50 Greatest Super Villains In Comic Book History

23. Harley Quinn

(Write-up by Amanda Chrisman, Caped Crusades and Bam Smack Pow Staff Writer)

Harley Quinn deserves her spot on this list as the character created for Batman: the Animated Series who has had the biggest and longest lasting impact. Regardless of her status as a villain, I’ve long felt that Harley Quinn is a strong female role model. She is a very important and influential character in the comic book world, and one of the biggest female villains out there.

Despite her ditzy traits, she is actually quite smart; she was, after all, well on her way to being a psychiatrist (or in some cases, she was a psychiatrist) when she met the Joker and started her life of villainy. Harley spends most of her villainous career toadying for her boyfriend, but I’ve always felt that she really comes into her own when she leaves his side to team with Poison Ivy or when she’s on the Suicide Squad.

Admittedly, her work on the Suicide Squad blurs the line between hero and villain, but she really shows her strengths as a character when she is out of the Joker’s shadow. Just like her more famous sometime boyfriend, Harley started as a one-off villain created for a single story, but the fans and the writers loved her, so much she was made a major Batman character. She’s also been in some stories that were fairly important to comic book history, like Mad Love, and now has her own comic book where she has left the Joker’s company and is trying to be a better person.

Next: No. 22: Looks can be deceiving