“Mad Love’s End” — Did ‘Suicide Squad’ (2016) Kill Harley Quinn And The Joker?

Content Warning — This article contains mentions and discussion of domestic abuse.

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“Screw Romeo and Juliet. I want a love like The Joker and Harley Quinn!” — so says the hopeless romantics for whom Harley Quinn and The Clown Prince of Crime have become a kind of supervillain Bonnie and Clyde. At this, comic fans are likely to wince, all too aware of the manipulation and abuse at the heart of Harley’s relationship with The Joker.

And yet one doesn’t have to look far to see the two paired together. Be it Halloween parties or convention cosplays, Harley and The Joker have remained a prevalent duo, largely because they’ve been romanticized by mainstream adaptations.

2016’s Suicide Squad (David Ayer) serves as perhaps the most influential example, not just popularizing a romanticized Harley/Joker dynamic, but reshaping how casual audiences understand their relationship. In response, later adaptations have worked to correct this framing through their emphasis on Harley’s independence from the villain.

“Mad Love, Misread” — The Origins Of Harley & Joker

Harley Quinn makes her first on-screen appearance in “Joker’s Favor,” the 22nd episode of Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1994). While Harley’s role in the episode is minimal, the personality brought to the role by actress Arleen Sorkin proved enough to bring her back as a recurring character.¹ Subsequent episodes painted Harley not merely as Joker’s henchwoman, but hopelessly in love with the villain.

Throughout Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn acts primarily as a comic relief character. There’s an intentional comedy to her dynamic with Joker — Harley doting on him, while Joker acts dismissive. Any abuse towards Harley tends to lean more verbal than physical, due in part from content restrictions placed on the series by Fox. The Joker, for instance, was forbidden from killing anyone on-screen.²

This lack of explicit violence no doubt plays a part in the softening of their relationship, allowing it to be read as more comedic than harmful. There’s an almost running gag in the way Harley continually forgives and returns to The Joker. In doing so, the series establishes a version of their relationship that can be easily misinterpreted when removed from its original context.

It would take the episode “Mad Love,” adapted from Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s 1994 comic of the same name, to build on the inherent tragedy of Harley Quinn, recognizing her as trapped in a cycle of abuse.

Meanwhile, comics would attempt to explore Harley’s independence from the villain. 2000’s Harley Quinn, her first solo series, written by Karl Kesel and drawn by Terry Dodson, had Harley form her own gang. Frequently, she teamed up with Poison Ivy, a friendship that carried over from Batman: The Animated Series.

While the two would later be canonized as lovers, Harley and Ivy’s relationship was initially only hinted at through subtext, with Ivy often encouraging Harley to leave Joker. The lack of explicit confirmation (and the avoidance of queer relationships) made it easier for the pairing to be overshadowed, especially as adaptations of Harley remained focused on her relationship with The Joker.

Adaptations following Batman: The Animated Series would continue to pair Harley with Joker. From 2004’s The Batman, 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, and even Lego Batman: The Videogame (2008), most exposure of Harley Quinn was as The Joker’s girlfriend. These depictions shaped audience perception of the character, and would only be amplified as cinema presented a romanticized Harley and Joker to the masses.

How Suicide Squad Mainstreamed A Toxic Romance 

With Harley’s popularity only growing thanks to continued adaptations, it was only a matter of time before she appeared on the big screen. That debut was ultimately Suicide Squad, set in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film follows the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2015; Zack Snyder), in which Superman was seemingly killed. In response to his death, intelligence officer Amanda Waller forms Task Force X, the titular Suicide Squad, a team of expendable supervillains, whom Waller hopes can counter any superhuman threats. Amongst the Squad’s members is Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie.

In the character’s introduction, Waller says of her:

“Before she ran off and joined the circus, she was known as Dr. Harleen Quinzel. A psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. She was assigned to The Clown himself… They became the king and queen of Gotham City. And God help anyone who disrespected the queen.”³

Portrayed by Jared Leto, Suicide Squad’s Joker is painted as a modern gangster, sporting tattoos and grills. As a consequence, he’s more conventionally attractive than most depictions. There’s a seductive edge to his violence that makes it easier to ignore. Lines like Waller’s depict Joker as fiercely possessive of Harley. He enjoys showing her off as his.

And yet Joker’s abuse is heavily glossed over by the film. In an article for The Wolfpacket, writer Genny Sanders writes: “the filmmakers have Harley actively trying to reunite herself with her abuser. When they are together, the power dynamic seems relatively equal.”⁴ Indeed, throughout Suicide Squad Harley is driven by a desire to reunite with The Joker. In turn, Joker attempts to rescue her on several occasions.

