Warning: SPOILERS for The Suicide Squad.
2021's The Suicide Squad brings fresh updates to Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, continuing the character arc that has seen so much change from its origination in David Ayer's 2016 Suicide Squad and Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). Since her DCEU introduction, Harley has changed significantly, especially given her breakup with the Joker in Birds of Prey. Her character continues to evolve in The Suicide Squad as she assumes a new role, picks up new weapons, and her appearance gets a fresh update.
After an underwhelming start to the Suicide Squad saga in 2016, Warner Bros. hoped to correct mistakes made in the first movie by hiring Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. Gunn's relaunch of the franchise provides a healthy dose of cynical humor as well as action-packed fight scenes. The movie stars Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), and Peacemaker (John Cena) alongside other members of Task Force X, who have been pulled out of high-security prison Belle Reve to undertake a search-and-destroy mission on the fictional island of Corto Maltese. As in the first film, the squad is monitored by Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), who use death threats to compel action. The Suicide Squad includes many newcomers to the DCEU but many of them do not make it past the opening sequence.
Harley Quinn, a fan favorite, is a central character in The Suicide Squad and gets her own side-narrative for the first half of the film that highlights some of her changes since her first DCEU appearance. Margot Robbie's performance in 2016's Suicide Squad was a bright spot in a movie that was otherwise mostly panned by critics. She continued to shine in Birds of Prey, which had a much better critical response. The Suicide Squad had a poor showing with box office sales during its opening weekend, but this was likely largely due to ongoing issues with the COVID-19 pandemic and its same-day release on HBO Max. The Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn lost and rediscovered herself in Birds of Prey, creating her own brand of mayhem and building up a new moral code, and the film honors that.
How Harley's Characterization And Role Change
Harley Quinn was a loner in the 2016 version of Suicide Squad. Imprisoned in a high-security facility for the worst of the worst, she was simply biding her time until the Joker came to break her out. Since the only thing that mattered to her was seeing the Joker again, she didn't have as much on the line as the other characters. Harley didn't seem to care about her cell conditions or the fact that she's a prisoner — she just found fun where she could get it. Throughout Suicide Squad, she thrilled at small victories like rediscovering a favorite outfit or getting to pulverize bad guys with a bat. When the Joker showed up to rescue Harley in a helicopter, she didn't hesitate to abandon the rest of the squad. The Joker eventually frees Harley at the end of the movie and, reunited with her Puddin', she goes on to cause chaos until their breakup in Birds of Prey.
When Harley and the Joker break up at the start of Birds of Prey, she undergoes a major character shift. Having broken up, Harley finds herself adrift, not knowing who she is without her relationship with the Joker. After cutting ties with him for good by blowing up the chemical plant where he remade her, Harley starts a journey to rebuild her identity outside of Mr. J.
She gets a new apartment, adopts a hyena, and begins to mentor aspiring criminal Cass. At one point, Harley backslides into her old ways, making a deal to save her own skin by selling out Cass. By the end of the film, however, Harley has discovered the value of connecting with people. She discovers she truly cares about Cass, going to great lengths to rescue her and working with Montoya, the Huntress and Black Canary in an unofficial Birds of Prey team for a common goal. Harley is still a bit of a maverick by the end of the movie, but when she starts up her own criminal enterprise, she makes Cass her apprentice, maintaining her new ties to the world. Even though she's still a criminal, she has a clear moral code.
From the first introduction of Harley Quinn in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, her new ability to connect with others is evident. In the opening scenes, audiences see Quinn connect with Javelin, taking up his weapon at his request, and that she has a long-standing connection with Captain Boomerang (who appeared alongside her in 2016's Suicide Squad) as she refers to him as "Boomer" and is shocked and saddened by his death. The film also leans on her unlikely mutual friendship with Rick Flag. When Flag insists on rescuing her but finds that she has already escaped on her own, she is touched by his care and offers to go back inside so that Flag can execute the plan he was so proud of. When Flag dies, Harley grieves his passing and finds herself seeking a new friend in Bloodsport, even if she gets his name wrong. Most importantly, the film honors her moving on from Joker and prioritizing herself that was key to Birds of Prey, as when she begins a relationship with President Silvio Luna, she quickly calls it off when he exhibits the red flag of wanting to murder children. Admittedly, she calls it off by shooting Luna in the chest–she has come a long way in avoiding toxic relationships but when it comes to problem-solving, she's still Harley Quinn.
