Daddy's Little Monster is all grown up! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at how the DC Comics character Harley Quinn has developed over the decades.
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00:00Hi, Joan. Call me Harley. Everyone does.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at how the DC Comics character Harley Quinn
00:08has developed over the decades.
00:10Run, piggy, run!
00:17It's not often that somebody can come along and change 50 years' worth of continuity
00:21for one of the most popular fictional characters of all time, and have those changes be so
00:25well-received that they're widely adopted. But that's what Paul Dini and Bruce Timm
00:30managed to do in 1992, when Batman the Animated Series began on Fox Kids.
00:35If anyone should be getting a testimonial, it's you.
00:37I'm just a night shift.
00:39For kids born in the 80s, this and its later sequel, The New Batman Adventures, became
00:43the definitive version of Batman.
00:45The Animated Series remains the backbone of DC's ongoing animated universe, which
00:56still puts out high-quality animated movies and shows to this day.
01:00Naughty, naughty! Jump around like that and Doctor won't give you a lollipop!
01:05But there was one standout character from the Animated Series, and it wasn't Batman
01:09or any of his most well-known rogues. It was Harley Quinn, an original creation for the show.
01:15Excuse me, but the teeth were my idea. So's this!
01:21Quinn began life as simply the Joker's Harlequin-themed girlfriend, first appearing as a minor character
01:26in the early episode, Joker's Favor.
01:29Here, here!
01:34But she quickly started to develop, thanks in no small part to the talents of Arlene
01:38Sorkin, her voice actress. The entire character was actually written for Sorkin, who was a
01:43close friend of Paul Dini. He was impressed seeing her play a jester in Days of Our Lives,
01:48and Harley Quinn was born.
01:49Okay, two drummer boys going to a bar! Ba-dum-ba-dum-bum!
01:53Boy, you're a rough crowd.
01:55Harley was a hit, both with audiences and with network executives, and she helped the
01:59show tackle some of its most serious issues. Notably, the extremely toxic relationship
02:04between Harley and the Joker.
02:06Know this, my sweet. The death of Batman must be nothing less than a masterpiece!
02:11The triumph of my sheer comic genius over his ridiculous math and gadgets!
02:17We see him consistently mistreat her, sometimes hurting her or leaving her for dead in his
02:22pursuit of Batman. In 1994, Dini and Tim wrote the Mad Love comic book, showing her origin
02:28story as Joker's obsessive psychiatrist, which was eventually toned down and made into
02:33another episode of the cartoon, since the comic wasn't suitable for the show's audience
02:37of children.
02:39Face it, Harl, this stinks! You're a certified nutso wanted in twelve states, and hopelessly
02:45in love with a psychopathic clown! At what point did my life go looney tunes?
02:50But the show also gave us Harley's other most enduring relationship, her best friend
02:54and later love interest, Poison Ivy. But we'll get to that later.
02:58Harley Quinzel. Rework it a bit, and you get Harley Quinn.
03:03Like the clown character Harlequin. I know. I've heard it before.
03:07By 1999, Harley was brought into the comic books fully, after appearing in a few One
03:12Shots and Elseworlds stories here and there, and officially became a DC character.
03:17Who's to blame? Batman, that's who! Batman! It's always been Batman, ruining my life,
03:24spoiling my fun!
03:26But she wasn't an instant hit with comic book readers, with her first ongoing series
03:30selling poorly and getting canned in 2003. Things changed when Paul Dini got his hands
03:35on the character yet again, though, with The Gotham City Sirens in 2009.
03:39Sirens ran for over two years, ending its run in 2011 to make way for the new 52, and
03:44followed the antics of the iconic criminal trio of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and Catwoman.
03:49Hey, aren't you that plant lady, Poison Oaky?
03:53Ivy! Poison Ivy!
03:55Sorry! Harley Quinn, pleased to meet ya!
03:59The three become friends, and Sirens remains a beloved chapter in DC Comics history, recently
04:05getting re-released for the DC Comics Compact Edition series.
04:08In Sirens, we get another iteration of Harley after the end of her relationship with the
04:12Joker, which was also the crux of her 2000 solo series.
04:15Well, I've always had an attraction for extreme personalities. They're more exciting,
04:20more challenging.
04:21But with Catwoman, and notably Ivy, to lean on, Harley again showed that she was a bigger
04:25character than the Joker, with her own stories to tell outside of him.
04:29Into the 2010s, things continued to change for Harley. First, she was incorporated as
04:34a major character in the 2009 video game Batman Arkham Asylum, one of the most critically
04:39acclaimed and influential games ever made.
04:41Where's Gordon?
04:43Wouldn't you like to know?
04:44I'm over here!
04:45Shut up!
04:48She was again voiced by Sorkin, alongside Mark Hamill's iconic Joker, and Paul Dini
04:53collaborated with Rocksteady on the writing.
