My story's is the one where the girl dances with the devil, and he takes her with him on a long road to hell. That road starts, as they often do... With a good intention. 
Harleen #1 is an issue of the series Harleen (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 2019. It was published on September 25, 2019.
Synopsis for "Book One"
Harleen Quinzel is walking down the road of a warped dream Gotham expecting a beast to come out of the mist, instead she is only surrounded by bats. She notices Joker lying on the ground at the end of the road and a different bat-shaped monster is present. Harleen stands between joker and the beast as she asks him to leave him alone, the beast warns Harleen that he is beyond help but she still believes she can help him. The beast leaves Joker in her hands as he leaves. Joker looks at her and smiles, Harleen smiles back and wakes up.
Dr. Quinzel is interviewing a war criminal about his time in the war and his life afterwards, she ends the interview questioning him about the civilian hospital where he left no survivors, killing over 60 people including 24 injured children. Three years later she is giving a presentation about her hypothesis of the effects of the human mind under a long phase of fight or flight state. She tells her theories how this protection mechanism under extreme stress breaks and results in a permanent deterioration of empathy. During the speech she notices some of the attendees lose concentration and focus on other stuff which leads her to go to a bar with Shondra. She advises Dr. Quinzel to stop considering them as scientist instead as business men to get funding.
Later that night while walking home alone she gets knocked on the sidewalk from a sudden explosion in the nearby building as Joker walks out. Their eyes meet and Joker points his gun at Dr. Quinzel startling to the point she sees her life flash before her eyes, such as the moment she decided to become a psychiatrist or when she was caught with her university teacher which gave her a bad reputation. Fortunately Joker laughs as he leaves with the stolen guns. A few moments later Joker's vans gets surrounded by smoke and the sudden stop of the car makes the driver crash through the window and get heavily injured, deeming him no longer useful joker kills him. Batman orders them to drop their weapons from his Batplane and then jumps down on the street. Meanwhile Harleen finds herself trapped between the fire from the explosion and the smoke ahead. She gets startled by a backup police officer on the scene which he tells her he will help her escape. Midway to the exit she gets too terrified to move anymore and watches terrified the movement of the shadows from the mist. After the mist clears out she and other passersby gather to watch the scene over the railings. The realization that the sound of cheering drowns out the sound of the punches seeds a hatred for Gotham City.
The Joker's body morphs as Harleen wakes up screaming from the dream, it has been three days since she witnessed the fight and decided to keep it to herself. At her workplace she gets called in Dr. Matthews office about her previous presentation. She first believes she is getting fired but instead Lucius Fox was interested in funding her research in the name of Wayne. At first Dr. Quinzel is confused why someone like Bruce Wayne would be interested in her research if not for profit. Lucius tell her that Bruce is interested mainly in reducing the crime rate of the city, her project being plausible and her modest budget. Over a few weeks her nightmares subsides and her life started to return to normal.
On her first day working at Arkham Asylum she is shown around by Tim Bronson. She had an overall bright mood but that suddenly changes as she sees joker being moved to his cell. After an agitating welcome from Hugo Strange she goes to her office with a misspelled "Dr. Quinzoll" nameplate to study the patient's files. After weeks of interviewing the other patients as she approaches Joker's file her fears start to resurface and drive her to face the problem face on and watched the videos of previous interviews with him. After the last tape she knew she had to interview him for her project which brought the worst of her dreams until now to the point she is asking her friend Shondra for pills to put her to sleep which didn't work, and she sook solace in alcohol.
Dr. Quinzel is asked to come to meet with Harvey Dent early in the morning with his intention to convince her to drop her research. He belives her research will only bring a Gotham overrun by criminals but Harleen still refuses. Fueled by the rage caused by Harvey Dent, Harleen decides to do her interview with Joker today. Even thought it has been over one month Joker remembers Harleen. Dr. Quinzel decides to skip the lies that Joker has fabricated to every other therapist assigned to him and ask him the monstrous stories instead of the façade.
Appearing in "Book One"
Featured Characters:
- Dr. Harleen Quinzel (First appearance) (Flashback and main story) (Origin)
Supporting Characters:
- Batman (First appearance)
- Gotham City Police Department (First appearance)
- Dr. Hugo Strange (First appearance)
- Lucius Fox (First appearance)
- Dr. Mathews (First appearance)
- Shondra (First appearance) (Flashback and main story)
- Tim Bronson (First appearance)
Villains:
- Harvey Dent (First appearance)
- The Joker (First appearance)
- Bob (First appearance)
- Sam (First appearance; dies)
Other Characters:
- Batman Villains
- Killer Croc (First appearance)
- Mad Hatter (First appearance)
- Mister Freeze (First appearance) (In a photograph only)
- Poison Ivy (First appearance)
- The Riddler (First appearance)
- Victor Zsasz (First appearance)
- Mr. Morris (First appearance)
- Pauline (First appearance)
- Professor Collins (First appearance) (Flashback only)
Locations:
- Gotham City
- Arkham Asylum
- Blackgate Penitentiary (Mentioned only)
- Center for the Study of Criminal Psychology
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- This issue is reprinted in Harleen.
See Also