Weapons
In Birds of Prey and Ayer's Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn is shown using a variety of weapons, including revolvers, baseball bats, a Karambit knife, her customized wooden mallet and the "Fun Gun," an M79 grenade launcher with homemade nonlethal ammo. Harley has a preference for bludgeoning weapons, showing great skill with the baseball bat and mallet. She uses them in a variety of ways, hitting her enemies' weak spots in close combat, launching other items at her attackers, and throwing the weapons themselves. Harley's facility with knives is also reinforced in Birds of Prey as she uses a picture of the Joker for target practice. Harley is good with guns, able to hit center mass and make the occasional headshot, but seems to be better with knives. Her "Fun Gun" is a unique weapon designed for a specific ambush, which also fits Harley's preference for occasionally picking up weapons with a lot of firepower. Her philosophy seems to be "Go big or go home."
The only limit to Harley Quinn's use of weapons is her imagination, so it's no surprise to see her using two new weapons in The Suicide Squad. In the trailer for the film. Harley holding a bazooka in the opening scenes seems very natural for her character, although it might be surprising that Amanda Waller let her have one. After her escape from the Corto Maltese government, she carries Javelin's weapon: an embellished javelin. She takes to the weapon naturally, using it primarily as a melee weapon in a way more similar to a pointy quarterstaff than a javelin. The weapon turns out to be key to Quinn saving the day when in the final battle she uses the javelin to pierce the eye of their villain, the giant kaiju-style monster, Starro.
Costume
Harley Quinn's costume in The Suicide Squad is another reimagination of her traditional look. After the controversial costume in 2016's Suicide Squad, which included hot pants and a tight T-shirt that overtly sexualized the character, Gunn's The Suicide Squad is taking a different track. Like Birds of Prey, in The Suicide Squad Harley's costumes are more about her and less about sexualizing the character. Her own black and red leather outfit plays into her own identity by emulating her red and black bodysuit that she wore for her very first appearance in Batman: The Animated Series. In the trailer, Harley mainly appears in a blood-red chiffon dress with a ruffled, asymmetrical skirt and halter top adorned with ribbons. The posters and promotional photos for Suicide Squad 2 also show Harley in a new costume, an all-leather getup emulating her red and black bodysuit from the comics.
Her other primary outfit for the movie is a blood-red chiffon dress with a ruffled, asymmetrical skirt and halter top adorned with ribbons. While she is made to wear this by a man, The Suicide Squad subverts this by showing her looking at herself in a mirror and appreciating her own appearance, not for her attractiveness but because she thinks she looks like a "princess." Both of these outfits are versatile enough for a fight, but also show Harley's sense of fun and both match Harley's traditional look more closely than the outfits in Birds of Prey, which explores her identity and follows her throughout day-to-day life.
Tattoos
In addition to her costumes and weapons, the changes to Harley's character during Birds of Prey are also apparent in one big modification to her tattoos, recently revealed in behind-the-scenes footage for The Suicide Squad. The tattoo on Harley's left shoulder blade, which previously read "property of Joker" now reads "property of no one," reinforcing Harley's newfound sense of self-confidence and identity following her break up from the Joker. In Birds of Prey, some of Harley's other tattoos from Ayer's Suicide Squad are also modified. In the opening sequence, she's seen turning the "Puddin" tattoo on her upper left thigh into one that reads, "Pudding cups." Plus, the word "Puddin" is also crossed out in the "Harley + Puddin" tattoo on her upper right thigh. Perhaps most notable is the lack of Harley's "Rotten" face tattoo on her right cheek, which James Gunn reportedly removed from The Suicide Squad when he learned Margot Robbie didn't like it.
