Book Review: The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley

Harleen Quinzel is many things, a gymnast, anxious, broke… but the last thing anyone would call her is evil. Harley Quinn on the other hand…

When Harleen signs up to participate in a clinical research trial with her girlfriend, Pamela, the most she can hope for is extra cash in her wallet and a chance to get her anxiety under control. But what she gets instead are increasingly larger gaps in her memory and stolen mementos from some guy named Jack she’s never met. Soon, Harleen discovers she’s sharing her life with Harley—a take-no-prisoners, who-cares-about attendance, maybe-we-oughtta-save-the-bunnies kind of girl. She is the opposite of Harleen in many ways. She is anarchy in a cute dress. And although she’s throwing Harleen’s life completely off track, maybe she ain’t so bad either…

The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley by Melissa Marr and Jenn St-Onge will be published on October 1, 2024. DC Comics provided an early galley for review.

Since her debut on Batman: The Animated Series in September of 1992, Harley Quinn has been a fan-favorite character and one I enjoy quite a bit. Over three decades, she's been adapted and reinterpreted across many forms of media and even a variety of ways in the comics. I was interested to see what approach this creative team would take with this iconic character.

The approach here recasts Harleen and Pam in teen roles (Marr's wheelhouse as a young adult author), both coming from dysfunctional families. The story takes a sharp turn when Harleen experiences a reaction to the clinical trial, letting her other side out to play. There are quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde throughout, so that is also a source the creators went to when crafting this story. We also get a reimagined Jack Napier here (he who, in some continuities, is the before-the-Joker identity).

The art by St-Onge is very cute and will definitely appeal to young adult readers. The themes are a bit more mature, so definitely geared more towards young adult to adults.

Overall, the story was okay. While the names and general attributes were there, I felt like these could have been any two teens and all would still have worked out the same. Not enough of the elements of the main character continuity were there for me; in some ways using established names and elements actually distracted me from the story they were telling.