Decisions such as these give the impression of Joker as being almost a protective boyfriend instead of a controlling abuser. In one of the film’s flashback sequences, he dives after Harley after she jumps into a vat of acid, acting as her rescuer.

The scene does more than romanticize Harley’s relationship with Joker, it rewrites her origin. What was originally a moment of coercion becomes instead a consensual choice. Harley jumps out of loyalty to The Joker. When she emerges from the acid, the two share a kiss, and it’s treated as a moment of mutual devotion. Blogger Brandon Wagner writes: “the scene is played incredibly lovingly. The kissing in the chemicals, the heart surrounding them, this is a moment of triumph in this relationship.”⁵

And ultimately, The Joker does wind up saving Harley at the film’s end. He breaks her out of Belle Reve. With this, the film concludes on the note that The Joker, while villainous, cares for Harley, leaving most audiences’ first impression of Harley and Joker as one that’s highly romanticized. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people would fall for this toxic pair.

Fandom & The Spread Of Joker and Harley

Notably, Suicide Squad was shaped by cuts. Early production photos suggest that Harley and Joker’s relationship would be more explicitly abusive, with scenes where Joker slaps⁶, and even throws Harley out a helicopter⁷, reportedly cut.

While there has never been any outright confirmation as to why these scenes were removed, rumors persist of an intentional softening of Harley and Joker’s relationship. If this is the case, it proved an effective marketing move. Harley Quinn exploded in popularity, with the character being amongst the most popular Halloween costumes of 2016.⁸ So too was The Joker, often completing the duo as a couple’s costume.

While many criticize these costumes as “normalizing domestic abuse,”⁹ the answer as to why Harley and Joker remain a popular duo is better spent examining how adaptations can strip characters of nuance.

Audience view of characters is ruled by whatever the predominant image of those characters may be. This can be a double-edged sword, especially if these depictions are simplified, or misrepresented, which can then be reinforced through other pieces of media.

Even if audiences hadn’t seen Suicide Squad, the prevalent image of Harley was her paired with Joker. Many fans latched onto the idea, amplifying the relationship in a way that further divorced it from the source material. In this way, fandom can also be culpable, not just reflecting media but circulating simplified versions of it.

If Suicide Squad brought more awareness to Harley as a character, then it became all the more crucial for later adaptations to accurately portray her as a victim of abuse. Paradoxically, Suicide Squad enabled depictions which do just that.

The Cinematic Emancipation Of Harley Quinn

Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn returned four years later in Birds of Prey (2020; Cathy Yan), a part team-up, part solo film, which centered on Harley’s character. Birds of Prey serves to directly undo the romanticization of Harley and Joker. Opening with an animated re-telling of her backstory, the film begins with the pair breaking up. The event devastates Harley, who is thrown out onto the street by an apathetic Joker.

For many, Birds of Prey was likely their first exposure to a Harley independent from The Joker. Their break-up serves as the catalyst for the film. It leaves Harley vulnerable to threats, yet also allows her to self-reflect. “I lost all sense of who I was,” she says, “I only had eyes for Pudding.”¹⁰ Harley’s arc thus becomes a matter of finding herself — and moving on from the Clown Prince of Crime.

This arc is crucial for Harley’s next appearance in The Suicide Squad (2021; James Gunn), in which Harley slays would-be dictator Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto), after a romantic encounter. The murder isn’t random. Harley recognizes Luna as an abusive figure, learning of his plans to use Starro to kill his political enemies. Reflecting on his “red flags,” she says:

“I know what you’re trying to say. Harley, why not just leave? … And then I’d say, when your taste in men is as bad as mine, they don’t just go away quietly. They slash your tires, and they kill your dogs, and tell you that the music you like ain’t real music at all. And all the cruelty tears you apart after a while.”¹¹

The line is the ultimate moment of self-awareness for Harley. More than this, it offers a direct response to Suicide Squad’s lovesick portrayal of her. Without naming Joker directly, the line acknowledges his control over Harley’s life. In fact, the line is more significant because it doesn’t mention Joker, as it paints his abuse not as romance, but as a pattern — one she now has the agency to break. The idea remains the heart of the modern Harley Quinn.

Shaping The Modern Harley

Just as much as comics inform their adaptations, adaptations can inform what characters audiences want to see in comics. In the wake of Ayer’s film, the first issue of Harley Quinn’s DC Rebirth series sold over 400,000 copies.¹² Since then, Harley has had consistent titles, including her most recent (and currently ongoing) 2021 solo series.

