Harley Quinn knows everything about the Joker — his skin, his eyes, and apparently, his dick size. It turns out all but one of those is easily replicated. Harley Quinn #13 puts Harley’s knowledge of her Puddin’s parts to the test.
This post contains spoilers for Harley Quinn #13.
The new Harley Quinn starts off in a weird place. The Joker and the titular anti-heroine get married (Poison Ivy is, of course, Harley’s maid of honor), they live a life together, have children, and then they grow old and Joker dies of cancer. It’s a ride. A very confusing ride.
And just when things can’t seem to get any weirder, the Joker wakes up from his dream — it was his dream all along — to find himself tied down on a rooftop catapult, being tortured by none other than the object of his affections: Harley Quinn.
Harley demands to know “just who in the flamin’ hot outhouses a’hell” this person is. Because she knows he’s not the Joker. How? She saw his dick, and it just wasn’t the same.
After several pages of Harley torturing Not Joker — which includes her slicing him open with a knife, insulting him, pouring vodka on his wounds, and slathering him in honey and birdseed before magically summoning an army of parakeets to peck it off him — he finally agrees to tell her who he is.
But, wait! Harley needs to gather some friends to hear this story “so they don’t think I’m goin’ nuts.”
After gathering some folks (including Harlem Harley, Harley Queens, Big Tony, Egg Fu, and Red Tool), Harley straps Not Joker to an electric chair at Coney Island and demands to know his whole story.
Turns out the man’s name is Edwin. He met Harley back in the ninth issue of the 2013 Harley Quinn series, and she promised to come visit him while he was getting treatment at a psych center. Edwin grew obsessed with Harley and wrote to the Joker (after stealing some mail with the Joker’s address on it, of course) to ask for help on how to seduce her. The Joker told Edwin the most logical thing was for him to become the Joker, which Edwin agreed made perfect sense.
He underwent a series of reconstruction surgeries, bathed himself in a chemical bath, studied hours of footage of the Joker to get the behavior just right … but none of it was enough. It takes more than changing (almost) everything about yourself to fool Harley.
And Harley lets him know that. “Look at you,” Harley says. “Are ya kiddin’? Are you outta yer friggin’ skull? How long didja think you could pull this off for? I had an intimate relationship with Mistah J. I woulda figured it out soon enough.”
Harley reveals to Edwin that the Joker had just been using Edwin to get back at her. Then she kills him.
Blood flies across the stage, and Harley asks Big Tony if he’d be willing to oversee the cleanup of this new mess she’s made. She doles out a few orders, discusses her businesses agenda for the next few days, and then heads out, looking worryingly worse for wear.
Harley Quinn #13 is now available in comic book stores.
