Whilst this is a “Gotham Girls” team-up, it most definitely is not in the vein of the playful and pally flash animated series!

No, in keeping with the grittier and more adult tone of the mainstream comics, Gotham City Sirens finds the ladies in a tense truce, banding together for survival's sake in the aftermath of a Gotham without THE Batman!

Excitingly, this series is being penned by none other than Paul Dini – who I'm sure you all know is not only one of the most acclaimed contemporary writers of Batman lore, but the very same dude who had a major hand in creating Harley!

After a standard of several years standing of lacklustre mainstream treatment, could Harley finally be given her dues? After all, who better to handle her than her Daddy? The guy who understands her better than anyone? Several times he's tried to put her on the right track, depiction wise, by leaving trails other writers could pick up and follow – only for them go meandering in some other direction. Now that he has full reins once more, will he finally establish Harley properly within the mainstream canon?

So far, the outlook is good! Only three issues in (and only two of them written by him, incidentally) at time of this writing and the story is off to a slow start but character-wise, there's enormous promise in there!

I do find it fascinating to watch the way Dini has developed Harley over the years, particularly how he brings different aspects of her more to the fore depending on the setting. Her playfulness and sweetness are played up in B:TAS, her wickedness and malice in the new Arkahm Asylum VG, her ambition and calculatedness in The Batman. 

Mainstream canon offers the opportunity for a fully balanced integration of all the varying elements of her and this is the approach he seems to take – and is continuing with so far in GCS. 

In just two issues we've seen so much of her peeking out: playfulness, genuine disingenuousness, hedonism, enthusiasm and flightiness - right alongside her callousness, canniness and manipulativeness. She was definitely playing up the bimbo schtick which I love to see her do. She's a beautiful bimbo, is our Harley, and thoroughly genuine about it - but she knows how to work it to her advantage - or just to her amusement - too. 

Her debated relationship with Holly seems crossed off here – there's no doubt they're real friends, but in keeping with Harley's flighty yet needy nature, she went in search of other company when Holly left, rather than follow her. The only person she follows is her Mistah J! The rest of the time she alleiviates loneliness with whoever is most convenient – yet also in the place she wants to be. 

Dini and others were inhibited from exploring Harley's “obvious Jewishness” in the animated series to full potential, censors putting a nix on any mention of religious cultural identity, and it's an aspect of who she is that has never been addressed by other writers. Already Dini is bringing it further to the forefront and it's a welcome rounding out of something that has always been implied as part of her history – too often, comic book characters are denied any culture or religiosity excepting Christian (when they're good-aligned) and vaguely Muslim or Satanistic (when bad-aligned). 

Delightful to me is further exploration of her “little girl” identity. Again, something too risque to be anything much more than subtext in the kids-focused canons where she has most featured, Dini now seems to be steadily – if still very subtly – bringing it out more. Subtle is best; you don't need to clang people over the head with it – it's still pretty obvious, even in the kiddie-oriented material . It's really nice to see it being done in a genuine, unforced, uncreepy, uncontrived and unsexual way – as it should be. Sure, it can be intensely sexual and erotic, being a kink identity – but that;'s not the default and certainly not with Harley, who seems more to have, in her insanity, mentally regressed.

Harley's curious sense of honour has already come up, with her diving in to rescue 'Bruce Wayne' (a plastic-surgery altered Hush) as repayment for him approving her release from Arkham some months back – and this gives her the opportunity to show off her incredible fight skills as well. Never underestimate this bubble-headed bimbo – she'll hand you your kidneys!

She's even showing off her innate perceptiveness and psychological skills as well as glowing, joyous confidence!