Rocksteady may have selected Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark as its Task Force X in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League for multiple reasons. But as part of the Arkhamverse, its decision to feature Harley and Deadshot, in particular, comes with some unavoidable narrative baggage that Rocksteady will have to address. For example, Floyd Lawton bears a starkly different appearance from how fans may remember him looking in Batman: Arkham City, which Rocksteady addressed once in a tweet.
However, there is much more narrative weight to Harley’s inclusion in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Fans who have played through Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham franchise will already know a lot about the Arkhamverse’s Harley and her history in Gotham. Harley’s insight on past events may pertain to unique Easter eggs about the Arkhamverse that fans know and love, and her perspective will be interesting depending on how far ahead in the canon Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is after the definitive conclusion of Batman: Arkham Knight.
Harley Quinn Has Always Been a Significant Character in the Arkhamverse
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The Arkhamverse is composed of different media and games, but as for its principle tetralogy from Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal, Harley is a recurring character who makes an important narrative impact. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Harley is treated poorly by both Joker and Batman, with Batman even going as far as to say that Harley “never was very bright.” This is a strange sentiment seeing as how Harley is an educated psychiatrist, but Rocksteady had seemingly written Harley to be more scatterbrained and rambunctious. Harley is never a serious threat to Batman, and he takes to her antics incredibly lightly, which also indicates to the player that they can take her lightly as an antagonist as well.
Dr. Harleen Quinzel was in the middle of a psychiatric residency at Blackgate Prison during the events of Batman: Arkham Origins and subsequently became Harley Quinn. The importance of her character comes from how frequently she appears, being one of the few characters who appears at least somewhat in each installment of the tetralogy.
Her narrative thread is unfurled in the wake of her immense grief after the Joker’s death. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will now be continuing her narrative thread as much as it is continuing the Arkhamverse continuity in general, and Harley may be the most succinct bridge between Rocksteady’s Batman games and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The Arkhamverse Is Now as Much Harley’s Story as It Was Batman’s
It seems that Rocksteady is truly ready to shelf Batman as a playable protagonist as it has moved onto four-player multiplayer with Task Force X, compiling notorious anti-heroes from the DC mythology as its protagonists. But while Captain Boomerang has his own rivalry to address with the Flash, Harley is also taking center stage in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as her own playable protagonist.
Because this game coexists in the Arkhamverse, however, there is reason enough to believe that Batman is out of the picture, especially if Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s events take place after Batman: Arkham Knight. Therefore, Harley may not have the rivalry she may normally have with Batman. Indeed, Harley’s grief was depicted well in Harley Quinn’s Revenge, a DLC expansion for Batman: Arkham City.
Further, Harley was a supplementary antagonist in Batman: Arkham Knight who led her own mob of criminals. But similar to her role in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City before it, she is still only a minor nuisance in Batman’s path.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League now has the opportunity to portray her independently apart from the influence of either Joker or Batman, enabling her to become her own character. Harley will officially be in more mainline Arkhamverse installments than Batman upon the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and it will be exciting to see how this sequel for her character can help to develop and define her further.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.