When Paul Dini and Bruce Timm brought together Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn as an unlikely criminal collaboration in the Batman cartoons of the 1990s, it struck me as odd, but there was no denying the inherent fun of the combination. Still, objectively, these two personalities shouldn't mesh together well at all, and that's what Dini and Timm explore in this limited series. On the surface, it looks as though it'll shape up to be a fun, all-ages read, but it seems the creators don't really know if they want to delve into material appropriate for kids or to titillate adult male fantasies with the curvaceous title characters.
Poison Ivy leads her sometime-partner-in-crime, Harley Quinn, on a caper that promises to give the two femme fatales complete and total control over every body in Gotham City. Ivy's got her eye on a rare South American plant, which contains a chemical that will make for a perfect mind-control agent. There's one problem: she left Harley in charge of checking into the details of the exhibit where the plant was to be displayed. A bungle brings the two villainous vixens into conflict, threatening to unravel their unusual friendship.
It's a real treat to see Bruce Timm working with the Batman characters again, especially Harley Quinn, one he and Dini created specifically for the Batman cartoons. His familiarity with the characters and the simple but exaggerated quality of his style certainly brings out the slapstick, Vaudeville-esque humor of the story. There's plenty of action as well, as Timm demonstrates a flair for dynamic movement and a strong eye for perspective, elements that helped make the animated series he co-founded such successes.
And then, we come to the shower scene.
A shower scene? A scene that elicits comparisons to women's prison movies?!?! Oh please. The scene is so completely gratuitous, it takes the reader right out of the story. It brings a sordid element to the plot that just doesn't fit with the otherwise light, all-ages tone of this issue. The two-page sequence is about as subtle as a dead puppy nailed to one's front door (mind you, it's nowhere nearly as gruesome). The first panel in which we glimpse the two water-soaked and sudsy "heroines" of the book is a thoroughly disappointing one.
It's too bad, because taking the dysfunction of this friendship is a lot of fun. The reason the relationship makes sense, despite the polarized nature of the personalities, is that these two are essentially the only women in their "field," the only two seen with any regularity, anyway. Harley's here just for laughs, obviously, but I hope we see more of her intellect in future issues, as there's a lot more to the character than the eager-to-please bumbler we see here.
