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    Gotham City Sirens

    Team » Gotham City Sirens appears in 77 issues.

    Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman team up as the Gotham City Sirens. Yet, what are their intentions, for good or evil? Find out as these three women hit the streets of Gotham!

    Issue #24 - wow

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    Celineness

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    #1  Edited By Celineness

    Difficult to put words to my reaction to this issue. It isn't a positive reaction.
     
    Generally, I've felt really sad about GCS for quite a while now and have almost dropped the comic several times. The concept and set up had so much potential and there was a stellar team behind it. All three of the Sirens were given breathing space to truly grow beyond the roles they're constantly pigeon-holed into when acting as secondary or cameo characters in other books and for a while things were going so well.
     
    Then it just collapsed into a swirly ball of fail. Instead of character development, the trio devolved into their old archetypes and were progressively written in an increasingly poor way. I remember Harley referring to Ivy as "Ive" (instead of Red) as the moment I finally realised all hope was lost, when the book had morphed into a "taking turns spotlight" for each character individually, coupled with little or no real knowledge of how to write any of them well. Even the artwork grew poorer with each passing issue.
     
    With the DCU reboot imminent, I was hoping in vain that the over-arching storyline would at least end in a neutral (or even positive?) fashion so that fans of the series could imagine that in a far off alternate world somewhere, the trio lived happily ever after in the GCS status quo. I mean with things being reset anyway, surely there'd be no reason to break the alliance up in a nasty way to try and return the Sirens to their separate two-dimensional villain/hero lives?
     
    I think that hope has been dashed, and then some. The opening pages of GCS #24 serve as the most brutally efficient character-assassination and quickest irrideemable face-heel turn I have ever seen in any media. I am a *massive* Harley Quinn fan, but the sequence of events in the past couple of issues and the beginning of this one have ensured I will never read anything by Peter Calloway again. He utterly destroys Harley's character,  obliterating years of development and (in my opinion) effectively burning the bridge between her and Ivy. Incredibly, for the first time I found Ivy to be a deeply sympathetic character - I very much wouldn't want to be the guard in Arkham who watches over her cell, because the only imaginable reaction Red could have to the hurt Harley does to her is quick escape and single-minded, horrible, deadly revenge.
     
    Catwoman later makes the bad situation worse, thanks to another twist of logic from Peter Calloway. Suddenly, for the convenience of future planned plotlines, everything that was built between the three women is destroyed and they return to being mysogynistic icons of male fantasy, losing their previous charm. At least Selina can still use the excuse of Zatanna's hateful mental interference, but Harley's actions are beyond explanation. To read the internal monologue of a popular character and be completely dumbfounded at the words they are thinking takes some seriously bad writing to achieve - the only way I can make Harley's ramblings make sense is to speculate that she's been possessed, mind-controlled or replaced by a black-hearted monster wearing her skin, because anything else is just too sad.
     
    I am looking forward to the final issues of GCS, only insofar as I am looking forward to Red tearing both Selina and Harl limb from limb for being so monstrous to her. The ironic thing is obviously that of the three, Ivy is the most "evil", though I don't think that's true after this issue. I never thought I'd ever be rooting for her in a battle against either or both the other two, but I sure am now.

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    Jane

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    #2  Edited By Jane

    This issue was a total fail. I agree with that. 
     
    Buth I saw it coming after I read a interview of that man. 
     
    I can see Harley as a character with "mentality powers", but not in that killer-character way. And NOT with Poison Ivy.  Please, she just started thinking about bring down Ivy without thinking (without just one line of inner dialogue) about those long years of friendhip. 
     
    A sad atempt to make her more complex... with Jocker, the one who abussed her for years.

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    Feliciano2040

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    #3  Edited By Feliciano2040
    @Celineness said:

    Difficult to put words to my reaction to this issue. It isn't a positive reaction.  Generally, I've felt really sad about GCS for quite a while now and have almost dropped the comic several times. The concept and set up had so much potential and there was a stellar team behind it. All three of the Sirens were given breathing space to truly grow beyond the roles they're constantly pigeon-holed into when acting as secondary or cameo characters in other books and for a while things were going so well.  Then it just collapsed into a swirly ball of fail. Instead of character development, the trio devolved into their old archetypes and were progressively written in an increasingly poor way. I remember Harley referring to Ivy as "Ive" (instead of Red) as the moment I finally realised all hope was lost, when the book had morphed into a "taking turns spotlight" for each character individually, coupled with little or no real knowledge of how to write any of them well. Even the artwork grew poorer with each passing issue. With the DCU reboot imminent, I was hoping in vain that the over-arching storyline would at least end in a neutral (or even positive?) fashion so that fans of the series could imagine that in a far off alternate world somewhere, the trio lived happily ever after in the GCS status quo. I mean with things being reset anyway, surely there'd be no reason to break the alliance up in a nasty way to try and return the Sirens to their separate two-dimensional villain/hero lives?  I think that hope has been dashed, and then some. The opening pages of GCS #24 serve as the most brutally efficient character-assassination and quickest irrideemable face-heel turn I have ever seen in any media.

