Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass

First, the art is fantastic and if this had just been a story about some original characters I would have liked it a lot more but as a Harley Quinn story it fails. These characters are only Harley, Ivy and Joker in name only, otherwise there is very little here that connects these characters to the DC comic book characters AND this is just another story to turn Harley Quinn into a hero instead of the villain she was originally written as. It's very heavy handed in places and the dialogue is strange in places too. Overall, I didn't like this as a Harley Quinn alternate story. If it was just a story with original characters I would have liked it much more. I can only recommend the story for the art.

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass is one of the first graphic novels from DC Comic's new YA imprint, DC Ink. The idea of DC Ink is to remodel classic DC characters into new characters for teenagers, like a teen-targeted version of Marvel's Ultimate line. I can only assume that they are banking on their audience having no understanding of who these characters are and being neck deep in PC/SJW culture and reveling in it. Breaking Glass completely changes who Harley Quinn is and re-writes her as a naive manic who talks like a child and acts like one too. Harley's entire classic background is gone, replaced with Harleen Quinzel living with her dead grandmother's landlord, Mama, who runs a drag bar and going to Gotham High with a character called Ivy, but isn't Poison Ivy, and John Kane, who's parents are trying to gentrify Gotham City. Ivy Du-Barry is Buzzfeed personified, blaming everything on "The Patriarchy" and fighting against capitalism. Her biggest gripe is that the film club at Gotham High only plays classic, important movies like the works of Kubrick and Hitchcock instead of prioritizing "a movie directed by a woman. Let alone a woman of color." John Kane is Tamaki's straw-man for her stereotype of "white men" and laughs in Ivy's face saying that no movie directed by a woman is worthy of discussion and his family buys up all the properties in Gotham City to replace them with fancy coffee shops and expensive high rises. Harley, although she is in high school, seems to be fresh from the womb as she understands nothing and constantly talks like a mix between Louise Belcher and Tiny Tina, saying nonsense like "...confetti is little pieces of paper and confetti is awesome spaghetti sauce.", "Aw gee, cat whiskers", and "...Gotham High, like all schools, was mostly full of boogers." Tamaki even decided to change the Joker, which I won't spoil for you, but it's bad. I hated the story. Clearly this story takes place in an entirely different universe, so Tamaki can redo characters as she pleases, but I disagree with every change she made. She made the entire story a ham-fisted SJW narrative that really doesn't fit with who these characters are supposed to be. The one thing that I do like about Breaking Glass is the artwork by Steve Pugh. I don't care for the subdued color pallets when Quinn is such a vibrant character, but the actual character designs look great (although Quinn's face seems to change quite a few times throughout the story) and when we do get splashes of color, it looks good. Breaking Glass is supposed to be targeted towards ages 13 to 17, but I would question whether the foul language is advisable for 13 year olds and 17 year olds will probably find the constant "Social Justice" message annoying. There is a very small niche between teens who read comics and would be interested in this political, preachy version of classic comic characters. As a DC fan, Breaking Glass is a misfire.

I see a lot of folks complaining that it is not like the canon comic universe but I don't think it was ever meant to be just like with DC's other YA novels. They take some liberties. I took everything with a grain of salt. I knew going in, it wasn't going to be like canon and I was okay with it. I think the author did a great job establishing a new background for Harley that was relatable in a lot of ways to queer teens. There were many things I loved. I enjoyed that Harley got a new background that wasn't her being created by the Joker. It made Harley have a lot more power to have already been that quirky, weird, fun person that we already know and love. Honestly this story made me love Harley again because the character has a tendency to be a little too much at times. The author was able to let Harley be quirky but also be reflective and show that there's accountability for her actions. Ivy is great in this graphic novel and I would love to see a YA novel with her one day because the author really made her come to life. I also loved that even though the characters were a bit different than their comic counterparts, Harley and Ivy's connection and the way they balance each other remained true. The story talks about gentrification which a real problem that has been happening frequently in many major cities and how it damages communities and culture. I loved everything about this book and would highly recommend it to my friends.

I heard the horror stories, so I decided to give this a fair shake. The tpb one, was a slog to get through. It reads like a coming of age story with the Harely Quinn slapped on top of it. (Oh, Paul Dini....how they've done your character dirty). It's like a fanfic born of a fever dream born of watching too many episodes of Rue Paul's Drag race during complete delirium during a bout of dysentery. I am remiss to even call the character Harley Quinn ( or even Harleen Quinzel for that matter). It's like the author had this pet project, but to make it marketable, struck a deal with DC. Her book gets the approval of DC and DC gets more "woke" points. If it was just a story of some runaway adolescent living with a drag troupe, going into highschool and coming into her own, this might have been a worthwhile read. Harley Quinn and any other Batman character are so diluted, their inclusion is pointless.

Read "Mad Love" or watch a few seasons of Drag Race instead. They're much more entertaining.

I really wanted to like this story. I absolutely love Harley and Ivy. Plus this book came out on my birthday. It's absolutely awful. I really don't like having politics shoved down my throat in absolutely everything. If you want to read about the patriarchy keeping everyone down for an entire book then this is the book for you. I read books to get away from those things. I'm just so absolutely tired of everyone fighting. I really didn't like that Ivy is a vegetarian. She would NEVER eat her precious plants EVER. She always ate animals since she thought that they were a huge problem. Animals eat her precious plants after all. I remember her killing or harming someone for eating a salad in front of her once. It just really isn't the book for me.

This book is so full of imagination, and is such a perfect match of author and artist.
From the author: the characters are awesome, the dialog is great, the story is original and absorbing from start to finish. I especially love Mama. She's the kind of character that it's hard to accept that she's fictional. She is SO real and likeable in the book, I really want to meet her.
From the artist: the depiction of the characters, and their expressions, is so real, and so unique, that every one of these characters springs to life. And the shading and coloring! I've never seen coloring like this, where the artist purposely uses a limited palette. Steve Pugh pulls it off like a master. Almost every page brought a new gasp of enjoyment.
I really don't the last time I've enjoyed a book this much.

SO GOOD. Great new take on a character everyone is familiar with. Also great art!

I thought this was a great take on the Harley character.

It's a different twist on her origin story starting much younger (she's a high school student) but it gives her more character development and shows her not as the unhinged and lovestruck companion of the Joker but as a standalone character with clear motives and a twisted sense of justice.

If you like the Harley character, you will almost certainly enjoy this book. Or even if you just like anti-hero stories in general - this is still the book for you.

A cute fun refreshing take on Harley Quinn. A must read for any Harley fan. It doesn’t take it self too seriously and had me laughing. Would recommend!

It is a reinterpretation of a character that misses the entire point of the character. This is devoid of all meaning. The point of Harly Quinn was to show a very successful woman slowly destroy herself by loving the wrong man and letting that "mad love" destroy her. Instead of that story we get a vapid woke self indulgent teenager that collects a very diverse group of friends that use race, gender and sexuality as personality as opposed to character development, all set in the 1980s. This is just a woke story wearing the skinned corpse of a character and it doesn't understand why nobody sees her Harly Quinn.