My high school offered a class called “Death and Humor,” which offered students the opportunity to study both as opposite sides of the same coin. Perhaps Sam Humphries’ took a similar class, because this issue focuses on Harley’s struggle with her mother’s imminent death from cancer.

Apologies to Mark Twain, as someone who has lost both parents I can sympathize at Harley’s need to not only laugh at the absurd, but to sometimes manufacture the absurd to provide a laugh. Harley subtly explores (somewhat) Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler’s Five Stages of Grief, all the while thumbing her nose at the Grim Reaper.

I’m accustomed to Otto Schmidt drawing women with a bit of a Playboy cartoon flair, so seeing him render the Grim Reaper in this somewhat ghoulish version of It’s a Wonderful Life is refreshing. Not that I am bored with his work, but I appreciate him stepping out of his comfort zone a wee bit.

DC Comics has called this the Year of the Villain, presumably offering the bad guys the spotlight for a while in a line-wide event. What that means for Harley – a villain with her own title – remains to be seen. She’s been going straight for the past 60+ issues, but there are allusions to a possible return to a life of crime in the near future.