Defend this

Defend this.

Character development. Harley is no longer trapped by Joker in an abusive relationship. the clown getup is a symbol of this, which is why it's gone now.

I c-cant.

I like both desu

I thought Harleyfags don't want her with Joker.

If she isn't associating with Joker or Ivy she just isn't as interesting. Without the Joker involved in some way, she becomes a shallow, wacky retard character. Ivy at least provides lesbian undertones and usually those stories aren't completely detached from Joker.

Why does Tara Strong still voice Harley when Hynden Walch did a way better job in Assault on Arkham?

Is that bottom right drawing by Chris Burnham? When did he draw Harley?

I don't mind her breaking away from the Joker, because honestly otherwise she's a really shallow character.

What I don't like is saying "We're going to pull her away from him being almost her whole character" and then having him throw her in a vat to turn Harleen Quinzel into "The Joker, but with bangin DDs", and having her character just be "lol so randumb" crazy whore with a hammer.

Cover only.

Because Tara Strong would have a mental breakdown and commit suicide if you took "her character" from her.

Yeah Walch is the best Haley that isn't Sorken.

Why do I need to defend it? Pic related is correct.

I thought she was still riding the "WE LOVE YOU TARA'S TITS" fanboy wave from The Forbidden Program.

Woah, she cut Batman's legs?

When you have a hammer...

Didn't know she was that much of a cunt about "her apparent intellectual property." I say they fire her just to piss her off

Why she doesn't ride me?

That's only an explanation.

You were asked to defend it. Explain why this is a positive change for the character in a practical sense, setting aside narrative reasoning ("If she's independent her life will be better.").

How does this make Harley into a better character?

>"her character"
End this meme.

She's not. Stop listening to bait. She just loves the characters she voices. Nothing wrong with that.

The haft of that hammer looks like it's made of a piece of rebar. Looks uncomfortable to hold.

Hi Tara.

>How does this make Harley into a better character?
Use your brain cells. If she's no longer just a henchman, she can now be her own character. That's already an upgrade in itself.

Sup, virgin.

>If she's no longer just a henchman, she can now be her own character.

>The character's best story is Mad Love, which is about her and her relationship to the Joker

>henchmen can't be characters

Hi Hitler

It's not fair!

Is any of Harley's solo stuff actually good?

I think the only time I've ever read ANYTHING with her in it is Mad Love, which is great.

She was always a fun character on BTAS but I can't really picture her as a lead.

>Defend this
It's a chart that some biased child created to start an argument and/or vent their immaturity.

Why is she still called Harley Quinn even though nothing about her motif represents a harlequin anymore?

Why isn't Arleen Sorkin still voicing Harley? Mark Hamill's still voicing the Joker.

Man fuck those horsefags, Tara Strong did none of that stuff pre-Small Equines.

There's nothing mature about NuHarley

Reminds me of when one mom in your neighborhood would go all out for Halloween and dress up to hand out candy.

Mad Love was a part of her character's history. It was significant, but that time has passed. Deal with that or kill yourself.

They are side characters at best with no real focus of their own.

She retired and gave her blessing to Tara Strong

I forget how recent that motion comic of Mad Love was but that was the last time she voiced the character I think

>Mad Love
WRONG

Bitch I'm so mature, I had a bowl of nails for breakfast.

>"If Sam had split away from Frodo he could've been an actual character instead of just being a squire."

Nice strawman.

They got Tara for Arkham City onwards for whatever reason, and the Arkham games were Harley's biggest exposure to normies. She's probably chummy with a lot of Warner Bros. people by now, too.

>She was always a fun character on BTAS but I can't really picture her as a lead.
She really isn't cut out to be a leading character. She is defined by her relationship to the Joker. Take that away and she's really shallow.

Pigtails and checkered clothing are enough now.

Arleen may have retired from the role. Regardless of the circumstances, her voice has aged a lot. In Arkham Asylum she gave a halfway decent performance, and she sounded pretty horrible in DCUO.

>that motion comic of Mad Love
???

She has literally become Deadpool from the Messiah/T-Bone era.

Which is an amazing series, but its a radical departure from what she was before.

Longtime Harleyfags are massively arsepained as are those who want super cereal comics. But overall? Its okay. 7/10, with moments that hit 8.

I prefer to think of it as a tangential deduction of opinions.

