Whether she's on the big screen or on the page, Harley Quinn is one of those characters fans just can't get enough of. Now her ongoing comic is getting a fresh start: issue #71 lands on 24 February 2027 with a new creative team and a plan to steal the Mona Lisa, with a brand-new costume following in #72. I'll be honest, it's got my attention.

As The Beat and DC's announcement put it, the new team is moving Harley from Brooklyn to Paris. Here's who's on board, per ComicBook.com:

  • Writer: Joanne Starer (Dinner Date)
  • Artist: Lukas Ketner (Batman: Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns)
  • Colours: Dave McCaig (Superman: Birthright)
  • Ongoing covers: David Nakayama (Magik and Colossus), with variant covers for #71 by Yona, Nimit Malavia and Khary Randolph

What's planned for the new run

According to ComicBook.com, Harley goes global to put a crew together for a heist at the Louvre, with the Mona Lisa as the prize. She's travelling on a forged Justice League ID, and her old cyborg pal Sy Borgman is back to join the crew.

Not everyone is pleased to see her, though. Eraser, a Batman villain who rarely gets a look-in, is after Harley for revenge after she stole something from him. There's also an international group of assassins on her tail, according to DC. Before any of that, issue #71 sees her throw herself a grown-up, bat-themed bat mitzvah and invite Batman, which raises DC's own big question: if you invite Batman to a bat mitzvah, does he have to show up?

Starer has a clear handle on what makes Harley tick. "At her core, Harley is basically a little kid who desperately wants love, attention, and approval," she told ComicBook.com, adding that Harley sometimes acts out "because even negative attention is attention." That's the funny, big-hearted Harley a lot of us fell for, and a heist across Europe is a great playground for her.

Harley's new look

Nakayama, the series' new main cover artist, designed the new costume, which debuts in issue #72. ComicBook.com describes it as a throwback to her first look mixed with modern street clothes: red and black instead of the purples and pinks of recent years, heart and diamond motifs, and her twin tails swapped for pigtails dyed black and red. Less circus performer, more Harley on the streets.

If the bat mitzvah sounds silly, that's probably by design: Starer also wrote last year's April Fools' one-shot Harley Quinn Fartacular: Silent Butt Deadly, though ComicBook.com doesn't expect the ongoing series to go quite that far.

David Nakayama's design sheet for Harley Quinn's new red and black costume, with hood up, hood down, side and back views and diamond-pattern trousers
Harley Quinn's new look from issue #72, designed by David Nakayama. Image Credit: DC Comics

New to Harley? Where she came from

Harley wasn't meant to stick around. Paul Dini and Bruce Timm created her for one episode of Batman: The Animated Series, "Joker's Favor", first shown in September 1992. Fans loved her, she jumped to the comics a year later, and she's been a fan favourite ever since. Once a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, Dr Harleen Quinzel falls for the Joker and becomes his partner in crime, before spending the next three decades working out who she is without him.

Standout Harley Quinn books

If issue #71 tempts you in, these are well worth picking up, all spoiler-free to read about here (details from Wikipedia unless noted):

  • Mad Love (1994): Dini and Timm's one-shot telling Harley's origin. It won both the Eisner and Harvey awards for Best Single Issue and was later adapted as an episode of The New Batman Adventures.
  • Batman: Harley Quinn (1999): the one-shot that brought her into mainstream DC comics continuity.
  • Gotham City Sirens (2009 to 2011): Dini and Guillem March's team-up series pairing Harley with Poison Ivy and Catwoman (Wikipedia).
  • Harley Quinn by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (from 2013): the New 52 ongoing that made her a solo star in her own right.
  • Harleen (2019): Stjepan Å ejić wrote and painted this three-issue DC Black Label retelling of her origin, a darker, more grown-up look at how Harleen became Harley (Smash Pages).

Harley on screen

For plenty of fans, Margot Robbie is Harley. She's played her three times, and each film has at least one moment people still talk about:

  • Suicide Squad (2016): mid-mission, Harley smashes a shop window to grab a handbag she likes, then shrugs off the shock with "We're bad guys. It's what we do." The line was all over the trailers and summed up her chaos perfectly.
  • Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020): Cathy Yan's film, written by Christina Hodson and produced by Robbie herself, opens with Harley announcing her break-up with the Joker by blowing up Ace Chemicals. It's packed with memorable bits: the egg sandwich she stops for in the middle of a police chase, the break-in at the Gotham police station with a grenade launcher loaded with paint and glitter, and a finale on roller skates through an abandoned funhouse. It sits at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes (Wikipedia).
  • The Suicide Squad (2021): James Gunn wanted "the most Harley of all Harleys". Her escape from a dictator's palace is shown through what Gunn called Harley's "starry-eyed" view of the world, with hearts and pretty little things mixed in among the mayhem (Wikipedia).

Lady Gaga took on the role in Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), and Kaley Cuoco voices her in the adult animated Harley Quinn series, which ran for five seasons from 2019 and started on E4 here in the UK in 2020. With DC Studios going through its own shake-up at the top, there's no word yet on Harley's next screen outing, so the comics are where the new stories are right now.

Issue #71 of Harley Quinn is out on 24 February 2027. Are you jumping on for the Louvre heist? Let us know, and keep up with all the latest comics news here.