Tieri Says Old Lady Harley 'About the Harley/Joker Relationship'

WARNING: The following interview contains spoilers for Old Lady Harley #1, on sale now.

Harley Quinn is nuts, so it's fitting that the rest of the world would eventually go crazy in order to catch up. The five-issue miniseries Old Lady Harley explores the world initially established in Harley Quinn #42. The Gang of Harleys is gone, Harley's murdered the Penguin, and North America is an apocalyptic wasteland. What's worse is that the Joker, who was previously believed to be dead, may actually still be amongst the living.

Frank Tieri and Inaki Miranda team up to tell a story filled with post-apocalyptic insanity, hillbilly squids, A Clockwork Orange-style Joker gangs, Penguin mutants, Canadian zombies -- and that's just the in first issue. There's no telling how wild this story will end up being.

CBR had the opportunity to talk with both Frank and Inaki on the origins of the Old Lady Harley, the true fate of the Joker, Old Man Logan, and what fans can expect from the series.

So Old Lady Harley is an older version of Harley Quinn who lives in a post-apocalyptic DC Universe. Aside from these fundamental changes in her life, how does she differ from her present day incarnation?

Frank Tieri: Well, she’s 30 years older, for one thing. And that means she’s been through some shit that her younger self hasn’t yet experienced. And in her case, we’re talking A LOT of shit…and one incident in particular that affected the course of her life over these last 30 years more than anything else.

Basically, about five years from the DC Universe's current timeline, she snaps and essentially murders the Penguin. And it’s that act that sets her on a path of guilt and darkness that she hasn’t really recovered from, not even when we catch up to her 25 years later in our Old Lady Harley timeline. People talk about a single event that ruins their life? This one was Harley’s.

Frank, whatever she's dealt with in this future world, how has it changed her...or has she not changed and it's the world that has changed around her?

Tieri:It’s both, really.

The world has certainly changed. By this point, Canada has been overrun with zombies. Mexico has been conquered by the Legion of Doom and renamed Lexico (Kind of proud of that one myself). Atlantis is the 51st state. Most of the rest of the US is decimated. And it’s run by Harley’s ol’ buddy, President Power Girl.

And oh yeah, the Joker is dead. And Harley may or may not be responsible for that.

If he’s actually dead, that is.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Old%20Lady%20Harley%20Features%20the%20Coolest%20Bruce%20Wayne%2C%20Ever']

Inaki, your DC Universe work has primarily focused on Catwoman and Harley Quinn. Obviously Selena and Harley are very different characters, but artistically, is there an obvious difference in the way you approach drawing them or how they are ultimately rendered on the page?

Inaki Miranda: I find drawing Catwoman more direct, because her moves and expressions are more in tone with what she’s saying or doing or thinking. But Harley is a character that gives me more internal struggle, she often makes me think twice, if that’s the correct expression, that I’m drawing on her or if I should try something more exaggerated or funny looking or the opposite. My main obsession with Harley is to make her look and act like a real person and tone down a bit of her cartoony side (but not too much!).

In this miniseries, I tackle two different versions of her, the younger/flashback version and the “Old Lady” Harley. The younger version is the Harley we all know and love and I’m quite happy with how I approached her here; I think I found a sweet balance. Old Harley is a badass and she definitely still has her crazy side, but Red Tool is even crazier, so in the interaction between the two she ends up being the one that’s more sensible. There’s also a balance there that I’m trying to pay attention to.

Everyone loves a fun post apocalyptic story, but Old Lady Harley seems to be amping up the crazy. How did you craft the world of Old Lady Harley? Did DC just give you guys free rein to go as crazy as you wanted?

Miranda: I played a lot of Fallout 4! [Laughs] I just really, really love post-apocalyptic settings and the fantastic atmospheres that you can experience in them. Everything feels like a new world to discover and that triggers my imagination, as I think it does to the reader. You want to keep seeing more places and settings, seeing what else is out there. Also, this world was perfectly established visually in Harley Quinn #42 by Mauricet, so I had a safe place to spring from.

Tieri: Honestly, I think the days of creators getting entirely free rein to tell their stories are pretty much deader than Dillinger, especially at the Big Two. But to be fair, DC -- and editor Chris Conroy in particular -- gave us a pretty wide friggin’ berth. I mean, we still have A LOT of wild off-the-wall shit in there, including The Arkham Retirement Home for the Criminally Insane (Complete with a pantsless Riddler), Kraken Barrel -- and hell, we even have commercials.

That’s right, I said commercials. What other comic gives you that? Be prepared for the Monster Hurler 3000, is all I’m saying. I predict it’ll be the breakout hit of the book.

Inaki, what has been your favorite creation in the series so far? Can you tease any other wild stuff coming over the course of the series?

Miranda: I feel the star of this series is the Monster Hurler 3000! If from these preview pages you think that Frank reached his level of craziness with the giant hillbilly brawler squids, think again.

