Suicide Squad has turned out to be one of the best action and superhero movies of the last decade. A perfect combination of all the best of traditional superhero movies, mashed up with the new phenomena of superhero teams, antiheroes and stories justifying and humanizing villains from traditional superhero comics. It is a feast for the eyes with many secrets, easter eggs and surprises for eagle-eyed fans and keen followers. But there is a subtle little secret, an in-joke, in the film that canonizes a certain side story that fans have been speculating about for a long time. Did the Joker and Harley Quinn have a baby?
It sounds like a crazy concept at first. After all, their relationship is not exactly the sort of one you would bring a child into. It is based on so much abuse, so much mutual manipulation, on her obsession with him and his eagerness to use her. Neither of them are sane, or healthy, or good for each other. The baby would not turn out well.
However there are a few hints in the film that the two may have been expecting, or even had, a child. For starters, there is the scene with Mister J sprawled out in his circle of meticulously organized weapons and loot. Up in the far corner we can just about spy a row of babygrows. Green, pink and black. Furthermore, the pattern around the Joker as he lies down is suspiciously close to the pattern of sperm fertilizing an egg: he lies in the middle, sprawled out like an infant, countless blades pointing towards him and numerous other items organized in layers like walls of a womb, with a little path akin to a vaginal cavity leading up to him. Further to the point, his treatment of Harley in this film stands out. In the comics, cartoons and games Harley has always been a tool to him. Whether he was sexual or not towards her, she was an item. When she was locked up in the cartoon series, he abandoned her completely as she waited to be rescued by him. He didn’t care. When Batman broke her out to help him, the Joker pretended he was waiting for the right time, but she was not useful enough to try and get her back himself. However in Suicide Squad this changes. The Joker is eager to get Harley Quinn back. He wants her desperately, and although there are many explanations as to why, there is a hint of genuineness, almost of love, in his pursuit of her. This is not the Joker we know. So what gives? Quite simple: they were planning a baby, or she got pregnant, or she had a pregnancy scare, or, even, she had his baby. And now her “usefulness” is different. He still cannot love her. But she is the mother of his child, and this means her purpose, her role in his world has changed. It extends from his utilitarian nature, but he wishes to protect his progeny, real or potential. And that is why he suddenly seems to care.
It may feel far fetched. Perhaps because the Joker is completely crazy, so his behaviour changes can be put down to madness, and Harley is too twisted and under his thumb to deny his fantasies. But it is also an idea that has been explored in several non-canon contexts. For starters, their relationship is undeniably sexual. There are two canon portrayals of the Joker’s sexual behaviour. One’s angle is that of suggesting that he has a strong, or at least healthy, sex drive, chasing girls, hiring prostitutes and even keeping side women to taunt Harley with. The other angle is that his sexuality is completely dead, a utensil or a hindrance to him. He engages in sexual acts for shock, or for the fun of the event, rather than for sexual pleasure. And the two often overlap, with The Killing Joke’s Joker indulging in the services of prostitutes the very second he left the Asylum, but also the suggestion, admittedly denied by the writer but not the scriptwriters of the film adaptation, that the Joker violated Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. After breaking into the man’s house and leaving his daughter paralysed, the Joker and his henchmen lean over her body and plot. Following which, they kidnap Commissioner Gordon himself and take him on a train horror ride, showing him the worst and darkest of humanity. Among these scenes are images of Barbara Gordon, looking worryingly suggestive. Then we do not see what else he sees that causes the Commissioner to melt down. After being exposed to this, Commissioner Gordon is reduced to a shell of himself. The idea that at least the scriptwriters considered rape one of the acts depicted is not far fetched. So the Joker is happy to enjoy sex. And that includes with Harley.
In the Arkham Asylum game series, it seemed as though Mister J and Harley had not only had sex, but succeeded in having a child. A positive pregnancy test emerges, as does a crib. Harley Quinn sings about the infant she will raise, and how he will resemble his father. She fights tooth and claw to protect the baby and where he is hidden. However it all falls through. We later discover that the baby in question is simply a ventriloquist’s dummy dressed up to look like the Joker. Spread out around it in the room are dozens of further pregnancy tests. All of them are negative. The boxes warn that false positives are possible. The picture emerging is that Harley and the Joker did indeed have sex, and that Harley did skip a period, as all women do from time to time and as women with hormonal disruptions, which Harley exhibits many symptoms of, have more often than other women. So she conducted a test and became excited at the prospect of having her beau’s child. It was only later, getting her period, that she bought all the tests. Realizing that the crib would never be filled, she instead takes a doll and dresses it like Mister J, indulging the maternal instincts she is not allowed to show otherwise.
In side stories and alternate universe collections, it has been confirmed that Harley Quinn has had the Joker’s child, albeit under very different circumstances. She confesses to Black Canary, a heroine who happens to be pregnant in the Injustice Gods Among Us alternate storyline, that she has carried the Joker’s baby to term in secret and that their daughter now lives with Harley’s sister. The Joker here is truer to his usual self. He ignores Harley’s absence completely and does not question where she was or why. His work was too important to him to have a child. Later on, the emergence of the Dee-Dee twins in another alternate universe where the main characters of the DC universe are elderly, suggests again that Lucy existed and that she herself had daughters and went on to live a fairly normal life.
But none of these storylines being canonized means that they bear no weight to the universe’s true storyline for the clownish pair. Comic book artists set out primarily to make money, and more projects and more product means more cash in the wallet for these guys. So they will conditionally approve additional writers, merchandise, game franchises and other such things to flesh out the yearly output for their most successful characters. But that doesn’t mean they are canon. A canonized plot is one that fits in with the absolute, universal plot of the universe. When an artist is given free rein with a creator’s character, they may take artistic liberties that the creator does not agree with. But the creator cannot be a part of the whole process, so they will by and large not accept any extra plots into their storyline. To be canon, the creators or copyright holders must scrutinize the plot, from the timing to the characters’ behaviour, to the secondary characters and even the setting, to ensure that it fits in somewhere in their original ideals. Very rarely, someone will make it into canon accidentally. But usually most end up outside the marks. Which sets up the question: Is Suicide Squad canon?
If Suicide Squad is canon, then it is no longer fun and speculation. Now it is distinctly possible the the Joker and Harley Quinn had a child together, or were going to, cementing their relationship, in some ways. If the film is not canon, then the plot line and the ideas behind it are, once more lost. But with this concept being so fascinating to so many writers, it is not likely to disappear just because it is not canon. If anything, the surge in the popularity of Batman villains may bring around a new wave of this sort of storyline. So what do you think? Is it likely to become part of the canon? Or are clown babies forever condemned to the AU vault?