark Deco Design

In 1989, Tim Burton’s summer blockbuster Batman introduced mainstream audiences to a Gotham far more grim and dark than they remembered from Adam West's 1960’s campy romp. Yet the new gothic take on the material didn’t deter kids (and adults) from shelling out millions of dollars for enough bat-themed bric-a-brac to fill two Bat Caves.

To coincide with the release of the sequel Batman Returns, Warner Brothers turned to their animation studio to keep the momentum going and further capitalize on the character with a Saturday morning cartoon show.

Instead of a toy-centric cash grab, however, the show’s creators set about creating a high quality program that would stand on its own merits as something beyond a movie tie-in. They kept the darker aesthetics of the Tim Burton movies and then leaned hard into anachronisms in the set and prop and character designs to create a style that would be referenced in Warner Animation well into the next century, Dark Deco or Deco Noir. The sets, props, and even the characters themselves have a geometric and streamlined look that is characteristic of the art deco movement, which had experienced a revival during the 1980’s. I believe this was also done as a statement of respect and homage to the Max Fleischer Superman Cartoons of the 1940’s which until then had been the high water mark for realizing a superhero in animation.

Viewers of Phantasm could be forgiven for believing the movie is set some time earlier in the 20th century. Gotham City appears to be stuck in the golden age of art deco design—1930's Streamline Moderne, to be precise, which would dominate city skylines for decades to come. In the TV show, unless it was a very specific piece of technology like a VCR or a supercomputer necessary for the plot, the denizens of Gotham appear to have universally decided nothing designed past 1960 was aesthetically pleasing. Eagle-eyed fans did spot on-screen calendars and documents indicating the show was taking place in the 90’s. However when I poured through the film for this review, I couldn’t spot any obvious anachronisms that would be alien to the 1950’s, save for Batman's crime fighting technology and Joker’s uncannily accurate mini auto-gyro drones.

Adding to the sense that the viewer is looking at something from another time, the creators translated era-appropriate editing and visual effects, such as certain screen wipes, vignetting, and discretion shot pan-aways. Speaking of discretion shots, since this Batman was ostensibly for a family audience, the creators had to work within constraints similar to those classic noir creators laboring under the Hayes production code. While mainstream “neo-noir” creators of the 90’s reveled in the freedom of R-ratings, Batman’s writers used the tricks of the trade of the 30’s and 40’s to sneak a bit of sex and violence into their noir tale but always left the most explicit material to the audience's imagination.

These 1930-50’s film aesthetics were then realized with an often dark palette. Famously, many visuals for the series and the movie were actually created by painting the art on black paper instead of the animation industry standard white. The creators were very careful with their use of light and shadow and the result was a film and TV series that didn’t look like anything else produced by American studios at the time.

Friends from out of town

Any film student worth their salt could tell you that a drastically tilted shooting angle in film can help convey unease, tension, or even madness. It was a popular technique in the film noir canon and also the often psychedelic Adam West Batman. The technique is referred to as a Dutch Angle or Dutch Tilt as it was introduced to American filmmakers primarily from German (Deutsch) impressionist films, and even actual Germans (and other Europeans) who came to the West after the two world wars and wove their own sensibilities into film production.

The Batman animated projects that launched in the 90’s also have another international influence on their style—the influence of the Far East. To meet their TV release schedule and a theatrical production time about one-third of what it took a contemporary studio like Disney to get something to the big screen, Warner Brothers

Akira (1988)

animation had to subcontract a lot of work overseas. For the film, they collaborated with Ong Yang Animations of South Korea and Spectrum Animation of Japan. And while American animated films and cartoons of the time typically weren’t dealing with more “cinematic” shot composition and mature subject matters, a lot of Eastern animation was.

In addition to providing resources for the tedious process of hand drawn animation, these two Asian studios brought much needed experience in how to produce the effects Warner Brothers was looking for. This resulted in…

Standing the Test of Time

A lot of work went into creating an animated Batman that would be taken seriously, and I argue that Batman: The Animated Series and its companion movie Mask of the Phantasm represent a definitive take on the character and mythos. At a time when a Marvel Cinematic Universe would have been considered a fever dream, an animated DC universe of interconnected TV series and further films had already sprung forth from this iteration of Batman. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill have been called upon again and again to reprise their roles because to fans of my generation they are the voices of Batman and Joker. In this version of Batman, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. played Alfred not simply as a loyal, unquestioning servant, but as a man struggling to make sure that Bruce’s quixotic quest doesn’t end in more tragedy. This is the tone struck by every subsequent version of the character in TV and film. As for breakout character Harley Quinn, known to more recent audiences from her central role in 2016's Suicide Squad, she was invented for this series.

In honor of what this version of Batman has meant to fans, this Veterans Day weekend Warner Brothers is airing Batman: Mask of the Phantasm in select theatres throughout the country. If you, like me, are a longtime fan, or if you somehow missed it but are intrigued by anything I’ve described for you, I would highly recommend trying to get yourself a seat for a screening this holiday weekend.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival. Check it out at www.watchcityfestival.com.

