>Batman TAS creates Harley Quinn, who becomes an A-list super character
>Superman TAS tries to replicate her success with Mercy Graves and Livewire
>Neither succeed
What did Harley Quinn have that they didn't?
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Harley is (or at least was) a funnier character. Mercy seems generic in comparison.
The Joker.
This, the Joker is the most popular and marketable DC character by a mile.
I'd say a good chunk of STAS villains were that, like in another story Parasite would've just been a Plasticman type loser who was just turned into a freak by bad circumstance since his origin was a bunch crooks strongarm him into robbing his workplace because gambling debts, but the second he realizes his power he just becomes a terror. Metallo was also a case of a guy who was fricked by Luthor, but deep down he'd rather be evil than saved. Volcana was just kind of standoffish but not truly a bad guy.
>Joker is the most popular and marketable DC character by a mile
*Second most.
Batman is Batman
Batman stuff is always more successful when Joker is in it
meanwhile Joker has a billion dollar movie without Batman
Clussy
Wasn't she android in one of the comics?
Harley is both luck and having a lot of things working for her. Batman TAS was the bigger show, Joker is a massive villain, she was given several episodes centered around her and her pathos. Mercy had Luthor but was never given any development beyond maybe a token scene alluding to her past/loyalty. Livewire was a solo villain,
She is now and she's an Amazon in an earlier comic.
That art looks cool as frick
She was one in the Young Justice cartoon.
Harley had a bunch of bit parts that established her as a cast member before the episodes focused on her. Most importantly, she got episodes about her that also didn't involve the Joker in more than a peripheral role.
Livewire didn't get that kind of buildup so she just came across as another Monster of the Week.
Mercy was the other way around since she had a bunch of minor appearances but never anything really centered around her as a person unconnected to Lex.
If Leslie had already been established as a character before she became Livewire or had Mercy been given a personality beyond working for Lex, they might have went over like Harley did.
Mercy never had a platonic relationship for shippers to misread to make her an icon of the LGBTQ+ community.
>platonic
They were meant to be munching box, it just wants a political statement like it’s taken now, we just used to find sexy women fricking each other attractive
Cinemaphile used to like lesbians until they got popular.
Not enjoying lesbian activity unironically makes you a homosexual.
>"straight" people enjoying homosexual activity
ok boomer
honestly 90% of quinn success was that dini outfit. it's just objectively well designed
Cinemaphile really gets triggered over hot women having sex with each other. couldnt be me
Honestly, yeah. If Mercy had a cooler design, she might've stood a better chance + what everyone else has already said about her needing some standout stuff. Dunno how exactly one could make a cooler design for Mercy though, apart from I guess really going all-in on the cyborg aspect.
>cooler design
what the hell is wrong with a sexy limodriver/assassin design?
It doesn't really stand out that much though, does it? I mean, casual/non-"super" suits are cool, don't get me wrong, but usually there's something else that makes it stand out. Black Mask is a big example of that, he's got not much more than a suit and a skull mask, but that skull mask does wonders for his popularity. He would just be another generic mob boss without that mask. Mercy could do with some stuff to make her design look like more than just a girl in a limodriver suit. Again, I think building on the cyborg aspect is a good start.
The suit needs some sort of flair like the Velvet Room attendants' uniforms in Persona. Her design could have been cuter or sexier too, rather than remind me of the Russian from Die Hard.
This is the most attractive Mercy.
Maybe an overtly cyborg limb or some mechanical gewgaws on her face, sure.
On the other hand, what makes Zatanna's design work? Similar design to Mercy's, just fishnets and top hat.
Zatanna has a female-cut tux
That would be cool. That's not what she looks like. She looks like a stripper who was hired to cosplay as a Nazi train conductor but put no effort into it.
If she wore a normal suit & tie she'd be a couple orders of magnitude more popular.
Young Justice has her in normal business clothes but she only stands out due to the cyborg arm
>If Mercy had a cooler design, she might've stood a better chance
I think Mercy's "sexy Kato" design is plenty cool. The entire problem is that she never got focus episodes the way that Harley got. She never had her own Mad Love or Harley's Holiday to give her any depth or outside relationships. She was just Luthor's right-hand henchwoman and nothing really more than that.
>honestly 90% of quinn success was that dini outfit.
The outfit was designed by Bruce Timm. Dini's original design was shit.
