Harley Quinn animated series slated for DC's streaming service

After an appearance in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad last year, DC fan favorite Harley Quinn will be returning to her roots in her own 26-episode animated series. The currently untitled show will be featured exclusively on the digital streaming service DC is launching next year. That makes it the third series announced thus far, alongside the live-action show Titans, and the animated Young Justice: Outsiders. The series will be headed by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey, who previously collaborated on DC’s superhero comedy Powerless.

The new Harley Quinn series will be loosely inspired by the current comics, where the character has cut ties with the Joker and is roughing it in Gotham City alongside her bestie Poison Ivy and other familiar DC characters. Over the last four years, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner have given Quinn a more independent vibe in the comics, far from the character’s origins as the Joker’s sidekick in Batman: The Animated Series. (Conner actually drew the above concept art, though DC points out in its press release that the final show may not end up taking this same visual direction.) According to Deadline, executives hope to bring in Margot Robbie, who played Quinn in Suicide Squad, to voice the character in the new series. It’s all part of a full-court press to take advantage of the character’s popularity as much as possible. Along with the new animated series, there is also an upcoming animated Batman & Harley Quinn movie and a live-action film that will detail the Joker and Quinn’s love affair. Hopefully, any of the projects that Robbie takes part in will sidestep the scathing critiques that Suicide Squad itself earned when it came out last year.