Hmmm… I just said that the star of this series might be the Monster Hurler 3000, but I think issue two will make you think that I was wrong. I’ll just say it: I drew the coolest Bruce Wayne EVER in DC's history in issue 2. #CoolestBruceWayneEver

Page 3: [valnet-url-page page=3 paginated=0 text='How%20Much%20Influence%20Did%20Old%20Man%20Logan%20Really%20Have%20on%20Old%20Lady%20Harley%3F']

Frank, obviously, whether fair or not, a story called Old Lady Harley is going to get comparisons to a certain similarly named storyline from Marvel. How did you prepare for those comparisons? Were you careful to keep as far from familiar as possible, or did you lean into it in a way that only a character like Harley Quinn could pull off?

Tieri: Well, duh…OBVIOUSLY OLD LADY HARLEY will be compared to OLD MAN LOGAN. What gave that away…the title? ? So yeah, we def do have some fun with that storyline here and there in the book…all done with love and a nice big wink at the audience.

Also, if you read the initial story in Harley Quinn #42 along with this one, you’ll see that OML is FAR from the only franchise we have a little fun with. Expect to see homages, references, Easter eggs, what-have-you from the likes of Mad Max, Back to The Future, Escape from New York, Futurama, Men in Black, Star Trek, The Golden Girls and Rick and Morty…just to name a few.

So see…it’s not just OLD MAN LOGAN we’re ripping off here, kids!

Oh, and by the way, you know who got the biggest kick out of the Old Lady Harley concept when it was first announced? The people at Marvel. I shit you not. I was up there about a week after we announced what Harley Quinn #42 was going to be, and everybody up there couldn’t wait to see what we were going to do with it.

That being said... they may regret that now after seeing this series. Oh well...

Everyone always likes to learn about how things work behind the scenes. Old Lady Harley debuted back in Harley Quinn #42, so was there always a plan to give her a miniseries? How did you land the chance to continue her story?

Tieri: I give our esteemed editor Chris Conroy a good deal of the credit for why the Old Lady Harley series is a thing now. First of all, he went for this crazy ass idea of mine in the first place. Long story short, when I was doing the regular Harley book, Chris informed me they wanted me to do an extra issue to my run from what I was scheduled to do.

I decided I didn’t want to do your standard one off…I wanted to do something different, as well as something that would provide a capper to my run. Penguin had featured prominently during my run so I decided to include him somehow—which is where I came up with the idea of Harley being so fed up with him that she finally kills him. It came to me to set it in the future and thus… Old Lady Harley was born!

To Chris’ credit, he approved the idea immediately. And while we were doing the issue, he said even then that this felt like something bigger, that he would push to do it as a mini. And since that issue was well received—both fanwise and saleswise—here we are.

So to sum up… this is all Chris Conroy’s fault, folks.

Page 4: [valnet-url-page page=4 paginated=0 text='So%2C%20Is%20The%20Joker%20Really%20Alive%3F']

How has your collaboration changed since the first time you worked together?

Miranda: For me, it has gotten extremely comfortable and fun. It was already comfortable since day one, though. I feel like we are a really great team and we are ready to take over the world of comics! Frank writes just one cool scene after another. Every scene is either funny or super cool, or both. When I start drawing his scripts I find myself drawing one scene but already thinking how cool the next one or the closing one is going to look.

Tieri: With Catwoman, she’s obviously a more serious character, so our run reflected that with a darker, more serious storyline. That being said, there are some darker bits in OLH, to be honest. It’s not all fun and games and Monster Hurler 3000’s, as you’ll see.

But really, it was great working with Inaki again. I really think this may be the finest work he’s ever done. Plus, this is the third time collaborating together now so there was definitely a level of comfort that’s developed. For one thing, he has no problem giving me a shout if there’s something in the script he doesn’t get.

Like, what the hell Cracker Barrel was, for instance. (Or Kraken Barrel, in our case…)

Harley will once again go up against the Joker, but things seem to be a little different in this story. Most obvious is the fact that she actually killed him (or at least tried to). How do you see their relationship in this future story, and how does it compare to where they are in present day continuity. Does she hate him? Love him? Both? Something in between?

Tieri: Well, for starters, it’s a misnomer that Harley is the one that actually killed the Joker (if he is indeed dead, that is). You can say that, yeah, she’s responsible, but she’s not the one who actually does the deed. You see, in the near future, after she kills the Penguin, she hooks up with the Joker again.

Not to give too much away, but things don’t go according to how she planned -- I mean, he is the Joker after all -- and she winds up calling the JLA on him. And it’s while battling them where the Joker is whacked. It’s why it’s a mystery in the book if he is actually dead—she never saw it herself and so she spends the series seeking out the JLA members who were there. All the while being pursued by the Joker-inspired (or wannabes, as she calls ‘em) Laughing Boys which is a big part of the problem. They’re really huge pains in Harley’s ass, to be honest.

And look, when we first introduced the Old Lady concept, everybody and their mother was asking when we’d get around to Old Man Joker appearing. Well, here it is. And in truth, this story really is in large part about the Harley/Joker relationship. I’ve always felt there is definitely a love/hate thing going on there and we absolutely play on that—especially in our flashbacks to the past where they hooked up again. And not to mention when our Joker does appear—whether or not it really is him.

So is it him? Did the Joker cheat death once again and is somehow really alive? Or is he a clone or a robot or the ghost of Caesar Romero or something else equally ridiculous? Guess you’ll just have to buy the book to find out, kids!