Are You Afraid of Darkseid? #1: “Bloody Mary”

I was tickled pink when I saw that DC Comics was releasing a parody of Are You Afraid of the Dark? featuring its characters to celebrate Halloween. It’s such a simple yet amazingly fun idea. Let’s explore the Harley Quinn & Darkseid team-up adventure, “Bloody Mary”!

Three children break into an abandoned hotel in search of the legendary Bloody Mary. But wouldn’t you know it, Harley Quinn has the same idea. Suddenly, Darkseid is in the mix and hilarity ensues. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the two characters interacting very much, as it takes everything in me to suspend my disbelief that Darkseid wouldn’t omega beam Harley two seconds after seeing her. But there’s a cute “Darkseid Is” joke thrown in there and I just couldn’t be mad about it. Don’t get me wrong, Harley is pretty annoying, but I’ve never been a fan of that type of character so I can recognize my bias.

Beyond all that, the highlight of the story for me was certainly Bloody Mary herself. If you didn’t know from my tagline, I adore obscure female supervillains, but I’ll forgive you if you didn’t know DC had their own version of the character. She’s a pretty obscure Female Fury who first appeared in Hawk & Dove #21 way back in 1991 along with a few other “junior” Furies who were trying to prove themselves to the original group. She appeared sporadically throughout the 90’s, died a couple times, and then faded into obscurity. And I can’t blame them; as far as Female Furies go, she’s a bit lackluster. But here, she’s monstrous, dangerous, and completely captivating. The gall to strike out against Darkseid is impressive, and even if this story isn’t necessarily “canon”, I’d love to see this version of the villain in the future.

The art by Max Dunbar took me right back to the early 2000s, with expressive character faces and vibrant colors by Luis Guerrero. I don’t love how young and cute Harley appears, but it fits the theme, and this era is sort of near Bloody Mary’s heyday, so that’s fun. The action was very eye-catching, particularly any time Mary was fighting the “duo”.