If splitting away from a character that treats you like shit and steals the spotlight is the way to becoming a better character, it's reasonable to make this assumption about other duos.

Perhaps not speaking in generalities would make your argument a little stronger.

I think she pulled that off decently.

Shame she can't give a good performance as Harley. It's like the worst combination of Toot, Timmy Turner, Dil Pickles, and a shitty accent that she could muster. Every line sounds forced and horrible. How anyone could like her in the role is beyond me.

You're the only one putting things in generalities here. We're specifically talking about Harley and Joker here, not every duo that ever existed. Also notice how I said "henchman" and not "hobbit life partner" or what have you. You're clearly reaching in order to attempt to kill my argument, which you have failed in doing.

Holy shit, like David Hayter?

I'D LOVE TO SEE THAT, THEN WATCH THEM FUCK EACH-OTHER SENSELESS

Name a Harley-centric story better than Mad Love.

YOU CAN'T!

> be her own character
> robins everywhere frown sourly

She looks like a cam whore who does cosplay.

The trouble with Harley is that one of her biggest traits is her affiliation with the Joker.

She's at her strongest as a character in design, personality, motivation, but at the end of the day, most people want her to break out of her abusive relationship with the Joker.

At this point, you really only have three options if you want to distance her from the Joker:
1: Have her spend more time with Ivy, but this doesn't entirely separate her from the Joker, and she'll eventually go back to him. This keeps her strength as a character intact, but the audience ends up inevitably disappointed when she does go back.
2: Have her make a full recovery. While this ultimately retains her strength as a character, it renders her largely unusable, because unless she relapses and goes back to her, there really isn't much to do with what is effectively an ordinary citizen.
3: Clumsily lop out her relationship with the Joker, yet still keep her "crazy", and therefore usable. This destroys a lot of her motivation and character, and in an effort to distance her design from her "Joker Days", her design also suffers. She basically turns into a joke character, a Deadpool with tits.

Harley Quinn may be a strong, complex character in her own right, but by design, she can't really be removed from the Joker.

I just wish Hot Topic and shit would stop glamorizing Joker and Harley's relationship

Gotham City Sirens 4-6.

At talking funny and never actually committing to getting the tits out and you got it!

OH MY GOD it's your favorite story so that means your opinion is the the only one that counts!

oh wait, no

>not dressed

since when is this a bad thing? all the others same like valid complaints, but the costume change complaint has always seemed like a bit of a nitpick to me. Like, whys it okay for Spidey and Iron Man to have 20 billion costume changes but god forbid Harley isn't always wearing the Batman Animated series costume. She's hotter with less clothes anyways so you'd have to be a fag to be complaining about lack of clothes.

It's not even my favorite story. Harley just doesn't have many about her.

>the costume change complaint has always seemed like a bit of a nitpick to me
>god forbid Harley isn't always wearing the Batman Animated series costume

For me it's less "the costume isn't the same!" and more that instead of being a jester, she's some sort of leather-clad dominatrix/biker/stripper thing. Throw in a checkered red and black(or blue) pattern to the clothes and give her pig-tails (usually also colored), maybe some white face paint, and then that's most of her other costumes. Her BTAS costume at least resembles a harlequin.

It doesn't take much to kill your argument. You provided no examples of Harley being a better character since leaving the joker, and I'm sure if you had, you'd have neglected to provide any reasoning as to how your examples displayed positive change.

With nothing else to go on, I could only address your central argument, which seems to be that if a character doesn't work for/with another anymore they're better.

its weird shes only like it for this one character

>If she's no longer just a henchman, she can now be her own character. That's already an upgrade in itself.

No, it isn't. This line of reasoning makes as much sense as saying that Alfred abandoning Batman would be an upgrade in itself. In both cases the character is written as a satellite character from the start and simply has no legs to stand on otherwise.

Didn't she get all bent out of shape when they did a recast for NuPPG?

I'm not going to write a dissertation just to appease your autistic attitude toward a fictional character, Anonymous. But it's another matter to shoot down an obvious strawman, which I have already done to you.

She's a better character now because she has more room to do new things without being tied down by the Joker. Whether or not there are good stories about that right now is subjective. But the fact is that she has more freedom now to move about on her own steam. That's my whole point.

See, you're doing the same thing Hobbit guy did. We're not talking about Alfred here. Alfred's the Butler. Alfred is an old man. Alfred doesn't have any room to grow solo. Harley does.

