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The relationship between Harley Quinn and the Joker has been the stuff of animated Saturday morning shows, big-budget movies, and comic books for more than three decades by this point, and fans still can’t get enough. Thankfully, DC has something special coming this October that might help — a four-issue comic book miniseries from its adults-only DC Black Label with the delicious title Joker/Harley: Malicious Intent.

Following on from the events of 2019’s acclaimed miniseries Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity — but specifically designed as a standalone story that doesn’t require readers to have picked up that prior story — the new series recasts the Batman villains as a grounded psychological crime thriller from the reunited Criminal Sanity creative team of writer Kami Garcia and artists Mico Suayan and Jason Badower. And there just might be some more familiar faces to be seen beside Joker and Harley…

“At its core, our new series explores the relationship between heroes and villains and how thin the line is between the two — it's an intense true-crime thriller for fans of shows like True Detective, Mindhunter, and Criminal Minds,” teases writer Garcia. “Mico Suayan and Jason Badower are back with the dark, gritty aesthetic they established in Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity, and they’ve reimagined some iconic DC characters in ways I think fans will love. They brought their A games!”

Joining Garcia, Suayan, and Badower on the title will be colorist Annette Kwok, with Comicraft’s Tyler Smith providing lettering.

Here’s how DC describes the series: “One year after defeating The Joker, Harley is still hunting serial killers — just not in the city she used to protect. She burned her association with the GCPD and Lt. Jim Gordon and now works with vigilantes to seek a very different kind of justice. But when Gotham headlines about a new series of grisly crime scenes lead to speculation that her nemesis is somehow escaping Arkham to continue his murder spree, she feels compelled to return. Jonathan Crane, former classmate and current head of Arkham Asylum, assures her that The Joker is securely locked in his cell… yet the women of Gotham are still being stalked by a killer who is using their corpses to make art. Unwilling to return to the police precinct and its regulations, Harley forms an alliance with some unlikely conspirators, and these women work to save the people of Gotham City.”

The first issue of Joker/Harley: Malicious Intent releases October 8. Check out a gallery of cover artwork from Martin Simmonds, Phan Tuan Dat, and Riley Rossmo, as well as black and white interiors from Mico Suayan and Jason Badower above.

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