Booknote: Harley Quinn, Volume 1: Die Laughing (Rebirth)

Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, Harley Quinn, Volume 1: Die Laughing (DC Rebirth). Burbank, CA; DC Comics, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-4012-6831-2.

Genre: graphic novels and comics
Subgenre: superheroes and villains
Format: e-book galley
Source: NetGalley

I admit that when I picked this up I was a little skeptical. Rebirth, great, another comics renumbering and reboot. It was  not that long ago DC did "The New 52," or so it felt. However, this was a Harley Quinn title, with Palmiotti and Conner still at the helm, so I figured this would a good volume to pick up, and I was right. Even though there is a new label, the stories in this volume pick up where the previous volume left off. This time Harley faces a zombie breakout, and then tries to avenge the death of her favorite postman.

Initially, I thought zombie apocalypse, blah, been there, done that, but then again, zombie breakout done with Harley Quinn and humor, it worked a bit better than I thought. The alien parents story within the zombie story was silly and amusing. It added to the B-movie sort of feel to the story, and I mean that in a good way.

The call centers story, the second story in the set, was a bit weird, and it felt a bit like filler. I don't think I got all the details in the first reading, as it did seem a bit busy at times. Compared to the other stories in this volume, this one just was not as good, and if it was left out, I would not have missed it.

The third story is the revenge story. Harley's favorite mailman gets killed during a robbery, and Harley swears revenge. She find out the killers are part of the punk scene, so naturally, she goes undercover to find them. It was a good story, and more interesting when The Penguin makes an appearance. In addition, the art in this story was very good; they made punk Harley look great. In fact, overall, the art continues to be a good reason to pick up this series too in  addition to the humor and entertainment. The cover arts were excellent, and the volume also features a small gallery of alternative covers worth a look.

Overall, despite some small missteps with that one story, this volume was quite fun overall, and I will
still keep looking out for this series. Truly this is one of the nicer series DC has going now.

I'd say 4 out of 5 stars.

This book qualifies for the following 2017 Reading  Challenges: