What Went Wrong?

What happened to her Sup Forums?
What happened to the cute quirky hench woman we used to know?

IT CAME TRUE!

YOU'RE LOOKING AT HER!

No really, it was because people wouldn't shut up about how "QUIRKY" and "CUTE" she is, so they decided "well shit, why not just pander to them?"

So to pander to people who liked her as cute and quirky they made her a violent slut?
Checks out.

At some point the fact that she ended up regretting her life of crime was forgotten, and without a broad scope lesson within her character all the "LET'S J
KILL GOTHAM MISTAH J" antics are just neo-"lol so quirky and randumb XD".

you niggas wouldn't be saying SHIT if she still had the stupid jester costume

And if her comic wasn't pretty much the equivalent of Way's run on Deadpool.

she became meme

The Harley timeline is like this see...
>1992-1999: TAS Bruce Timm's Harley
This is your quirky classic Harley who started out as a minor supporting character only on the cartoon but later on developed into one of Batman's main female rouges. Only kids watching cartoons cared about her and the hardcore Batman fans of the time didn't like her (other than Kevin Smith). Even though "Mad Love" won an Eisner, DC tended to forget about her. She ma
>2000-2003+: Solo book years and problems
DC decided to take a chance and publish a monthly for 38 issues from 2001 to 2003. A fan favorite, but not a super best seller, it was cancelled in 2003 and Harley made sporadic appearances in DC Universe until 2005.

Keep in mind, part of DC's reluctance to promote her was an ongoing dispute with them and Paul Dini as to paying copyright on the "TAS" Harley vs. the "DC Universe" Harley, which at the time where nearly identical.

On top of this, starting in 2005 DC was limiting the use of "Bat" characters in other DC properties as it wanted to keep them fresh in case of a movie apperence. This is why they couldn't use Robin or Batman's Rouges in the JLU Cartoon.

dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Bat-embargo

>What happened to her Sup Forums?

She was killed and replaced by another Harley who was killed and replaced as well.

The comic made canon that the Joker has gone through several Harley Quinns and none of the previous ones has survived.

That costume isn't any more stupid than any other cape character's. In fact it makes perfect sense for the henchwoman of the fucking Joker.

When you turns her into a juggalo with extra fanservice added, it makes her costume:
>boring, cheesecake costumes are dime a dozen already
>less resonant with what the Joker is about

She was only good in small doses and as a 2D character in a childrens's cartoon

I am so behind on Batman.

That was just the Joker messing with her mind though. She's still the same Harleen Quinzel.

In 2011 DC rebooted their entire comic line so they could print a whole new batch of issue 1s and hopefully get new readers.
Harley was just one of many casualties.

She got popular, and over time people forgot about what made her a good character. It wasnt just about her quirks or madness, it was about a woman who was a cautionary tale of abuse and the lengths people will go to feel loved. Now shes a chaotic anti hero and far less interesting. You werent supposed to applaud Harley, just feel sorry for her. If shes not wearing her classic outfit, chances are shes shit

She go popular and then she got normie popular.

Popularity.

Corporate Suits and Executives saw how popular she was and decided to exploit her, which meant making her appeal to the worst, most vapid and unintelligent kinds of people, resulting in her becoming nothing more than a pointless, useless, disgusting, filthy, near-naked, diseased, cum-covered fuck-slut who forces her way into absolutely everything. Is the entire city being destroyed? Better bring in the fuck-slut. Is the world being destroyed? Needs a useless fuck-slut. Is the entire universe being destroyed. You better believe a fuck-slut is what's called for. The whole multiverse? Only the useless fuck-slut can save us now. The now dead DC moba even made fun of this shit and had Green Lantern asking why Harley Quinn is here, and he'd mention her uneccesary presence multiple times.

You could say the problem with harley these days is the same as the "waifufag" shit anime, manga and japanese video games are getting.

I just want her reformed. Is that so much to ask?

Back as a psychiatrist?

Batman: Arkham Asylum

The Arkham games.

I liked this design more that Timm's.

arkham games happened

Its not stupid and it makes her stand out in a colorful world of sameness

it was a prison cell deep inside the sewers with multiple decomposing corpses all dressed in Harlequin outfits which were also is a similar state of decay.

and he locked her in there to die.

canonically she's not the first Harly and she won't be the last. matter of fact it's going to be interesting when they finally decide to write the joker finding a replacement for her. of course he'd have to be alive for that.

it was a lie. he most likely kidnapped some girls from a con and locked them up. There would be paperwork if other thing was true and other characters would have noticed

I'm surprised I never ever see anyone post images of it anymore but remember Robbly Quinn? When Sup Forums made a bunch of images of Harley but as a Robin with Batman. It was one of Sup Forumss first things they ever made back in the old days.