     
     Massive Disagreement Alert
     
    Peter Calloway made it his job to reassemble the pieces of the mess that Paul Dini did with the characters, he delivered some really great stories and tapped on some really cool themes, he succesfully salvaged a book that had pretty much been trampled on by an uninspired writer that didn't have any ambition for these characters.
     
    Like it or not, I thought # 24 managed to cram an insane amount of stuff and came out succesful in the attempt, everything was coherent, everything made sense, and we got to see some great things, for starters we finally got to see Harley Quinn use a little of her intelligence, we had a little hint of a possible motive for Ivy's loyalty to Harley, we got cool Batman cameo, and the best, he is concluding the title right before the reboot, which is something that not many titles, not even Batman & Robin, or even Detective Comics is doing.
     
    @Celineness said:

     I am a *massive* Harley Quinn fan, but the sequence of events in the past couple of issues and the beginning of this one have ensured I will never read anything by Peter Calloway again. He utterly destroys Harley's character,  obliterating years of development and (in my opinion) effectively burning the bridge between her and Ivy. Incredibly, for the first time I found Ivy to be a deeply sympathetic character - I very much wouldn't want to be the guard in Arkham who watches over her cell, because the only imaginable reaction Red could have to the hurt Harley does to her is quick escape and single-minded, horrible, deadly revenge.

    Granted, maybe there's some things here long-term Harley fans are seeing that I am not.
     
    But this book is not called "Gotham City Redemption", at no point was it implied that these were a mini-justice league for Gotham City, it was just a cool story between three characters usually in the roles of villains.
     
    And personally, I can hardly see how the relationship between Harley and Ivy is over and done with, even if it did, who cares ? It doesn't matter, it's all getting rebooted and Calloway is taking advantage of that.
     
    @Celineness said:

    Catwoman later makes the bad situation worse, thanks to another twist of logic from Peter Calloway. Suddenly, for the convenience of future planned plotlines, everything that was built between the three women is destroyed and they return to being mysogynistic icons of male fantasy losing their previous charm. At least Selina can still use the excuse of Zatanna's hateful mental interference, but Harley's actions are beyond explanation. To read the internal monologue of a popular character and be completely dumbfounded at the words they are thinking takes some seriously bad writing to achieve - the only way I can make Harley's ramblings make sense is to speculate that she's been possessed, mind-controlled or replaced by a black-hearted monster wearing her skin, because anything else is just too sad.  I am looking forward to the final issues of GCS, only insofar as I am looking forward to Red tearing both Selina and Harl limb from limb for being so monstrous to her. The ironic thing is obviously that of the three, Ivy is the most "evil", though I don't think that's true after this issue. I never thought I'd ever be rooting for her in a battle against either or both the other two, but I sure am now.

    This isn't fair at all, you're acting as if Selina slobbered all over Batman's leg and begged for him to intervene in Arkham, when it is explicitly stated that she expected Richard Grayson instead and ended up forming a tag team to take down The Joker and quell the riot in Arkham, Catwoman loses nothing in this issue that she didn't have before.
     
    As for Harley, one has to be realistic, we already knew from day one that she was never going to kill The Joker, for starters, because DC is never going to be ok with that, and really, is it that crazy that a woman who leaves everything behind for a psychopathic serial killer, enduring endless strings of physical and psychological abuse, being borderline psychotic herself, is not going to reincide into a relationship like that ? You don't think that happens in real life ? It was predictable in the story, but it was well written and well expressed.
     
    If anything, what was so good was how we got to see in # 21 the transition (cleverly using the art) of Harley's memories of her relationship to The Joker, and seeing, without dialogue or text of any kind, why exactly is it that Harley loves him so much.
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    Celineness

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    #4  Edited By Celineness

    Peter Calloway made it his job to reassemble the pieces of the mess that Paul Dini did with the characters,

     
    Sorry, but Paul Dini invented Harley. His writing of her character is far superior to anyone else who has ever touched her, and should be considered absolute canon. Peter Calloway reversed years of progress made with Harley by pulling her back to her starting point – a psychotic loser filled with unrequited love for the Joker, who is doing nothing more than manipulating her.

     
     
    he delivered some really great stories and tapped on some really cool themes, he successfully salvaged a book that had pretty much been trampled on by an uninspired writer that didn't have any ambition for these characters.

