This ruined the entire series for me.
The writer for this series was a DCAU/Timmverse writer & has no experience writing the Joker outside of that little bubble. I know the Timmverse is not canon continuity with the Post Zero Hour comics, but it always bugged me how different the two Jokers are, while Harley is the same in both.
The Joker has changed a LOT since BTAS. With the exception of Batman #570 & Gotham City Sirens #23, the Joker has never ever shown any affection toward Harley. I know because I have every comic book either of them have ever been in.
Outside of the comics based on BTAS, the comic writers didn't seem to approve of Harley. She was in a lot of comics sure, but her love was always completely onesided & the Joker smacked her around alot & even tried to kill her a few times. They finally parted ways & stayed apart for years & the Joker never even thought about Harley while she was constantly tring to forget him, but just before DC decided to hit the reboot button, they made Harley go crawling back to Joker, disappointing everyone who wanted her to finally make something of herself.
Wasn't that what this series was partly supposed to be about? Harley loosing her dependency & becoming a new character? All the years she spent apart from the Joker & she has learned absolutely nothing & falls back into old habits. Everyone else got an edgy makeover & a backstory rewrite, so why not her? The only thing that really happened is that we learned she's for-sure crazy & actually has an evil streak to her outside of doing the Joker's bidding or just going along with whatever Ivy is doing.
The worst part was the kiss, very out of character for the Joker. It doesn't help that half of the readers are positive he's gay & that many writers hint at it. I suspected he was luring her into a trap to try to kill her yet again, forcing her to finally end all ties with the Joker, but nothing came of it. As I suspected, this was not well received by the girls in my Joker fanclub, & received mixed feelings with the unaffiliated Harley fanclub some of my members are in.
There was also a little continuity error earlier in this series; the Joker ran over her Hyenas with a truck in "A Clown at Midnight," & yet she still has them.
I haven't been this angry with a comic since the Pushback/Payback storyline from Gotham Knights.