The Arkham games slutted her up for an older audience and her popularity exploded to new heights. DC then wanted to capitalize on this. A few problems reared their heads.

>Harley is supposed to be a Harlequin
This is pretty obvious, but the motif is basically gone. A couple of diamonds and a checkered color scheme is all that remains, and this is more in reference to her old costume that it is to the idea of that costume.

>Harley is not especially interesting without the Joker
She hasn't been with the Joker since the New 52 reboot, but the most interesting part of her character is her relationship with him. Without it, nothing of substance is left. She's just an obnoxious clown thing.

>Harley is not really deserving of or appropriate for a long-term starring role
True, she's the focus of a couple of BTAS episodes, but most include the Joker or Ivy for her to play off of. The Ivy stuff without Joker is basically fluff of little substance. Harley was created to be a secondary character, and trying to make her the main character feels like putting a square peg in a round hole. Harley's Holiday is the only Harley episode of BTAS with neither Joker or Ivy, and it's about her trying to adjust to a normal life. Which leads me to...

>Harley should be rehabilitated if she's separate from the Joker
The DCAU made it clear that without Joker's influence, Harley could actually be rehabilitated, which we see in Harley's Holiday (supposed to be a sendoff to the character for the last season of BTAS before it was revived) and Return of the Joker. This aspect has been thrown out in the new comics because they need to have her as a solo character without the Joker. She's been simplified, an interesting layer of her character stripped away for convenience.

I was not here for that, closest thing I recall is a TG comic where robin gets turned into Harley

Lesbians.

Nothing "happened" to her. Her design was changed just like everyone else's to fit the format she was in. Full costume Harley would have looked weird in the Suicide Squad movie the same way XxPuNxChEeRLeAderXx Harley would have looked weird in Batman: TAS

It's the floppy hat I think

the costume is dated, face it, a lot of times looks fucking terrible and you know it, you are thinking about how she looked in the Bruce Timm style, while she actually looks bad in lots of other styles despite being made by great artists, let alone in movement in the movie

Yeah because dropping the clown theme for barely dressed juggling really was an improvement. Assault on Arkham had a decent updated design. Fucking idiot.

Did that pic just imply there was something wrong with Goddess VA and BAE Tara Strong?

>would have looked weird in Batman: TAS
not too weird
>Full costume Harley would have looked weird in the Suicide Squad
could have kept it for some of the games and there is no need to change it in comics.
>the costume is dated
so? would not be the first anachronistically dressed antogonist.
>looks fucking terrible and you know it
I like it.
>she actually looks bad in lots of other styles
post them. we all recall the toxic joker from the updated toon, sometimes the style is not whats wrong and if huntress can look ok in full outfit I why not harley. you could even update a bit, there is a middle ground between what was and what we have

No one has topped Sorkin, shame her voice went to hell. What's annoying is the possessiveness Tara has over the role

This

>implying that AoA's Harley wasn't designed to make the clown motif as insignificant and unnoticeable as possible before dropping it partway through the film

Tara is worst Harley voice easily. She's just awful,

Sorkin > Walch >>>>> Tara

Its funny to see Sup Forums complain about a character they all hate now
nu harley looks much better than timm harley

Mallet>Baseball bat

She looks a lot better on that cover without the chalk-white skin. The chemical origin was a stupid change. It makes her too derivative of the Joker, and Harley slathering makeup on her face to emulate him seems more appropriate for the character.

If your only goal is for Harley to look like some kind of magazine cover model, maybe. I'm proud that Sup Forums recognizes substance over glamour.

Arkham Asylum

I don't see Harley, I see a slut with chalk white skin.

well now its actually harley suffering consequences for falling in love with a villain before all she ever really suffered was some abuse now she is forever scared and mentally unstable from her bad decision making

She looks like tryhard milf

Forgot pic

Mofo, what?
Better get ready to fite nigga.

>all she ever really suffered was some abuse
>implying thats nothing
sometimes less is more

this is BS in a way too because no one really cares about harley dressing differently or appearing slutty
They just deify nostalgic costumes to a ridiculous degree.

Look at Power Girl or Nightwing
minor costume tweaks suddenly mean the character has fundamentally changed

What are you talking about... clearly this is the pinnacle of good character writing.

Injustice Harley was okay, though her design was nothing great.

Are you deaf, user?