Serving as one of the biggest inspirations for 2016’s Suicide Squad, the 2011 Suicide Squad comic series, part of DC’s New 52 relaunch, prominently featured Harley as one of the Squad’s members. Written by Adam Glass, the series began Harley’s association with the team, depicting it as crucial for Harley’s discovery of a life outside Joker. The continued frequency of these “solo Harley” stories signals a shift in the way the character is being portrayed to audiences.

In fact, recent adaptations cast Harley more frequently into the role of anti-hero than they do villain, such as the 2019 Harley Quinn animated series and Injustice video games. In both portrayals, Harley becomes an ally of Batman. Even incarnations previously villainous, such as the Arkham games, and her original depiction in Batman: The Animated Series, have been updated to reflect the modern, independent Harley.

Video games like Telltale’s Batman: The Enemy Within (2017), and films like Joker: Folie à Deux (2024; Todd Phillips), deliberately flip the power dynamic between Harley and The Joker. In the former, it’s The Joker (here John Doe) smitten with Harley, while in the latter, Harley is the one to seduce Joker. This subversion works because there’s an expectation for what Harley should be, created by years of media portrayals of her as The Joker’s girlfriend.

Whether she’s an anti-hero or the one wielding power over Joker, these adaptations share in common a breaking of expectations. But what happens when the exception becomes the norm? Certainly, more modern adaptations seem to depict her and Joker as split up than they do together.

The answer to that question is that it’s created a vastly different image of Harley for most audiences. But it’s an important one. By bringing into the mainstream the idea of Harley “breaking away”, adaptations can challenge false notions of her relationship with The Joker. In this regard, Harley’s character shift becomes a showcase of her evolution for audiences — and what they have come to expect of her.

What Harley And Joker’s Split Says About Audiences — And Comics As Myth

The mainstream recognition of Harley and Joker’s relationship as abusive proves one thing: the world has never been more aware of the intricacies of comic lore as it is now. One can go to a comic convention and see just as many Harleys paired with Poison Ivy than Joker. Now, did Suicide Squad truly “kill” the villainous couple? No, but it’s hard not to notice its growing absence. Even as The Joker remains important to Harley’s story, his role has become more of a stepping stone.

Adaptations of Harley post-Suicide Squad offer a rare example of mainstream media correcting a harmful narrative rather than enforcing it. More than that, they show character perception isn’t fixed.

Harley’s evolution coincides with a growing push for comics as a serious storytelling medium, one which treats them as modern myth. The comparison isn’t entirely inaccurate. Like myths, comic characters evolve based on what stories are being told — and who’s telling them.

Beginning life as comic relief, Harley has become a vessel to explore abuse, though the road to get there has been far from a straight line. Harley’s arc is shaped by messy, often romanticized adaptations, alongside stories that return her to the status quo.

But what’s true is that the predominant image of Harley is changing, not by accident, but through a series of portrayals that have worked to redefine her, demonstrating how adaptations can both distort and correct the characters it brings into the mainstream.

Footnotes

1. Dick, Jeremy. “How the Legend of Harley Quinn Was Born Revealed by Batman Favorite Mark Hamill.” MovieWeb. 15 Oct. 2020. ↩︎
2. Miller, David. “How Batman: The Animated Series’ Censorship Accidentally Helped the Show.” ScreenRant. 24 Sep. 2024. ↩︎
3. Ayer, David, dir. Suicide Squad. 2016. ↩︎
4. Sanders, Genny. “Harley Quinn and the Joker Are Not Your #CoupleGoals.” The Wolfpacket. 2016. ↩︎
5. Wagner, Brandon. 2016. “How #RelationshipGoals Joker and Harley Is at the Heart of What’s Wrong with Suicide Squad (and DC Films as a Larger Whole).” Untitled Film Blog Project. 7 Aug. 2016. ↩︎
6. Howell, Joshua. “Editorial: Pivotal Parts Cut from ‘Suicide Squad’ Changes Joker/Harley Dynamic.” Dark Knight News. 24. Aug. 2016. ↩︎
7. “‘Suicide Squad’ Image Hints at Deleted Joker & Harley Scene.” Business Insider. 25 Aug. 2016. ↩︎
8. Dockterman, Eliana. “Superheroes Dethrone Princesses as Most Popular Kids’ Halloween Costume.” TIME. Time. 27 Sep. 2016.  ↩︎
9. Stabile, Olivia. “The Dangerous Meaning behind One of This Year’s Most Popular Halloween Costumes.” The Valley Echo. 2016. ↩︎
10. Yan, Cathy, dir. Birds of Prey. 2020. ↩︎
11. Gunn, James, dir. The Suicide Squad. 2021. ↩︎
12. Kubai, Andy L. “Harley Quinn #1 Sells over 400,000 Copies.” ScreenRant. 4 Aug. 2016. ↩︎