Superstitious, Cowardly Lot

Batman: Haunted Knight Written by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Art by Tim Sale.
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna

Batman and Halloween just make sense together. Certainly Bruce Wayne wasn’t the first, or the last, ultra-rich playboy to fight crime by donning a mask and costume. However his costume isn’t just a mask to conceal his identity or armor to protect his body. His chosen totem, that of the bat, is linked in our culture to the night, the occult, and Halloween. It is part of Batman’s creed that he considers the criminals of Gotham “a superstitious, cowardly lot.” In his more gritty adaptations we see how Batman deploys the imagery of the supernatural, his Dracula-like cape and his pointed ears, which present an almost demonic profile to strike fear into the hearts of hapless henchmen.

Even his most iconic villains look more like people headed to a costume party then on the way to commit a crime: clowns, a dapper penguin in a tuxedo, a sexy cat-woman, and a man bisected between good and evil. And like Halloween itself, this iconography can be tweaked to move along the spectrum toward children or in the other direction toward a mature audience. On one end of the spectrum we have Adam West’s Batman attempting to thwart some ridiculous caper by comedians, on the other end, Christian Bale trying to stop deadly terrorist attacks by a method actor.

So let’s continue our Nerds who Read Halloween series with the graphic novel, Batman: Haunted Knight. I wanted to hire long-time Joker voice actor Mark Hamill to introduce this review in his Joker voice, à la the Crypt Keeper, but my cheap editor won’t pay his fee, so you’ll have to use your imagination:

“Okay, listen up kiddos, the following material requires parental guidance. On the other hand do you know who didn’t have parental guidance? Little Bruce Wayne and look how well-adjusted he turned out. HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Haunted Knight is a collection of three separate standalone stories: “Fears”, “Madness”, and “Ghosts”. Each of these was a Halloween special when authors Loeb and Sale were the creative team on the Legends of the Dark Knight monthly comic. Together the three stories form a sort of concept album, same creative team, same overall tone, but each part distinct.

In the first part, “Fears,” our hero is challenged on two fronts: Batman seeks to bring in the villain Scarecrow and his fear-inducing chemicals, and a beguiling redhead has set her sights on Bruce Wayne at a costume ball. And for those who think they’ve got it figured out just from the premise, this redheaded vixen is not famous man-eating plant-lady Poison Ivy, but rather a more mundane threat to Batman’s crusade: he might find a reason to settle down.

In the second installment, “Madness,” childhood fantasy is warped into adult obsession when the criminal Mad Hatter kidnaps Commissioner Gordon’s young daughter when she is out trick-or-treating, dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

The creative team takes some inspiration from Batman director Tim Burton In the final tale, “Ghosts.” They bring Halloween and Christmas together and see what happens. One Halloween night, Bruce Wayne is placed in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge as he is tormented by apparitions guiding him through his past, present, and future. Our hero is asked what kind of legacy he wants to leave as Batman and as Bruce Wayne.

Unlike some writer/artist teams, where the artist slavishly attempts to illustrate the purple pulpy prose sent down from the writing department, Loeb and Sale work as a dynamic duo. The text is either sharp dialogue or internal monologue that doesn’t obscure the fine art and panel arrangement. With contributions from colorist Gregory Wright, they weave quite the immersive tale. Loeb and Sale have worked together with Batman before and in their hands certain parts of the Batman iconography are more form than function. Batman has an impossibly long cape that unfurls into bat wings when airborne, yet pools and billows around his ankles like a personal fog bank when he stands still. His rogues gallery, Joker, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter, are more caricature grotesques then people; the Joker is all toothy grin, the Scarecrow a gangly assortment of rags, and the Hatter a dumpy little man who looks like he walked right out of the Lewis Carroll storybooks. In Loeb and Sale’s excellent crime saga Batman: The Long Halloween and its sequels Dark Justice and Catwoman:When in Rome, the highly stylized character designs of the supervillains stand in stark, probably deliberate contrast to the more believable and grounded character designs of Gotham’s traditional mafia families. But here, that contrast isn’t called for. It’s just Batman and his foes tearing it up, on the spookiest night of the year no less, so bending the laws of reality makes more sense for the Halloween atmosphere. In two stories, “Fear” and “Ghosts,” there are sequences where actual dream logic and imagery is on wonderful display. In “Fear,” a dose of Scarecrow’s fear gas subjects Batman to all kinds of illusionary horrors. As “Ghosts” is directly inspired by A Christmas Carol, Bruce Wayne is whisked magically from his bedchamber to all the different locales and times. At one point, as Bruce walks through the mansion to meet the Ghost of Halloween Present, his pajamas and dressing gown shift and morph until he is wearing his Batman cape and cowl.

As I said, Batman and Halloween make a lot of sense together thematically and this is the creative team to pull off a whole grab bag of tricks and treats that pair this specific character and this specific holiday. I would highly recommend checking out Haunted Knight if given the opportunity. It isn’t heavy on continuity, so even if you're familiar with Batman mainly through TV and film, and the comic books are uncharted territory to you, you'll find it rewarding.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.