Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity #4 Review

Writer: Kami Garcia / Artists: Jason Badower and Mico Suayan / DC Comics I’m not gonna lie to you, when I first picked up this book, I was a little skeptical. Not because it didn’t look interesting, but because there’s just so much of an oversaturation of Batman and Batman adjacent things out there right now.  But I’ve also gotta tell you that this book has proven me wrong.  For starters, this is a DC Black Label book, which is the publisher’s new imprint for stories that take place with familiar characters but aren’t handcuffed by canon and a shared universe. Black Label books have the room to do whatever they want to do. They’re also for more mature readers.  What makes this book really interesting is that it’s like a police procedural. I feel like I’m watching an episode of Law & Order, and I really dig it.  In this series, Harley Quinn works for the GCPD as a forensic profiler, and the Joker is a serial killer with an MO for reimagining his victims as famous works of art. It’s a slow burn type of book that has elements of horror and film noir entangled into these different versions of classic characters. This issue follows Harley as she gets one step closer to finding out who the Joker is. She’s been slowly piecing together who he might be and why he might have gone down this path, but she’s not quite there yet. All of this happens as the Joker is equally getting cocky with his killings. He’s the type of serial killer who taunts the police. And while he’s killed quite…