:In spite of a Vandal Savage appearance that feels like DC editorial keeping some sort of misguided big picture in mind, Harley Quinn's 2024 Annual is the HQ book of the year. I'm calling it now.

This is a build-up issue done right. We get enough fun stuff in the forms of visual gags and character moments to justify a whole issue's worth of storytelling, while adeptly setting up a larger looming conflict. A lackluster backup needn't scare fans away: this issue is another lukewarm win.

This is an issue that feels like it desperately wants to be more than a set-up issue for a couple of big upcoming face-offs, but it all falls a bit flat by sagging noticeably in the middle.

Now that we're past the point of being three-quarters done with this title, we can safely say that the majority of Tom King's "Penguin consists of issues that, while no means poor, are falling short of the prestige crime drama the readers may have initially imagined.