Harley Quinn 30: Cosmic Treadmills and Carrots

Introduction

Welcome back to my Volcano Base, y’all. It’s time to get into some comics.

If you’ve been reading DC for any length of time, you know about the cosmic treadmill. It’s this thing the Flash uses to go back in time to destroy all of existence in the universe (i’m looking at you, Flashpoint ) and sometimes to go to different dimensions. Typically, you need a speedster to use that, right?

Not anymore.

As of Harley Quinn 30, we find out that there are other beings that can make use of the cosmic treadmill to good and bad results. At the very end of Issue 29, we see that somehow her hyenas are talking and they’re upright and they are really creepy.

It turns out they’re psychic projections from Earth. 48 and they are trying to help Harley get the Vorpal Fish. That’s what this is called, back to its rightful owner. She’s doubling down on the fact that she needs to get back to Earth 26, where the Vorpal Fish is from. She calls Zatanna to ask for Zatanna’s help yet again. Zatanna isn’t there. But Doctor Fate is.

The Multiverse is in Trouble

He explains what Zatanna has already explained, and that’s the multiverse is really weird right now and it’s really weak, and the last thing we need to be doing is poking holes in it and making it worse. So, no, not going to help you. But while she’s on the phone with them, inspiration strikes and she calls the Flash museum.

It turns out they ship her overnight apparently plans and all of the equipment needed to build a cosmic treadmill. Now, again, cosmic treadmills you kind of need a speedster for, but they still sent this out Wild.

(Side note: I want a four issue Mini about how that came to be and how they came to be selling the cosmic treadmill to begin with.)

So she gets it put together, realized she didn’t have a speedster and then looks over at the not hyenas says “Y’all are cosmic beings. You travel dimensions, you travel cosmically you’ll do.” And so they go for walkies. I’m going to post the picture of it because it’s amazing. It’s time for walkies.

The Destruction of Earth-26

They get to Earth 26 and it is devastated.
World War Three, nothing but broken buildings and rubble and everything else. Harley’s wandering around. She finally finds Captain Carrot, who is just disheveled and broke down and hurt, obviously.
Right. Like he seems to be the only survivor here.

Harley lets him know. Hey, I’ve got your fish. I came to bring it back and just putting the fish
in his hand brings him back to normal. He looks good as new, and then he kind of starts crying and he’s like, okay, so if you took it from me, it must be important. Like how many people did it save? Like, what did it do? And when Harley’s answer is just sort of like it just sort of showed up and I had some papers to grade before I could bring it back. He loses it and attacks her.

One of his attacks is so strong that it breaks the ward that Zatanna had put on Harley last issue, which means now Harley can be found by Lady Quark and should not be in the multiverse and needs to get out. And the last we see of Harley is
her upside down and Captain Carrot swearing, revenge.

Final Thoughts

y’all. I am. I’m really digging the vibe here. I didn’t jump on this book until issue 28, so just three issues ago, and I’m really loving the direction it’s going with Harley Quinn 30.

I know this is probably sacrilege, but it’s giving me Deadpool vibes in the best possible way. The like, jokey, absurdist comic out there, hero that used to be an anti-hero. And it’s kind of slowly being drug over to the side of being like a full hero.

I don’t know if that’s new with Harley or if they’ve been doing that for a while, and it’s just kind of continuing, but I love it. I’m here for it. I can’t wait for the next issue.

And that’s what I got for you this week.

I hope you enjoyed it. Leave me a comment down below if I missed anything or there’s some context that I need or if you just want to say hello and don’t forget to like, follow and interact for more volcanic vibes.