I don't really like Harley as a character, and it always struck me as weird when she's implanted in everything because of her popularity. Does she even have any powers or skills besides being CUH-RAAAZY? As far as I know she was just a normal psychiatrist before she got brainfucked by Joker. Did he teach her kung fu when she was his henchman?

That's like when people where creating images making fun of mlp. Calling the people making fun of mlp immature, for making fun of a fucking children's pony cartoon that adults where enfatuated with. I don't know if this is irony or hypocrisy.

Just because its the only one you know doesn't make it "the best".

Its the one everyone starts with, but Harley has been in quite a few stories that are great.

Sam would work independant of Frodo.

Just saying. Gets a bit of wanderlust after his kids grow up, gets the old mithril from the Took residence, and goes for an adventure.

>the story that made harley into an idiot who slept her way through med school
>good

I feel like there's only so many ways to alter or modernize that type of look, though. It's a very specific type of costume.

Okay! Now we're getting somewhere. See how you got through that without a "dissertation?"

Now, I gotta agree. A character having the freedom to do what they want is positive change.

Now, given that her character was created for the explicit purpose of serving the joker; removing her from him more or less neutralizes her only motivation or drive.

How will she be free to do new things, if she has no reason to do so?

Why not just create new female characters that capture whatever you like about Harley without all the baggage of being defined by being The Joker's Girlfriend?

Yah, so?

Hundreds of characters in the DC universe wear spandex onesies, that look near identical to their classic costumes.

Why does she have to put on a whole new look instead of just giving her the armor-plating spandex panel-lines treatment and preserving the spirit of the original costume?

I think the important thing to take away here is that all the ones there that aren't the harlequin outfit are complete shit

Nice dejected resulpatory.

I also had a delicious glass of milk to go with it.

Nice facebook meme

>Mad Love was a part of her character's history. It was significant, but that time has passed. Deal with that or kill yourself.
That's a fucking extreme reaction over opinions on fictional character. That said, I think if a story is "significant" not just for its in-universe revelations but for its well-done execution and just overall being an objectively great piece of art, such as Mad Love was recognized, then yeah, it's ALWAYS relevant to that character. And you can't honestly tell me any of the nu52 origins for Harley affected you the way that seeing or reading Mad Love the first time did.

Wait, judging by this thread, the majority of Harleyfags (or Harley-hags, whichever) don't even LIKE Mad Love? That's just fucking baffling to me. I assumed that her fans liked her because of her pathos, how you gonna turn on the story that GAVE HER that pathos? And WHY, other than "because it contradicts my headcanon/nu52-comics-that're-basically-fanfic about her being a brilliant psychiatrist who totally isn't co-dependent"

And? The other version of Harley did it too. She's more competent than she appears and can be surprising.

Of course, she can also fumble things or make stupid mistakes, but both Batman and the Joker do that too. The BTAS Joker even got rocked back on his heels once by a middle class office worker who he pushed too far.

The "disguise myself as a party clown" caper was also small beer for him too. I mean, it wasn't the bottom of the barrel or anything, but it wasn't his best showing either.

In terms of Style and/or Scale the Christmas show and the whole little dog and pony show with bombs and Ace was really up there. Although one of those isn't actually just a Gotham thing. The fact that he was orchestrating and producing it is impressive though, even given his record of being surprisingly punchy out of his home turf.

I can see Alfred working without Batman, even if it would be a completely different character.
I mean, he has SAS/spy background. There's gotta be something worth writing a book about.

I meant, like, the original jester costume was literal jester costume. TAS Harley's look was not original, jesters existed before Harley was created. what I meant was, its difficult to modernize a jester look without making it look exactly the same as a standard jester costume. You kinda HAVE to add new twists to it otherwise it'd look the exactly the same. same way Batman has had different looks throughout the years but ultimately always looks like a bat. there's only so many ways to modernize a grown dude in a bat costume, but you can add new and different tactical add ons and armor and stuff. you can't really add those types of things to a jester costume without making it look stupid or like how Injustice Flash looks essentially the same as regular Flash except with armor plating which looks retarded.

No, that's like saying history literally doesn't matter because it isn't right now. You can dodge the evidence but henchman can be good characters, and even have comics about them without being shallow. Ditching a characters hook for their borrowed personality is a shallow attempt at creating a compelling character.

