I was doing some Christmas shopping on Small Business Saturday at a local comic shop and I picked up the latest issue of Harley Quinn to give to a friend as a gift for the holidays.

This Year of the Villain tie-in features two stories: Harley visiting her family in the aftermath of her mother’s death and Harley taking Booster Gold hostage to use his time travel capabilities “to murderize the original Crisis.”

Apex Lex used Harley’s mother’s cancer diagnosis as a bargaining chip to bring her to the side of doom in the battle between hero and villain. Her mission is to travel through time and stop the Crisis on Infinite Earths from happening so that there are no more comic book crossovers in the future. We get a brief glimpse of Harley Quinn meeting heroes during Final Crisis and Infinite Crisis and causing chaos as she continues her journey to the past.

Harley travels to Florida to check on her father after the passing of her mother. Thanksgiving is only a few days away. Her job is to reach out to her brothers and try to reunite the family so they can have a turkey dinner together at a local diner in town. This has been a longstanding tradition the Quinzels have taken part in as a family for years.

Can Harley bring the family together during this somber time and have the best Thanksgiving ever? Does Harley make it back to 1985 to avert the original Crisis? You’ll be surprised at the answers but you gotta pick this issue up to find out.

I haven’t been keeping up with Harley Quinn as of late. I really enjoyed her as a member of the Suicide Squad but unfortunately, that series has come to an end for the time being.

The loss of a loved one is hard for anyone especially when they pass away around the holidays. This issue does a great job of showing Harley tackling her own grief after the loss of her mother, while she tries to comfort her father and brothers during this difficult time. Its always nice when writers can show both Harleen’s serious side and Harley’s outrageous personality. Its this dichotomy that makes Harley an interesting character. I enjoy when parts of Harley’s past are revealed. Who knew she had a family and siblings?

I like how they make Harley Quinn kind of like Ambush Bug in her interactions with the reader, winking while breaking the 4^th wall. I just don’t want Harley to end up being DC Comics’ version of Deadpool. This is a Herculean task but one that Sam Humphries has undertaken and, in my opinion, so far so good. There are some guest artists that help with the flashbacks to DC Comics’ past. I would have liked George Perez handling the art on the Crisis on Infinite Earths portion of the story, but he has been enjoying retirement from drawing and writing comics.

Next Issue – When Harley’s first Christmas without her mother proves more difficult than she anticipated, she leaves Coney Island and heads to the most holiday-free zone she can imagine: Los Angeles! Looking to forget about her troubles for a little while, Harley dives headfirst into the glitz and glamor of Tinseltown… but finds something unexpected in the process-her holiday spirit!