Batman '89: Echoes just introduced a new Harley Quinn - and she looks exactly like Madonna
Tim Burton's original 1989 Batman film casts a very long shadow over the superhero movie genre. Burton conjured a wonderfully gothic vision of Gotham City, while Michael Keaton's wired and dangerous take on the Caped Crusader remains rightly beloved - he certainly won our hearts again this year in The Flash.
Keaton and Burton only made one cinematic sequel (1992's Batman Returns), but since 2021 DC has been continuing the story of the Burtonverse in the pages of a Batman '89 comic. The second volume, titled Echoes, launches today from writer Sam Hamm and artist Joe Quinones, and it's clear from the first issue that the plan is to expand Batman's rogues' gallery and put a Burtonverse twist on some familiar foes.
Spoilers for the first issue ahead, right after Quinones' cover.
At the start of Echoes #1, Barbara Gordon is searching for Bruce Wayne. Batman hasn't been seen for two years at this point and crime is spreading throughout Gotham once more. Barbara has figured out Bruce's secret identity and she wants to know where he is and why he went away.
Meanwhile, TV psychiatrist Dr Q - real name Dr Harleen Quinzel - has a very special guest on the latest episode of her show: Alicia Hunt, the late Joker's girlfriend, as played by Jerry Hall in the 1989 film.
Quinzel seems unusually taken with Hunt's reminiscences of her supervillain lover. In a very telling panel Harley paints her lips in a wide, Joker-ish grin while musing, "In his defense, he did have a really bad day with the toxic waste and all that." Unfortunately for Dr Q, a breaking news bulletin interrupts her show, leaving her furious and embarrassed, and promising that the network "will pay for this."
Dr Q was spotted briefly on a TV screen in the first run of
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