The Batman Adventures: Mad Love is a one-shot comic book written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. It won the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue and the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story in 1994. Mad Love was adapted as an episode of the animated series The New Batman Adventures, among other examples, like the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum and the film Suicide Squad. In 2018, Titan Books released a novelization of Mad Love written by Dini and Pat Cadigan, which expanded upon the original comic book.
Set in the continuity of Batman: The Animated Series, the comic presents an origin story of supervillain Joker's henchwoman Harley Quinn. It presents her past as a psychologist at Arkham Asylum who then falls in love with him.
Background
Paul Dini and Bruce Timm came up with Mad Love after DC invited them to create a special issue for the Batman: The Animated Series tie-in comics Batman Adventures, which they decided would be an origin story for the Joker's sidekick, Harley Quinn. Dini wanted to tell a story that would expand her role beyond a costumed henchperson, and thought that adding the idea of her being the Joker's former therapist would make her unusual affection for the Joker tragic. when she had long felt restricted from "all amusement and fun". Later, during a week the Joker escaped from Arkham, a worried Harleen is distraught to see Batman returning a heavily injured Joker, inciting her to break him out; in the process, Harleen stole a jester costume and gag items, which she weaponized, from a costume shop, and adopted the persona Harley Quinn, a reworking of her name as a play on the theatrical clown character Harlequin which the Joker had suggested to her.
Harley determines that the only way she can make the Joker love her back is to kill Batman, which she decides to do using the Joker's unused plan of killing him in a tank of smiling piranhas, which Joker abandoned because piranhas cannot smile, a problem Harley solves by hanging the Batman upside down so the piranhas appear to be smiling from his perspective. Harley successfully captures Batman, but he distracts her by telling her truth; the Joker never loved anything or anyone except himself and he had been using her from the start, with the Joker's stories to her of being abused as a child all just lies he has told to others, with the details changing each time the Joker retold them. When she, in denial, tearfully insists the Joker really loves her, Batman convinces her to call him so he will know she would have accomplished her goal, as the piranhas would have left no convincing evidence. The Joker arrives, infuriated by how Harley would rob him of the privilege of killing Batman. Harley explains how using the Joker's plan means he will get credit, but her having to explain that fact at all makes it an unacceptable flaw to him, and he ultimately pushes her out a window, where she falls to the ground and is found gravely injured by nearby police officers. The Joker then decides to use the opportunity to finally kill Batman, which escalates into a chase ending atop a moving subway train. Batman taunts the Joker by saying that Harley, with her plan, had come closer to killing him than he ever did. The Joker attacks him in a fit of rage, and Batman retaliates, ending with Joker falling down into a burning smokestack.
In Arkham Asylum, Harleen denounces the Joker, determined to heal and move on. Lying on her bed a moment later, however, Harleen finds flowers sent by the Joker with a "get well soon" card and falls in love with him again.
Reprints
Mad Love was reprinted as a graphic novella in 1998 (), and has been collected with other stories.
Collected editions
{| class="wikitable"
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!Title
!Material collected
!Published date
!ISBN
!Notes
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|The Batman Adventures: Dangerous Dames & Demons
|Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, Batman Adventures Annual #1–2, Batman Adventures Holiday Special, and Adventures in the DC Universe #3
|2003
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|Batman: Mad Love and Other Stories
|Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, Batman Adventures Annual #1–2, Batman Adventures Holiday Special, Adventures in the DC Universe #3, and Batman Black and White #1
|May 12, 2009
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|Batman Adventures: Mad Love Deluxe Edition
|Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, with bonus material
|April 21, 2015
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|The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime: The Deluxe Edition
|Batman #1, #159, #251, #321, #429, #614, Detective Comics #168, #475, #476, #826, Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman Adventures: Mad Love, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #50, Gotham Central #15, Detective Comics #1 (2011) and Batman #17 (2013).
|June 2, 2020
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|}
Critical reception
IGN's Hilary Goldstein described Mad Love as "everything a comic book should be" and "one Batman book everyone should read." Multiversity Comics' Matthew Garcia stated that Mad Love is a "classic story for a reason."
Awards
- Eisner Awards
- Won Best Single Issue
- Bruce Timm was nominated for Best Penciller/Inker
- Harvey Awards
- Won Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story
Adaptations
The New Batman Adventures
An animated adaptation of the issue, nearly identical in script and design to the original comic, originally aired on the WB Network on January 16, 1999, as an episode of The New Batman Adventures. The script was written by Paul Dini, the episode was directed by Butch Lukic, with Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin voicing the roles of Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn. This faithfully adapted the comics with the exception of revised character designs and the removal of minor scenes due to pacing and time constraints.
Motion comics
In 2008, Warner Premiere Digital adapted Mad Love as a motion comic available for download through digital outlets such as iTunes and Xbox Live. Subscribers can download each chapter separately from Xbox Live. iTunes groups the seven chapters into three downloads (Chapters 1 and 2, Chapters 3, 4, & 5, and Chapters 6 and 7).
Batman: Arkham series
The 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, also scripted by Dini, takes much of the dialogue from Harley Quinn's patient interviews from Mad Love, with Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin reprising their roles as Joker and Harley. Batman: Arkham Origins, the 2013 prequel to Asylum, also utilizes Mad Loves plot in retelling Harley Quinn's first encounter with the Joker, who were now voiced by Tara Strong and Troy Baker.
Suicide Squad
David Ayer directed the 2016 film Suicide Squad, which incorporated several storylines of Joker and Harley Quinn, including Mad Love.
Novelization
Harley Quinn: Mad Love is a novelization of The Batman Adventures: Mad Love written by Paul Dini and Pat Cadigan. It expands upon the original comic book, which featured the titular character's origin story.
Background
Paul Dini and Pat Cadigan wrote Harley Quinn: Mad Love as part of Titan Books' series of novelizations of iconic DC comics, such as Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. The novelization expanded upon the original story by exploring Harley's childhood and family, more of her time with the Joker, and subsequent events, as well as the motivations that led to her transformation, such as her dislike and distrust of authority. Dini and Cadigan also only corresponded through their editor during the writing process. Brian Clements of AIPT Comics stated that the novel reintroduces Harley Quinn as "a woman with agency", which "makes her an anti-hero for new generations", and listed how the novel gives Harley Quinn a "backstory and actual agency", "makes her a well-rounded, sympathetic character", and clearly shows her transformation from "promising psychologist to sociopathic clown" as positives, while criticizing it for being "very tight" in places, "trying to get the plot through quickly."
Harley Quinn
The story of Mad Love is adapted in the Harley Quinn episode "All the Best Inmates Have Daddy Issues".