Alejandro's Reviews > Harley Quinn: Mad Love

Say hello to your new improved Harley Quinn: Mad Love!


This is a prose novel, adapting the original “Mad Love” story, first published in “Batman Adventures” comic book, and later being adapted into an episode for “Batman: The Animated Series”. This is an extended novelization, presenting scenes never before included in the “Mad Love” story.


TOUGH-BROOKLYN-COOKIE

Knock-knock, puddin’

Mad Love is my favorite episode in Batman: The Animated Series, which is no wonder since Harley Quinn is my favorite character there, and that’s her origin story.

Harley Quinn was created in that animated TV series, and she become so popular that she was introduced to the official DC Universe, not only in the pages of Batman and Detective Comics but also getting several ongoing comic book titles, multiple mini-series, one-shots, becoming regular character in Suicide Squad title.

In comedy, timing was everything.

Harley Quinn had arrived to stay, but back then, still a support character in BTAS, it was clear that it wasn’t planned to develop her beyond of being a colorful henchwoman for The Joker, but as I mentioned it, she become so popular that finally she got her own origin story.

And now, in this superb prose novel, you will read the ultimate Harley Quinn origin story, featuring all the original Mad Love story, BUT quite extended, showing Dr. Harleen Quinzel since she was a little kid in Brooklyn, NY, some of her high school experiences, along with more in detail her college years in Gotham University, and...

...of course...

...her fateful time as a psychiatrist in Arkham Asylum, along with her vicious relationship with the infamous Joker, and even later once solo again, struggling with her own gained reputation, but also dealing with old grudges.

…Gotham City had to be a psychiatric gold mine.

And the coolest part, is that Paul Dini (co-creator of Harley Quinn) with the collaboration of Pat Cadigan (who I knew her work thanks to a Lost in Space prose novel), they embraced the task of developing the ultimate origin story for your favorite criminally insane psychiatrist, obviously using the already presented material on the original Mad Love but also employing some material about her past, developed in comic books, along with extending the original scenes, even adding totally new ones.

Arkham didn’t have drills, only emergencies.

You’ll understand Harley Quinn as never before, being witness of her childhood where for better and worse, her parents were fateful influences for the woman that she’ll become in her adulthood, the logical reasons that lead her to the decisions in her college years, her ambitious steps once working in Arkham Asylum, and her dangerous crossroads between the Clown Prince of Crime and the Dark Knight…

…and her brave quest, to find her own place in life…

…and making people laugh!

A MUST-HAVE novel for any fan of Harley Quinn!