Harley Quinn: The Animated Series – Legion of Bats! #2: Vulnerability & Danger

When I open the pages of Legion of Bats!, I always know I’m in for a treat, another fun sexy adventure by Harley-Ivy duo, and a hilarious but thoughtful exploration (sometimes in depth, sometimes as strokes of paint over the story) of disability, gender, trauma and what else you can dream. The creative team, with Tee Franklin writing its amazingly fun plot and dialogues, and various pencilers and inkers (without it being abrupt or unsettling in the changes), as well as Lee Loughridge’s fabulous colors all around it and Taylor Esposito’s bombacious lettering, exceeds at what it does. And what it does is fun, depth, slice-of-life, superheroic, and everything in between.

The story continues as expected on the main “course”: Harley’s complex relationship with heroism and villainy mirrors the conflict around Ivy’s trauma in The Eat. Bang! Kill Tour again, this time with explicit references, but it adds a new element: a villain as compelling for Harley’s dilemma (that of her role within villainy now that she’s part of the Bat-fam) as Black Mask. His introduction is somewhat small and not very noticeable, but it’s one of those introductions that seems he’s gonna be way more threatening that it seems. The B-side of this plot is the Bat-fam dealing with a criminal that is somewhat empathetic, perhaps pointing out to further themes on the comic (Tee has done a lot to destigmatize disability and mental illness, which, in the world of Gotham, is a real challenge), but for now really disconnected from the main story (and way less engaging). And then, a third plot gets its first peek, Mia, the sister of Peaches, a black trans woman, has disappeared/been kidnapped. As a (white) trans woman, I can understand the high importance of representing the theme of racialized transmisogynystic violence and the impact it has on the queer community, and seeing Ivy and Harley take on the task of finding Mia is heart wrenching, but I do have worries about the portrayal and what’s to come. And, while I trust Tee with this topic and I’m excited to see more explicit trans representation on this universe, I do have to point out the first mistake done in this regard, one that showcases every detail in comic creation (from writing to lettering through the editor) is important. Trans is an adjective, and the term “transwoman” has been used by so called “gender critical feminists” to separate trans women from their womanhood. I do know that the authors of this comic hold trans-acceptance views (as it shows in the story itself, and being Shae trans themselves), but I still believe this little semantic mistake is important, as every bit of representation is important when we have so little, so wrongly done. I do dream the team reads this review and corrects this naming for future issues, but for now I have to call out the (very few) details that I find clumsy or poorly done in this comic.

Now back to the comic itself: what can I say, the art is majestic, that scene of Harley and Ivy on a dressing room going through various different styles is both a great work on their dynamic and a feast for the eyes, as it is most of this comic. The fact that sex work, transness, disability and so many more themes can so naturally be part of the Harley Quinn Animated Series universe, with an engaging plot and a reason to keep following this comic, is beyond stunning. Thank you.