At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, DC Universe drew back the curtain on its animated Harley Quinn series — a hard-R romp revolving around the off-the-rails rule-breaker in the aftermath of her break-up with the Joker — via the reveal of a fresh trailer. Harley Quinn, voiced by The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco, endeavors to carve her own path of chaos and crime in the streets of Gotham without the shadow of her former flame looming overhead. To do so, she crosses paths with some major DC Comics players, as well as a few New 52 pals, such as Sy Borgman, an elderly cyborg voiced by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander. Her ultimate goal? Become a member of the supervillain alliance known as the Legion of Doom.
With hammers swinging, money falling, drinks clinking, punches and kicks flying, plus plenty of expletives being tossed around, the Harley Quinn trailer proves that anyone who tunes into the series will see the up-and-coming criminal Queenpin of Gotham City in a brand-new way. And, while they're at it, they'll get to catch Harley taking down famed DC comics vigilantes like Aquaman and, of course, Batman, voiced by Diedrich Bader, returning to the role after 2008's Brave and the Bold animated series.
Harley Quinn features an impressive cast of familiar voices, including Tony Hale as Doctor Psycho, Christopher Meloni as Commissioner James Gordon, and Wanda Sykes as The Queen of Fables.
This isn't the first of Harley Quinn that we've seen — a fourth-wall-breaking teaser dropped during New York Comic-Con in October of 2018, featuring a DC-fandom-dissing Poison Ivy ...
By the looks of this new trailer, it seems Harley Quinn will only get wilder as the first season rolls out. Lead voice actress Cuoco has teased that viewers are in for an R-rated ride when the show premieres. Posting the Harley Quinn trailer to her Instagram page, Cuoco wrote,
"This show is gonna blow your minds! Way [too] much fun!!! (and a tad R-rated) #harleyquinn coming soon! [...] also the [Joker] has an emoji but Harley doesn't!!? She's gonna be pissed!"
The raunchy Harley Quinn animated series certainly feels like a shock to the DC system, but it actually comes after a few other legitimately R-rated animated projects based on DC Comics characters. The 2017 feature Justice League Dark, based on the comic of the same name, rocked the R rating. So too did 2018's Gotham by Gaslight, as well as 2016's Batman: The Killing Joke.
The most recent R-rated animated flick to come from Warner Bros. actually includes the Cupid of Crime herself. 2018's Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay sees Amanda Waller assembling a brand-new Task Force X roster, with Harley Quinn and company hunting down the coveted "Get Out of Hell Free" card.
So, while DC Universe's upcoming Harley Quinn show is certainly going to drop some jaws and widen some eyes, it follows a handful of other adult-aimed animated flicks that exist in the same comic book realm. Perhaps reception to the new series will be so strong that it motivates Warner Bros. Animation to greenlight additional series in the same vein as Harley Quinn — maybe even some focused on groups like the Suicide Squad or the Birds of Prey, both of which have had Harley on board.
Only time will tell if the R-rated Harley Quinn becomes DC's animated answer to Marvel's Deadpool, or just a failed experiment in envelope-pushing.
Watch the video to see why the new Harley Quinn trailer is definitely R-rated!
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