    I think the opposite. The ambition was in the entire concept of the series itself – the villains stop being two dimensional foils for the heroes and strike out on their own as a team. The focus in earlier issues of their progress – on getting the house built, fitting in with the neighbourhood, playing at finding jobs, was a breath of fresh air. Peter Calloway turned the book into a monster of the month series, throwing out the three-way dynamic and focusing solely on one of the trio per issue. It ruined the book in terms of what it was supposed to be.

     
     
    Like it or not, I thought # 24 managed to cram an insane amount of stuff and came out successful in the attempt, everything was coherent, everything made sense, and we got to see some great things, for starters we finally got to see Harley Quinn use a little of her intelligence

     
    But it was written in a way that made Harley alien to long-time fans. She isn’t a cold, analytical killer, she’s a mess of madness and fun. The inner monologue made her sound like an imposter in her costume.

     
     
    , we had a little hint of a possible motive for Ivy's loyalty to Harley, we got cool Batman cameo, and the best, he is concluding the title right before the reboot, which is something that not many titles, not even Batman & Robin, or even Detective Comics is doing.

     
     Ivy’s motive has been crystal clear since the first time she met Harley. Their first encounter launched thousands of fanfics and the writers have been toying with that angle ever since.

    And I don’t want a “cool Batman cameo”, please. Batman isn’t Wolverine, we don’t need him contracted to appear in every single title across DC to boost ailing sales caused by bad writing.


    @Celineness said:

     I am a *massive* Harley Quinn fan, but the sequence of events in the past couple of issues and the beginning of this one have ensured I will never read anything by Peter Calloway again. He utterly destroys Harley's character,  obliterating years of development and (in my opinion) effectively burning the bridge between her and Ivy. Incredibly, for the first time I found Ivy to be a deeply sympathetic character - I very much wouldn't want to be the guard in Arkham who watches over her cell, because the only imaginable reaction Red could have to the hurt Harley does to her is quick escape and single-minded, horrible, deadly revenge.

     
    Granted, maybe there's some things here long-term Harley fans are seeing that I am not.
    But this book is not called "Gotham City Redemption", at no point was it implied that these were a mini-justice league for Gotham City , it was just a cool story between three characters usually in the roles of villains. And personally, I can hardly see how the relationship between Harley and Ivy is over and done with, even if it did, who cares ? It doesn't matter, it's all getting rebooted and Calloway is taking advantage of that.

     
    That reads like you’re saying “due to the reboot, Peter Calloway realised he could do whatever he wanted with the end of this story so he decided to write a big F*** U to the fans”. As someone who hates the reboot idea and thinks a lot of will be reversed after a few months, it’s sad to think that the world in the multiverse where GCS “actually happened“ is going to end the story on such a downer.


     
    This isn't fair at all, you're acting as if Selina slobbered all over Batman's leg and begged for him to intervene in Arkham, when it is explicitly stated that she expected Richard Grayson instead and ended up forming a tag team to take down The Joker and quell the riot in Arkham, Catwoman loses nothing in this issue that she didn't have before.

    The sudden change of heart in Selina was forced and contrived. From out of nowhere, all the bad things between her and Red was shoved to the fore and they apparently had hated each other all along throughout GCS, leading to their break up over Harley. This was just as bad as when Zatanna arrived on the scene and out of nowhere Ivy despised Z as if 
    something massive had happened between them, when no such event had occurred.

     
    As for Harley, one has to be realistic, we already knew from day one that she was never going to kill The Joker, for starters, because DC is never going to be ok with that, and really, is it that crazy that a woman who leaves everything behind for a psychopathic serial killer, enduring endless strings of physical and psychological abuse, being borderline psychotic herself, is not going to reincide into a relationship like that ? You don't think that happens in real life ? It was predictable in the story, but it was well written and well expressed.
     
    That aspect of the story was very predictable and I didn’t really expect any different. However, it came down to Harley choosing between clinging to her character growth and true friends or regressing back to a victim, so it was very sad and annoying to see her so completely choose the latter option. There have been times when she has rejected the Joker, if written well there could have been a third option.

     The only positive effect the issue had on me was that I’m a much bigger fan of Red and feel extremely sorry for her. Throughout the last couple of comics she’s essentially just been punched back and forth across the floor by Harley and Selina with very flimsy reasoning behind why.

    Sadly, I fully expect Peter Calloway to write her reaction poorly and the final two issues to just be a continuation of the trio falling apart in this haphazard way.

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    fodigg

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    #5  Edited By fodigg

    It sure seemed to me like this was a "rewind them back to starting point" for all three characters. A pre-revamp reboot.

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