Its kind of depressing that is absolutly the comics only flaw but its such a colosal fuckup it still makes it a bad comic from only 3 panels

>>She was always a fun character on BTAS but I can't really picture her as a lead.
>She really isn't cut out to be a leading character. She is defined by her relationship to the Joker. Take that away and she's really shallow.
There's a very telling bit in the DVD commentary for Harlequinade where Paul Dini talks about this episode worked because Harley had Batman as a straightman, and how she really only works when she has another strong personality to bounce off, like Joker or Poison Ivy, but that he never thought she'd work as a solo character because "in her own comics, they'd probably go off having her be the straight-woman to her own wackier relatives and friends." I thought that was hilariously on-point considering it came out like a decade before this comic.

Does Conner's Harley have any character flaws as the cost of being "lolariously" insane tho? Because at least Deadpool had The Box.

The only time she was ever really just a henchman or moll was like, the first story they were initially intending to just use her once for. They just kind of ran with her and she has been a character of her own ever since. Not always the most important, but a definite recurring character, not a henchman. Henchmen are a dime a dozen in Gotham and in the greater DC universe .She's not just some mook.

She either taught herself afterwords or she took it for self defense/exercise as one might expect from a progressive, modern woman. Then she got insanely serious afterwords to be useful to the Joker, and thereafter obsessively spent her time training.

If you are talking about a version that knows kung-fu, and not one that just totes around guns or leverages "I am fucking crazy and have no regard for my personal safety" with blunt objects like mallets, and/or explosives/dangerous gadgets. This allows her to be actually fairly dangerous because a lunatic with a large mallet really can smash your head in and is considered a credible threat by the cops, but also well within the range of "oh, it's Harley again, I guess I'll just effortlessly stiff arm/backhand her. Again". To Batman. And when you look at the Arkham games that's what happens. She's really not that dangerous to you in a fight.

The mooks can take beatings, and some of them are pretty slick with blades, and the assassins are well, fucking ninja bitches with katanas and stuff. You actually have to work at it a bit.

Harley jobs like a chump after doing acrobatic, but ineffectual flips at you.

You do know that's her origin story before the Nu52 right?

At least she's not a swedish african demigender transcontinental furry

I won't say you're wrong. But if such minute add-ons help preserve Batman without getting stale, why can't they work for Harley?

Maybe don't put on tactical plating or pouches, but some bigger gloves? maybe some boots or a belt? Or like a hip-holster?

I think the beauty of Harley's costume is its simplicity. She's literally just wearing a bodysuit and a collar. You can tack any number of clown-y bells and whistles to make the suit look modern, while still invoking the spirit of the original.

If you add a different texture to the body suit or even change up the pattern to something like this pic here, I think you'd wind up with something that invokes the spirit of the original, while still making a new design that appears functional and striking.

And its the one part of her new 52 thats an improvment

I honestly think the fullbody costume was way hotter. It was like seeing her nude without seeing anything. Now they are practically trying to make her an objectively sexually character rather then just sexually suggestive. But I honestly just don't care for Hatley in her own comic, so that's just me.

Easy, the one on the right is a shitty overrated character, just like the one on the left.

>Defend this.
At least it's not as bad as anything Marvel has done in terms of changing characters in the last three years.

Honestly, if batman decided to start wearing shorts and a wife beater with a bat symbol on it, these hardly fans would get why clothing and personality are important to each other. A slut costume creates a slut persona, and that's not harley. She's sexy, not a sex symbol.

Why would I? I only like Harley as a battered housewife.

When she's being an "independent woman", she's "Harleen Quinzel" not Harley Quinn.

>abusive relationship
>deliberately using a pic from decades before the VA even voiced Harley to make her look better while using the most unflattering picture you can find of the new VA
>true
>not true
>true
You're at 2/5.

>Picture of ears bleeding next to Tara Strong
>Dressed as a clown
>Not dressed
Top-tier shade

>that one guy on Sup Forums who has a grudge against Tara for voicing Harley

Well, the classic Commedia dell'arte character costuming is variable and permits creativity, and so does the Harlequin or "Arlecchino" does too.

The main requirements are "tight fighting and colorful". At some point I think it was mostly jacket and pants, but then I think all the characters wore cariactures of normal dress at that point. Also our version is a comic character, and normal dress for comic characters is pretty much gonna be the a leotard or jumpsuit.

Also classic for her, even if his themed henchmen frequently just use face paint or cheapass clown masks, if they wear anything.