When I say substance, I mean the nuance of her personality being thrown under the bus. Costumes are secondary to me, personally. These are the most important things right here:

okay well she gets slapped and then leaves him
she can go back to her regular life no problem

Now she is literally stuck as female joker unless she puts on makeup to cover her skin

vampire masquerade

Injustice Harley is proof positive that her character is top tier when written by good writers
Connor and Palmiotti are good but they are trying to be the looney tunes of comics instead of the tank girl

are you saying the first one is not more powerful?

>okay well she gets slapped and then leaves him
she can go back to her regular life no problem
Yes, but she doesn't. The only thing keeping her trapped in her situation is herself. I think it makes for an interesting character.

>Now she is literally stuck as female joker unless she puts on makeup to cover her skin
But she puts makeup on in her solo run and doesn't really seem to give a shit. None of the comics seem to ever show her really caring that much about it. It's just needless change on DC's part, or perhaps an excuse to dumb her character down into a TOTALLY BONKERS WACKY CHARACTER and to continue being such without Joker around.

But Thank Girl is what their Harley is about, it's like a weird mix of Tank Girl and Bomb Queen, they aren't good writers if they can't manage to make Harley work. Jesus I miss Gray filtering Palmiotti bullshit, I dread for the Jonah Hex book that Palmiotti is writing

her lego version is cute, quirky, fairly competent, without being dragged down

they also mostly dropped the relationship with the joker, although she has H + J written on her clipboard, and acts supportive of joker when batman "dumps" him so its still ambigious

I mean, I don't read this shit, but I do look in every so often just to see how much of Sup Forums's bitching is valid, and while there are egregious moments like the infamous luggage bit, or the blatantly OOC exploding-DS-Lite incident, more often than not the pages are just full of "WOOHOO HEY MY COMICS SENPAI, I'M 'HA HA' HARLEY QUINN, YOUR #1 FAVORITE FOURTH-WALL-BREAKING RED-AND-BLACK CLAD WELL-MEANING BUT STUPID SUPERHERO, TEEHEE, HOLEY MOLEY FRIJOLES SOFT SHELLED BALOGNA TACOS SO RANDOM XD"

Which, to me, reads like stepping waaaaay too heavy on the "Cute & Quirky" clutch. In BTAS, she was funny cuz she treated her relationship with the Joker and everything about their lives with a sort of casual, blase attitude, like the only thing that made him unusual was that he was Her Bae. She was funny without constantly trying to be funny, but now, she's become an obnoxiously try-hard quip-machine who has to be saying something WACKY every other sentence, and boy do Conner and Palmiottit loooove their dialogue, so there are a LOT of sentences.

To answer OP's question of why, I think it has to do with the Joker's already massively mainstream popularity spiking every time he appears in media, esp. movies, so there's a huge demand for stories featuring him from normies who may not cotton to the edgier, serial killer angle on the character - the sort of people who come to Sup Forums and argue he should go back to Silver Age shenanigans. I think Harley exists to sorta be an ersatz-Joker, for those who want him to just be a comic relief prankster, so DC can market the hell out of her to the "intelligent, nihilistic with a wicked sense of humor" types without compromising Joker's image as a legit menace.

>and boy do Conner and Palmiottit loooove their dialogue, so there are a LOT of sentences.

Not kidding, look at this shit

Like her actress!

>26 year old
>MILF

Funny

>Injustice Harley was okay, though her design was nothing great.
>Injustice Harley is proof positive that her character is top tier when written by good writers
>Connor and Palmiotti are good but they are trying to be the looney tunes of comics instead of the tank girl
Until she got a big ego and makes everything thing she do is okay because she Quirky. That and she uses her abuse as a crutch. Now she might a well be in the Justice league and fans would eat it up.

If you wouldn't bang Margot Robbie in a heartbeat then I dunno what to say, honestly.

Injustice is divided by 2 (3 if you count Ground Zero), there's Tim Taylor Injustice which is where Sup Forums loves Harley, there's Booch Injustice where Sup Forums hates Harley. When Sup Forums praised Injustice Harley they are reffering to Taylor Injustice

literally the only attractive harley

Would've liked to see more of this one.

my mom's jeanette voerman

I mean Tara Strong

>Tara Strong
>MILF

That comic was awesome

Mostly because nude power girl

Do people actually like anything about Tara Strong or are they just memeing.

Id say that the ranking is something like this now

Sorkin = Slate > Walch >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tara

You grew up and don't have nostalgia for the newer incarnations.

That's all.

Relevant pic is relevant.

