Harley Quinn’s origin is one of DC’s darkest stories, but the Black Label series Harleen changed everything about her first encounter with the Joker.
Harley Quinn was once Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a trained psychiatrist assigned to give therapy to the Joker while he was incarcerated. “Mad Love”, featured in both a comic and The New Batman Adventures animated series, detailed how she then fell in love with the Clown Prince of Crime and became a supervillain, entering into what would become a highly abusive relationship. This backstory has been consistent in most of the various versions of Harley Quinn in different continuities and mediums but the DC Black Label series, Harleen, explored it in more detail, providing new context and nuances to Quinzel’s journey from dedicated scientist to crazed criminal.
The Batman Adventures: Mad Love by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Glenn Murakami, Tim Harkins, and Rick Taylor was a comic book one-shot released in 1993 set in the DC Animated Universe. After Joker kicks her out of their hideout Harley reflects on the beginnings of their relationship. During their sessions, Joker had convinced Harleen that his psychopathic tendencies resulted from an abusive childhood and the harmful influence of Batman.
Lulled into feeling sympathy for him, Harleen fell for Joker and helped him escape Arkham and committed to a life of crime in an attempt to win his affections. Back in the present, Harley attempts to kill Batman to win Joker back but this angers him as he wants to be the one to do so and pushes Harley out a window before hijacking her scheme, which Batman then easily escapes. After being taken to Arkham Asylum, Harley claims to be done with Joker but when she sees flowers and a card he sent her she swoons. The story was faithfully adapted into The New Batman Adventures episode “Mad Love” written by Dini and directed by Butch Lukic.
Harleen by Stjepan Šejić and Gabriela Downie updated the story, adding new details and depicted Harley’s transformation as a more gradual process. Her first encounter with the Joker is terrifying, with him holding a gun on her before sparing her life on a whim and being attacked by Batman. Harleen’s obsession with him is initially motivated and facilitated by outside concerns. She is passionately researching a thesis that asserts that by studying the minds of the criminally insane “we could develop a method for detecting deteriorating empathy,” that would allow doctors to “identify a sociopath in the making.” Bruce Wayne sees this as a possible way to reduce crime and has Lucius Fox provide Harleen funding through the Wayne Foundation, leading to her transfer to Arkham. Harleen suffers nightmares following the encounter with the Joker and at first, avoids interviewing him but eventually does so out of desperation. She is frustrated when she obtains a lack of conclusive data from the other villains at Arkham and is enraged when District Attorney Harvey Dent attempts to pressure her into abandoning her research. Dent sees the city’s criminals as incapable of rehabilitation and fears that if Harleen’s work is legitimized it will allow defense attorneys to easily get them acquitted.