If you take away the leggings and the goofy glasses, this isn't too bad
This. I have no issue with cute girls being together, just don’t make it /misc/
This, but different
Harley had relationships outside of the Joker
She was best friends with Ivy
She had a bit of a rivalry with Batgirl
Mercy's character revolved around Lex and no one else. Which is a shame because I actually do like her more than Harley, way less annoying and more hot.
The LGBT shit ruined Poison Ivy way, way more than it ever did Harley. Funny how a throwaway lesbian joke ended up defining their characters to such an extent later on.
I mean it makes sense that a ecoterrorist thot would also be a manhating lesbo
But Harley's just a BPD bi prostitute
A big part of Ivy's appeal is being a fem fatale archetype, and that by definition involves her seducing men. If you take that away from her, she goes from being deadly & sexy to just an annoying Green Peace activist.
You don't have to WANT men to seduce men, in fact it makes a bit more sense that she'd be as callous to use her feminine wiles if she saw it as completely meaningless. However Ivy hates all humans regardless so singling out men is a bit stupid.
A fem fatale that isn't enjoying herself isn't fun to watch.
Because when Ivy is shipped with Harley, they go all uwu over each other and lose any sense of villainy.
How exactly does wanting to eat Harley out make it so she cannot seduce men and use them? Did her pheromones suddenly stop working on men when she rimmed Harley for the first time?
Modern Ivy interpretations are so boring, mostly green skin ones, almost always worst girl.
>What did Harley Quinn have that they didn't?
Arkham Asylum
Imagine if Superman 64 wasn't week old scrotum soup
Even as somebody who likes buff ladies, this is nightmarish
Nah. Livewire did get popular.
Shame Volcana got forgotten.
Not to mention what the hell were Timm and Dini thinking with her? Her intro episode where she appears for the first time is where she is depicted as a anti-villain. She only wants to get a shitload of money to get the hell out of the country because she is literally hounded by DCAU's equivalent of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D.
She does get finally peace with Superman helping her with her situation...and then subsequent episodes with her makes her a straight-up villain. And the Justice League series made her into an arse that was willing to kill people. Seriously she had so much potential for some interesting stories and they do this with her. I mean she's a modded human with pyro-based powers that was supposed to become a living weapon. The U.S. government would clearly want her back as a living weapon and we'd have her on the run. This would make her travel the world in order to find a place where nobody would find her and also have her get into various situations, but eventually from time to time she'd have to come back to N.A. because of her past or that she has unfinished business.
Wasn't there a throwaway line in her second episode that she wanted thrills now because being nice was too boring?
You can be nice and want thrills.
Not for women
It does suck Volcana didn't take off. She was hot and also an example that just because someone is a victim doesn't also mean they're not an butthole.
I imagine the fact that Marvel had their own Volcana didn't help matters
Harley wasn't integrated into comics until Jim Lee's Hush, I think, could be wrong
Then it really took Margot Robbie to make her normalgay recognition tier
Just two years before Hush
Major appearance in a popular AAA video game. That's it really. Harley was a c-lister before 2009.
Arguably she wasn't A-list until Suicide Squad
Well, I think Harley's fanbase was probably bigger in 2008 than Mercy's.
Mercy didn't appear in enough other media, she's Asian and blown up in BvS and the other Superman movies with Luthor have Ms Teschmacher or a substitute, who has a very different role
israelite pass
Batman.
No one gives a shit about superman. If Harley Quinn was Lex Luthor's sidekick, no one but the Cinemaphile autists and coomers would care
Harley was a bimbo who had doe eyes. It doesn’t matter if you were Batman. joker, Nightwing, Robin, anyone could sexo her. Mercy on the other hand is…really removed. Her design isn’t standout. Her personality isn’t. She doesn’t have a strong dynamic with Lex or Superman. And it’s hard to see them in sexual situations. Little self insert value for anyone
Yeah, it's pretty niche to imagine Mercy as this uptight ice queen that you melt with a good dicking.
Mercy has potential but she was never used properly. And it’s hard to imagine Lex or Clark fricking people. Also, another problem is her lack of dynamic with Clark, which Harley has with Batman. Clark unironically needs more sex appeal so you can self insert as him melting the ice queen who lusts and obsesses over him, cucking Lex
Funnily enough, her relationship with Lex in that porn game is the best part of it.
Harley had a more unique look, gimmick, voice and the Batman franchise behind her
Harley was popular for fans of TAS which are numerous but she wasn't omnipresent like she has been for over 10 years now until New 52. They never got the big boost in promotion like Harley did getting placed on the New 52 Suicide Squad.
Enough about 'Y no Mercy', that like kick down an open door.