Now, I'm not saying I'd fuck her... but I'd fuck her.

Good lord, man. Get some taste. Granny is caked up in make up

That looks like one of those 50 year old porn stars trying to pass off as a MILF.

Having slept with people as old as 50 before, it's honestly pretty fucking good. They know what they want, no bullshit, it's a great night for all involved.

>So to pander to people who liked her as cute and quirky they made her a violent slut?

She was always a violent slut. They just changed her costume and put her into fucking everything.

>That resolution

Nah, Tara's Harley Quinn sounds pretty annoying.

Do people actually dislike anything about Tara Strong or are they just memeing?.

>Muh nostalgia
Fuck off. We all know Harley took a considerable character dip when new 52 happened. They watered her down to a cartoon character who can do no wrong and became a nutjob regardless of Jokers presence

I'm pretty sure Arkham has a sketchy definition of 'sane' but whatever, sure.

Well considering every time she's brought up the threads devolve into some kind of psychotic tirade of imagined slights, I'm gonna say it's a bit more than memes.

Not me though, I've always liked Tara.

She could do with a bit more ass but yeah I would wreck her shit

>Having slept with people as old as 50 before

Stop reading right there. There is something in your head that's fucked if you actually like fucking an old lady.

>She was always a violent slut.

No evidence of this ever.

I might get shit for this but I think Arkham Asylum gave her a big bump in mainstream popularity.

I fucking hated this bitch from the beginning. Her voice is like a chainsaw on a chalkboard

Well, the thing is, her DCAU counterpart was likable because you felt deep down like she COULD be reformed, episodes like your pic supported that. But the "problem" was that, when she became a brand in and of herself, DC realized that could never happen, because they need to sell slutty HQ Halloween costumes, action figures, lunch boxes and snow globes.

If she is a strong female-empowerment role model like they desperately want her to be seen, then she should just be Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and that doesn't move books or moichandise. But willingly staying in crazy clown mode even after breaking up with the Joker makes no sense.

I'm 99% sure the reason she got the acid bath treatment in nu52 is so they can have their cake and eat it too: she's a strong, independent woman who don't need no Joker, but she's now PERMANENTLY stuck in the goofy slapstick slut persona that was previously just an affectation to endear her to her puddin'. She's shamelessly a softer, more LCD-appealing Chaotic Neutral take on the Joker, because the Joker sells..

Sure do, unfortunately I lost most of my Robley Quinn images years ago. That was some quality drawfaggotry. I still think it'd make a cute concept for an Elseworlds; like, Bruce gets caught early in his career and due to his status and Alfred and Dr. Thompkin's testimony, winds up in Arkham instead of jail... only for a wide-eyed young Dr. Quinzel to fall head over heels for his traumatic past and larger-than-life persona, and winds up breaking him out and becoming his partner in crimefighting.

I really don't know anymore, on the surface it seems like they are making these changes to appease feminists but when you look at the character and her actions it seems like they are doing this to trigger the feminists.

I guess they DC/Marvel are in full controversy is advertising mode.

Batman: Arkham Asylum happened. It injected her into the mainstream pop culture consciousness and then everything fell apart.

>the costume is dated, face it, a lot of times looks fucking terrible and you know it, you are thinking about how she looked in the Bruce Timm style, while she actually looks bad in lots of other styles despite being made by great artists, let alone in movement in the movie
I have to agree with this. Loved her look on the shows, but whenever I saw her ongoing back in the early 00s, I always thought the jester outfit looked weirdly out of place. Seeing realistic guns, cars, people, buildings, around someone dressed like a cartoon character without any textures to their suit beyond "bare skin" was just bizarre, and they were trying to do sexy cheesecake with her in it and it just wasn't working for me.

Harley Quinn is a Harlequin so no shit she looks like one.

>hardcore Batman fans of the time didn't like her

Because they all wanted to direct BTAS and used anything as an example of Bruce Timm doing a bad job.

You know how I know you weren't around when BTAS was on the air? Cuz Harley Quinn was ALWAYS huge with the mainstream. That show was seen by more people than have ever bought a Batman comic since 1992. If she appears more recognizable now, it's only cuz the kids who grew up with BTAS are the twenty and thirtysomethings with disposable income now. But even back in the 90s, I remember everyone loving her and her having a shit-ton of merchandise. No, she hadn't taken over Hot Topic yet, but she was all over the WB Studio Store. Before she was in AA, she had her own ongoing, and the reason she GOT her own ongoing was because she was the break-out fan-favorite of a show beamed into millions of homes.