Welcome back, nerd squad.
The Birds of Prey film is coming up fast and as it now features Harley as being part of
that team, we thought it was about time that we talked about Harley's capacity for playing
with others.
Despite the fact that Harley was first introduced in the animated series as Joker's girlfriend,
her character has grown dramatically since then.
She was never meant to be a fully developed character, just a little cameo but her popularity
caused her to also be integrated to the comics and become Joker's famed sidekick.
The two have always been portrayed as having a toxic and abusive relationship with Harley
doing anything for her Mister J but over the years her character changed.
Harley found independence in being separate from the Joker and beyond that she found friends
in the other teams and their teammates that she would later work with.
In this list we'll be taking a closer look at some of those teams and just how important
Harley Quinn is to them as we count down the top 10 teams useless without Harley Quinn.
For many things in DC, like the Birds of Prey film, she appears to be the crazy glue that
holds many projects together.
Alright, let's get counting.
10 Green Lanterns
Before you flip out, let me explain.
Harley teams up with Green Lantern in the series, Harley's Little Black Book.
If you haven't checked out this series, by the way, you should because it is amazing.
Anyways, Harley ends up acquiring what she thinks is a Green Lantern ring via ebay but
it turns out to be a merged red and black lantern ring.
Making her the first ever red and black lantern.
This of course makes Harley go kind of crazy evil as the ring possesses her.
Hal Jordan shows up to try and stop her when the Azkarians also show up and take the ring
from Harley.
They knock out Hal and it is up to Harley to save the day.
She takes his ring and becomes a Green Lantern.
Without her on that day the Green Lanterns would have been useless at saving the planet.
The Azkarians would have most likely got their hands on the ring by some other means and
Hal would have likely just been knocked out and fallen to his death without Harley there
to save him and the world.
9 Justice League
Once again, before you flip out, let me explain.
Despite being a villain, it's no secret that Harley Quinn has had her crushes on members
of the League.
She's kissed Hal Jordan, pined after the Batman, and has a shrine dedicated to Wonder Woman
in her closet.
While it is hard for me to argue that League would be useless without Harley, I would like
to offer that she would make an awesome addition to the team.
She certainly proved her usefulness to the team in the Justice League vs Suicide Squad
series in issue 4.
In this issue we saw Diana and Harley go up against Johnny Sorrow.
Sorrow is a villain famed for having a face that when viewed results in death, as it drives
the viewer to insanity.
As such Wonder Woman warns Harley Quinn not to look upon his face.
But Harley proves this warning is not necessary.
She looks sorrow square in the face and comments that he's cute and ends up saving Wonder Woman
to boot.
Wonder Woman later thanks her for doing so.
Harley comments that it was nothing and gives her a hug commenting that, "once you've looked"
into one "abyss, you've seen them all," in regards to her capacity to look right at Sorrow's
uncovered face.
Harley also suggests that she and Diana become the new Wonder Twins.
Now that is something I'd love to read.
8 Secret Six
Harley's run with the Secret Six was a short one and right after she left the team disbanded
for awhile.
While she wasn't particularly useful in her appearance on the team in Birds of Prey volume
1 from issue 104-108, to me a lot of what is responsible for this is that she wasn't
really firmly cemented in the team.
If Harley was really going to be useful to the Secret Six, she needed to have more creative
control over tactics.
In my opinion everything went awry for the team simply because they just went for it,
trying to muscle their way to success which is not the best way to deal with the Birds
of Prey, especially when Oracle is the mastermind behind them.
I would love to see a version of this team where Harley was at the helm, because I think
she could steer these villains toward brilliant success.
It's no surprise to me that after one chaotic battle, Harley decided to quit and later returned
to the Suicide Squad.
7 Injustice League
Everytime the Injustice League has gotten together so far they've been beaten and what
they just might be missing is a little heart.
The problem with the team is they feel very divided, self serving, Harley could provide
that deranged sweetness that might keep them all fighting together.
Even the Injustice League Unlimited team which was huge, did not seem to have Harley Quinn
in attendance.
Why?
Probably because in 2007 she off doing her own thing or working with the Suicide Squad.
Though at the end of the Injustice League Unlimited League storyline when Amanda Waller
showed up to collect the Justice League's prisoners, Harley was nowhere to be seen among
those members Waller had accompanying her.
Still I think part of why this team always fails is because they usually have the self-serving
Lex Luthor heading them with Joker's chaotic-based self in second command.
Maybe if we saw some more determined supervillains with broader goals like Poison Ivy and Harley
in charge, we'd see a greater success rate with the villainous team.
6 Birds of Prey
Obviously we are talking about the DCEU here, not the comicbook Birds of Prey, where Harley
has only been involved with the team in a few issues, like that time she helped the
team to save the men of Gotham from a deadly virus, there of course primarily to help them
so that they could help Mister J who was also afflicted.
Based on what we know of this film so far, it looks like the new spin on the Birds of
Prey is that they would not even exist if not for Harley Quinn.
I guess Harley is their new lovable crazy and newly single and independent Oracle.
It looks like Harley is at the centre of bringing all the women of the team together, through
having run ins with them and wanting to build her own team.
I wonder if she'll actually be able to give their name some meaning or not.
And I'm also curious as to how Gail Simone feels about this reimagining of the team.
