If there’s going to be an origin story for someone on Max's Harley Quinn then it should be absurd and fun. The show has made it a point to become a mockery of DC Comics but in a playful way. In this case, there’s Vril Dox a.k.a. Brainiac (more on his name later).
Episode four of the fifth season begins with a sitcom intro complete with dramatic theme music and an opening montage of Brainiac and his wife and son. As the show continues, you see all of the normal sitcom tropes like arguments, awkward sex where the husband…arrives too soon, and bad jokes with an authority figure. The difference is it has a twist. Everything is done from a 12th-level intellect. Meaning the humor is a bit high-brow and dry. But funny, nonetheless.
Everything is going well for Vril as he starts his last off-world assignment. After this, he can work from home. Unfortunately, he returned to his planet to find his planet destroyed. The 1% that made his planet imperfect was the reason it was destroyed. This leads to Vril’s obsession with preserving perfection throughout the universe. It was just him and his monkey Koko.
Oh great. Another f*cking creep to add to the list 🙄 Gonna deal with this guy on a brand new episode, now streaming on @streamonmax. #HarleyQuinn pic.twitter.com/lXCR2w1ugq
— Harley Quinn (@dcharleyquinn) February 6, 2025
"I shall forever drift in the cosmos, raging against imperfection."
This was the best episode of Harley Quinn this season. It had all of the creative humor you want from the show with entertaining ways to make fun of the villains. More importantly, the story progresses because, as predicted, Lena Luthor is just as evil as her brother, Lex Luthor. Maybe worse.
We find out Lena is working with Vril as he’s about to kill Harley. She appears out of nowhere, calls Vril Brainiac (apparently she gave him that name and he hates it), and says that Harley has to be spared because she (Lena) likes Harley. As per their deal, Lena takes care of the humans and he takes care of everything else. In return, Lena doesn’t tell humanity what he’s up to and she gets to have everything she wants. The problem is Brainiac says Harley is getting in the way.
Brainiac telling Harley that she’s “a variable that is beyond calculation” perfectly explains why she’s been able to defeat so many beings bigger, better, and stronger than she is. Something about her makes her unbeatable. Hopefully, we’ll find out what that is this season. At the very least it can be hinted in the season finale. Stay tuned to Bam Smack Pow to find out what makes Harley as unbeatable as Squirrel Girl.
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