Having been a big hit in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn migrated into the Batbooks and after a half-dozen or so years, got her own ongoing series, running for 38 issues.
Whether because it didn't seem like a great idea for Harley to play second fiddle in her own book, or because they didn't want the protagonist of said book doing the kind of stuff Harley would get up to with the Joker, Karl Kesel breaks Quinn off from the clown to find her own path. Which isn't to say she's good. After a one-issue stint playing #2 to Two-Face, Harley decides to start her own gang.
She's terrible at it. Every time they add a fifth henchperson, they die. In more than one of those situations, Harley sets the guy up to be killed or at least left behind. None of her heists succeed as Harley is more concerned with her personal obsessions. To the extent she kills her most loyal henchman because he's interfering in her matchmaking between a couple of private investigators trying to capture her. It would be easy to argue she learned well from the Joker, but Kesel goes into her past enough to let the reader see Harley's always been willing to do whatever she deemed necessary to get what she wanted. Working with the Joker just convinced her to stop masking it.
The Dodsons draw the majority of the first 19 issues, and it's pretty standard work for them. Clean linework, easy to follow action, expressive faces, the usual full-figured women. In issue 1, Ivy tries disguising herself as Harley to kill the Joker and Harley remarks she wouldn't dress like that if she had Ivy's figure. It's hard to really see much of a difference in them.
The first year ends with Harley and Ivy taking off for Metropolis. There's a stint of Harley manipulating Bizarro, only for that to get out of hand. Harley ends up in Hell for a while before getting out through some method I don't remember, but the Martian Manhunter got dragged into the mess. Craig Rousseau is drawing the book by then, his style is more animated, closer to Bruce Timm than Dodson. He draws a few pieces in the earlier issues where he's deliberately aping the Timmverse style, meant as a representation of how Harley sees all this.
The last year or so of the book is by A.J. Lieberman and Mike Huddleston, and involves Harley back in Gotham, tangled up in a whole thing with some girl that everybody wants. I think it revolved around what Harley was going to do, look out for #1 or look out for the girl stuck relying on her, as well as what being around someone like Harley for an extended period of time would do to someone. I picked up parts of it in back issues years ago - those issues are oddly pricey - but it didn't stick in the collection.
Next week, Harley gets another chance to headline her own book.
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