The other strange thing is that while Black Mask is a villain with many enemies, he seems
to have an obsession for Harley Quinn in this film.
Obviously she must have done something to wrong him.
But he is a villain who is more well known for his intense feud with Catwoman, not Harley.
So I'll be interested to see what Harley has done to him and how it involves bringing together
Huntress, Black Canary, Renee Montaya and Cassandra Cain to get revenge.
I'm also interested to see if Black Mask will end up wearing the famous black mask built
out of his father's coffin.
5 Gotham City Sirens
Some ladies you can't live with or without.
Such seems to be the motto for this villainess trifecta.
In truth, the team would be useless without any single member of it.
Though I would argue that Poison Ivy and Harley also make an effective duo.
The three women decide to band to together after Poison Ivy saves Catwoman's life, repaying
her for the money that Catwoman stole from Hush and gave to both her and Harley.
These three together betray each other almost as much as they help one another but truly
are a magnificent force when they work together.
Without one of them the team simply doesn't work.
In fact the team really falls apart when Harley leaves to go kill Joker as revenge for years
of abuse while he is locked up in Arkham.
More proof that without Harley as their glue, the betrayals all become too much and the
villainesses all end up turning on one another.
4 Quinntets
In the first volume of the Harley Quinn comic series, we see Harley create her own team
after Joker gets locked away and it seems like the pair are taking a break from their
relationship or as she phrases it, "seeing other people."
Her other people involves her own crew of henchmen that she and her friend Lewis put
together.
Unfortunately this ragtag criminal group that Harley leads is comprised exclusively of men,
no girl gangs here.
Lewis is just a former henchmen of Harley that seems happy to help her out, despite
the fact that she's thrown a few punches in his direction in the past.
Likewise Buster, another former Joker henchmen is in the same boat.
He's the muscle and Harley has also taken him down before.
Same with the other two founding members of the Quintets, Nix and Kennedy.
Kennedy is famous for having henched with everyone.
The last member of her squad, who was also the first is Lester Wilde who believes he
looks identical to the Joker.
But he dies in the first issue that the team is assembled in, after falling in love with
Harley and getting shot by the police during a mission where Harley gets the squad to help
her break her pet Hyena's out of the zoo.
Without Harley this team would not have even existed.
Nor would their adorable uniforms have either.
3 Suicide Squad
Granted without Amanda Waller there is no Suicide Squad but in this team Harley really
found her independence and her family.
While the team allowed her to grow as a character, Harley has really allowed this team to be
successful in their series and in the film iteration due to her popularity.
In fact if it weren't for Harley Quinn's appearance in the 2016 film, we would have likely seen
even worse reviews come in for it than it already got.
And it is currently sitting at 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fortunately a lot of this simply comes down to the very miniscule semblance of plot.
But truly it was Margot Robbie and better yet Harley Quinn that came out on top after
this film.
I would also go on to argue that while the other members of the team are useful and important,
none are as useful as Harley Quinn when it comes to selling comics.
Case and point, Harley almost always make the cover of each Suicide Squad issue.
2 Gang of Harleys
This is maybe one of my favourite groups.
Poison Ivy gave Harley the idea to have a casting call for some hired help in vol 2
of the Harley Quinn series.
I also just really love this series.
If you haven't read it, you should.
Harley and Ivy are both brilliantly written in it.
Quinn ends up putting out an ad and gets more responses than she anticipated.
She actually allows these ladies to duke it out after narrowing down the potential members
of her girl gang with an interview process.
She declares she'll turn off the lights for two minutes and when they come back on whoever
is left, is in.
This leaves her left with 11 successful candidates, one of whom was actually male.
Obviously this team would be useless with Harley as she is their inspiration but also
they are all very capable and fantastic.
Honestly, DC should make a movie about this gang of Harley's.
1 Joker and Harley
The craziest thing about this duo is while Joker is the most iconic Batman villain and
possibly one of the best villains of all time, he has actually over the years almost been
surpassed in popularity by his sidekick.
Harley has not only surpassed him at times in popularity but beyond that, she's even
accomplished things that Joker could never even dream of.
She's managed to fool and capture Batman on multiple occasions and almost kill him more
than once.
In Mad Love it is Joker who stops her from killing that Batman and he even throws her
out of a window for successfully capturing the Bat.
Of course, Joker has no desire to kill Batman, he's more interested in corrupting him.
The Joker is more of a philosophical villain.
While Harley's actions often are based more so in logic, even being as unstable as she
is.
In the comics and animated series, she is shown to literal outgrow the Joker.
And the few times she has left the Joker in the comics, he has always been the one to
come after her.
He often tells her that she is nothing without him but to me this seems like fear talking
when it comes to the Joker.
If you read between the lines, it sounds like he might be worried that he is nothing without
her.
Thank you so much for watching, nerd squad.
I hope you enjoyed this list.
How do you like Harley best?
Solo?
With the Joker?
With Ivy?
On a team like the Suicide Squad?
Let us know in the comments below.
And also be sure to let us know what you think of our list.
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Would you like to see Harley join the Justice League and team up with Wonder Woman?
We want to know.
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This is top 10 nerd and I'm your host Amanda McKnight saying farewell for now and reminding
you as always to stay nerdy, YouTube.