Tell me why Livewire keeps getting B-listed when her whole persona is basically 'toxic twitter tramp with breasts'
She needs to be a a level character so I can see girls wear sexy halloween costumes of her.
Both Mercy and Livewire are fairly popular and got introduced as regulars in Superman comics just as Harley did for Batman.
The only difference is DC always forces the push on anything Batman-related.
FRICK HARLEY FRICK MERCY BRING BACK OTIS AND BOB!
You think they burn local, anon?
Frick Otis and Bob, I want Sugar and Spice.
Well if you're bring them back may as well add these two.
I actually wouldn't mind these two being canon. They kinda have a bird theme, moving like cranes. They need an official name though, maybe an origin too.
By the way, whatever happened with Lark?
They have a name they're called the Kabuki twins.
That's not really a name but an observation since they never actually gave them an official name
>By the way, whatever happened with Lark?
she shows up here and there
Now I realize the Battinson movie could easily have used them in a way if the twin bouncers at the Iceberg Lounge were Asian.
They were Tweedledum and Tweedledee and the Kabuki twins are girls
So in the next movie the guys are promoted to bodyguards and the bouncers are Japanese twin MMA/wrestling girls
I unironically came up with a really good way to bring them back based on a comic by...was it Timm or Dini?
Drop it
Otis does appear here and there in various incarnations. Sometimes he's a Lexcorp security guard, other times he's a personal assistant AI called O.T.I.S.
They were in Arkham comics
Where do supervillains find henchmen and sexy babes like this?
i always like the worldbuilding which explains where they find their weird custom supervillain stuff. like the carpenter.
>When the leaves start to fall, Poison Ivy needs a little cheering up. See who comes to her rescue when we return in the next chapter.
Ooh! Is it Harley or something? What book is this?
>What book is this?
Lil Gotham, one of the better all-ages titles that DC put out in the 2010s
Cool! Thanks!
yeah I always liked that Marvel had Taskmaster running an actual academy specifically for mooks, that little stuff is fun
The hell you talking about? They're canon and frequently used. That's an achievement and testament to STAS. They're fine, they don't need to be pushed to the extent of Harley
But Livewire is popular, and I see Mercy from time to time too.
>If Leslie had already been established as a character before she became Livewire
It's a shame they didn't have her radio show as background for a few episodes before turning her into Livewire. So we'd get a sense of her and what getting this power means to her.
I once had an idea for a DCAU fanfic, where one of the subplots would be Leslie not getting electrocuted, and having to deal with the consequences of "planning" the concert in the dumbest way possible, then realising that her boss was a supervillain who hated Superman so much he gave himself cancer.
Harley is one of the worst things to happen to DC comics
> tries to replicate her success
I don't think that was the plan.
>Neither succeed
The very fact they made it to the comics at all is suceeding in this case
HQ is just a very exceptional case.
She's a maniac pixie girl version of the Joker complete with a sob story that attracts "I can fix her" white knights while also being lesbian bait. Mercy and Livewire are comfortable with who they are and less malleable.
>maniac pixie girl
>Harley Quinn
>maniac pixie dream girl
>"i can fix her"
>lesbian bait
>Livewire
>comfortable with who she is
Go outside.
Harley was mostly a marginal character/C-lister at best in the comics until the Suicide Squad movie made her Deadpool for women.
Harley got a solo run 16 years before Suicide Squad.
Clussy
>What did Harley Quinn have that they didn't?
The Joker.
The Batman.
It's very, very hard to screw something up with both of them involved
>Joker's Daughter
I said it was very hard not impossible
Harley was more of a snowball effect, and as the snowball grew she drifted further from her initial appeal. NuHarley is popular for some reason. Also Harley got a lot more screentime and focus I think.
Batman is more popular than Superman.
livewire is popular
It'd be cool if she was in Superman legacy and became an A lister.
But I like Mercy
Harley was introduced into the comics basically identical to how she was written in the show.
Mercy was twisted into origami to shove in the comics, and barely resembled the character. "Lex's insanely loyal Girl Friday" was beyond the capabilities of the people working on the books at the time.
Livewire was handled so incompetently that she was introduced as a mutant that had always had electricity powers, and by her second appearance was already being a misunderstood not-so-bad woman that helped save the world.
The STAS writers were brilliant. Other people were not. It's that simple.
I don't know about Livewire but the problem with Mercy is that you can't kung fu fight Superman.
I wish the female furies were more popular.
Those are not OCs, you know that right?