04:55This meant that the games largely followed the continuity of the animated series, but
04:59with their older targeted audience, were much darker.
05:02Ivy?
05:03Gee, you look like crap!
05:05Maybe I can seek you some shampoo!
05:07The plants, can't you hear them?
05:09They're crying out to me in agony!
05:11Harley appears in Arkham City and Arkham Knight, too, though by that point Sorkin had retired,
05:16leaving Tara Strong to take the reins as the character.
05:19Okay, Donut Dunkers!
05:21You gonna bring Ivy to me, or am I gonna have to get her myself?
05:26Back in the world of comic books, though, something else was brewing for Dr. Quinzel…
05:30Suicide Squad.
05:31That's it?
05:32What, we some kind of…
05:34Suicide Squad?
05:35The 2011 New 52 reboot was controversial, to say the least, with DC relaunching its
05:40entire continuity and starting its ongoing runs all over again with new number ones.
05:45A lot of those runs' titles were deeply unpopular, so unpopular that in 2016, DC would
05:51go on to blow up its continuity yet again with the Rebirth Initiative.
06:01But it did give us a relaunched Suicide Squad, or Task Force X, this time with Harley Quinn
06:06as a key character.
06:08While a lot of people didn't like the New 52's Suicide Squad, they did like Harley's
06:12second solo series, which began in January 2014.
06:16It was undoubtedly one of the New 52's most popular series, running all the way until
06:21Rebirth.
06:22Harley, of course, headlined one of the Rebirth series, which was actually the best-selling
06:26Rebirth comic, and got another reboot for herself in 2021, which remains ongoing.
06:31Throughout these comics, her relationship with Poison Ivy was expanded even more, and
06:35they first kissed in the main DC continuity in number 25 of the Rebirth series, though
06:40DC tried to censor this at the time.
06:42But everything changed for Harley in 2016, when she finally became a pop culture icon
06:48and one of DC's most recognizable characters outside of the Justice League.
06:52Something tells me a whole lot of people are about to die.
06:55Margot Robbie was cast to play her in the first Suicide Squad movie, and though the
06:59movie was a disaster and is widely regarded as one of the worst superhero movies of all
07:03time, people still loved Robbie as Quinn.
07:13Robbie has gone on to reprise the role in 2020's Birds of Prey and 2021's The Suicide
07:18Squad, both of which were stellar superhero flicks, even though not a lot of people went
07:23to see Birds of Prey.
07:26Save me?
07:27It was a really good plan, too.
07:30Well, I can go back inside and you can still do it.
07:32She also discussed how she read a lot of Harley's comic books and is a true fan of the character.
07:37She even served as a producer for Birds of Prey.
07:41A kiss on the hand may be quite continental.
07:46Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
07:50It's also been rumored for years that Robbie wants to make a Gotham City Sirens movie,
07:54though the project is yet to get off the ground, if it really exists.
07:58Between these acclaimed comic books and popular movies, there's one last piece of the modern
08:03Harley Quinn puzzle, the Harley Quinn animated series.
08:14Aimed at adults, the series premiered on HBO Max, now just Max, in 2019 and has become
08:20riotously popular.
08:22Featuring Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell as the voices of Harley and Poison Ivy respectively,
08:27the show took the Harley-Ivy relationship and made it official for an even wider audience,
08:31though they'd still featured prominently in comic books for years at this point, in
08:35the continuities of Bombshells and Injustice, for instance.
08:45The show follows Harley post-breakup with the Joker once again, as she moves in with
08:49Ivy, and Ivy starts a doomed relationship with Z-list villain Kite Man, who was also
08:53so popular that he got his own show.
08:59The season two finale had Ivy leave Kite Man at the altar so that she and Harley could
09:03be together, and in recent episodes, the Gotham City Sirens have teamed up yet again.
09:08Harley had another fresh, animated interpretation
09:11in Batman Caped Crusader as well, as the psychiatrist to Gotham's elite, with a Harley Quinn-themed
09:16alias to punish those she can't treat.
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09:482024 will change the character once more, however, with the release of Joker Foliade.
09:59The sequel to 2019's stand-alone Joker movie, Foliade, sees Lady Gaga take on the mantle
10:04of Harley Quinn, who goes by Lee for short instead of Harley, and is also Arkham's
10:09music therapist rather than a psychiatrist.
10:15With Robbie's Harley arguably standing as an extremely comics-accurate interpretation,
10:19it's nice to see fresh and different takes on the character reaching live action.
10:23It's also a testament to just how influential Harley is, being constantly reinvented in
10:28interesting ways, just like all the greatest comic book characters are.
10:35Harley's gone from the Joker's mistreated girlfriend to a formidable villain and hero
10:39in her own right, and it's no wonder why she remains one of DC's most beloved characters
10:43of all time.
10:44And that was the evolution of Harley Quinn.
10:47Let us know in the comments which Harley Quinn portrayal is your favourite.
11:04See you in the next videos!