P&B's Harlequin

So, there's a new cartoon series for those who live in a world without heroes...

Since this country's definition of 'Hero' has been warped by movies like Rambo to mean 'the psychopath who kills people we don't like,' Harley Quinn makes the perfect hero.

Of course, for her to be the hero and to work as a series, it's going to have to be an ugly world. They establish this quickly in her introduction, along with a solid hint of the blood and violence to follow...

Oh, yeah...  did i mention the language? This isn't Batman The Animated Series (where Harley got her start).

There are stark differences...

...to wit...

By yon by - one of the delights of the show for me is hearing Diedrich Bader back in the role of Batman...

And we've got Alan Tudyk as Joker -

Add some lovely sets, including a B.S. inspired Joker's Lair...

Toss it all with a smattering of explosions and a bucket brigade of blood filled dark humor along with a side of personal revelation and by the end of the first episode...

Yeah, i think i might give the show a look and see what happens.

But i'm a twisted old f  k.

BTW - I personally find it interesting to note who gets a creator's credit -

Harley Quinn created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. 
Oh, yeah - anybody who loved Batman The Animated Series and all that's flowed forth from it loves their work. (Actually, i've been a fan of Timm's work since Whisper)

...Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.
About damn time that the Kane family relented to allow a more truthful credit. They've been doing nothing but adding shame to the Kane family name for years.

...and Killer Croc? Interesting. Created by Gerry Conway and Don Newton.
Well, you know we love Don Newton around here. Somehow, despite a fairly amazing body of work as both writer and editor, we haven't visited with Conway as yet. (Even more surprising since i was a big Mack Bolan fan, too) I wonder if they got a creator's credit due to when Killer Croc was created, or if it was keyed to Conway's contract if he was editing at the time?

Either way, it's cool to see their names up there.

screens from Harley Quinn S01E01 (2019)

Reality And Unreality Have No Clear Distinction In Our Present Circumstances

While i've been off, there's been some truly odd happenings out there. I usually tend towards things further in the past, but -

Even more odd than T-Rump palling with Canya SeeMe for a new stop on the Putting The Ass In Class tour. The "weirdest team in comics" got a tv series that deeply embraces that weird and brings it to live action in ways i could never have hoped for. And with a delightful attitude, too...

(Yeah, i blurred the caption to be nice for the censors. Oops - i mean redactors. I forget that we censor the word censor these days.)

Yeah, that's Cyborg on the right along with our core team, Robotman, Negative Man, Elastigirl, and Crazy Jane. Those names might not ever be actually used on the show, other than Crazy Jane. They're not heroes, excepting Cyborg. They're just Cliff Steele, Larry Trainor, Rita Farr and Jane (Kay and company) - misfits, not heroes.

3 months older than the X-Men, outcast freaks gathered together by a rich genius in a wheelchair to protect a world that shuns and fears them. They're the

Unsurprisingly, the show leans heavily on the Grant Morrison / Richard Case years. What is surprising is how much crosses over from the comics. And they've also dived deep into the Arnold Drake / Bob Haney / Giordano Bruno Premiani years. Things are definitely remixed a bit, changed both to cross mediums and for cohesion - They've only got 15 episodes in season one and over a half century of comic history to work with. Even longer on the show, actually. Rita has her transformative origin in the 1950s. Larry in the '60s, Cliff in the '80s, and Kay/Jane in the '90s, with the primary timeline being in this century. Things get changed, but in ways that work to serve the characters.

Cliff Steele is our entry character. His rebuild and awakening after the crash is how we meet the characters of the show. He's the newest member of Caulder's menagerie. Though he may have had his accident before Crazy Jane's transformation, it took years to rebuild and get him up and running.

Rita Farr, who generally was given the least character development in the old comics, has the most changes. Those changes work to make her more of a misfit - oddly to make her fit better on the team.

Larry Trainor is Negative Man, not Rebis - the gender fluid construct merging the male Trainor with the female Dr. Poole and the negative energy being binding them. Maybe later, but Rebis is a bit much to introduce in the limited framework of a single season. Instead, they found a different non-binary angle for his sexuality.

Jane, amazingly, is the least modified of the four. There's no mention of the Gene Bomb from the alien Invasion! mini-series which triggered the metagene, activating powers in all 64 of her personalities, but that's hardly surprising. Not only do we meet several of her well known personae, including some one might not expect, like Sun Daddy...

...and Silver Tongue, whose words form in the air, allowing her to use them as weapons...

 That's one of those things that works so easily in comics (since the words are already there anyway) but was rather surprising, but fun, to see on vid.

And, yes - we do go into the Underground...

Besides the core team, you know who else shows up on the series?

Danny The Street!

If you haven't read the old comics, Danny The Street is just what he sounds like - a Street named Danny. Of course, he's not a 'normal' street. Aside from being sentient, he's also mobile - able to shift his location around the planet at will. Also, he's a transvestite...

Yeah, the Bureau Of Abnormality wants him bad.

Among others, we also get Flex Mentallo and the white space between the panels...

Did you ever think we'd see Animal/Vegetable/Mineral-Man, even in a minor role?

And big Cheers for casting Curtis Armstrong as Brother Ezekiel! (yes, he's a cockroach)

The most off-model character is Mr. Nobody, but that makes sense unless you wanted a fully CGI intentionally-unreal-looking character. Instead, the ever cool Alan Tudyk winds up looking like this...

 ...it works well for the concept, if not for the descriptor "looks like you're always seeing him out of the corner of your eye" that's used once or twice in the comics. But, the comic version(s) didn't really fit that notion either.

And they even touch on the other versions/incarnations of the Doom Patrol. Here, for example, we see the Chief with Celsius, Mento, and Lodestone...

There's a great deal more - even mentions of The Brain and Mssr. Mallah.

The show takes its time, digging into each of the characters and building their world over the first 13 episodes with a big 2-ep final confrontation. And, yeah - it forgoes the typical conclusion to find a more appropriately odd ending to the tale.

Will there be a second season?
The show was quite well received, but the DCU streaming service itself might not last long. Now everybody is launching new streaming services to grab a slice of the pie (forgetting that what made streaming so popular in the first place was being able to go to one source for shows), and Warner Brothers wants in. They own DC and are likely to decide to kill DCU so they can make their service the home for the characters.

Only time will tell, but we got one true bit of Odd and perhaps more will follow. Maybe we'll get to see the Scissormen if there's a next time! (How does one represent the hole in reality after the scissormen have cut someone out of it? It's a lot easier on a white page, eh?) Maybe we'll even get to see the Brotherhood Of DADA (we got the Brotherhood Of DA this time, so maybe not)

We can hope.

screens from Doom Patrol season one (2019)

panel art by Richard Case and Scott Hanna for Doom Patrol #21 (1989)

NOTE: Post edited, but only to add bold face to names.