UPDATE COMICS: Adam Glass To Retell Harley Quinn's Origin Story In Suicide Squad #7!

CBR News: This month wraps up your initial "Suicide Squad" storyline, and in January we've got "The Hunt For Harley Quinn" starting up. We've already seen that you're committed to character rotation with the first death in the Squad and Captain Boomerang coming on, but do you see Harley as one of the few mainstays of your comic?

Adam Glass: Absolutely! First of all, from the moment we started talking about this idea, I think we were on a call and someone said, "The Hunt for Harley," and I said, "I love that title!" It just sounds so freaking awesome! So yes, Harley is definitely one of the stars of our book, from the moment I pitched her as one of the members of the Squad. I think everybody at first was like, "Huh?" One of the things we're doing that I really enjoyed with Harley is just showing all the different sides to her. I think she's a great character and I think she's been portrayed in an interesting way; we're just really peeling the onion back and showing that there is even more to her then we've seen so far.

CBR: What first interested you in exploring Harley as a character? As you said, you were really the one who wanted to bring her onto "Suicide Squad."

AG: I think there are a couple of things about Harley. One is, I think she's incredibly underestimated. I think people look at her as a sidekick -- and when I say people, I'm talking within the world of the comic itself, other heroes, villains -- stuff like that. I mean, her fan base is so strong, and all those Harley Quinn fans who constantly want to kill me for her costume change and everything else, I love them to death and I think they're going to be really happy as we continue to peel back all these different layers of her.

She's an extremely dangerous young woman, and I think what this book is going to show is just how dangerous she is, and also how smart she is. Let's not forget, this is a woman who was a doctor, a psychiatrist, who was very successful at her life before she even met Joker. I have to believe that someone like this, who is so smart, is more culpable in her switchover from Dr. Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn. There's more to this. She knows what she's doing, she's more in charge than people think. I think a lot of people say, "She's just in love with Joker and does what he says." She definitely falls in love with Joker and she definitely does what he says, but she knows what she's doing. There's something behind the madness.

CBR: What can you tell us about the "Hunt" storyline?

AG: I think I can tell you this, which is, we already know that the Joker's missing. When she hears that, well, Harley needs to go find him. Someone took her puddin', where's Mr. J? She turns around and decides, you know what? I'm going to go find out for myself what happened. As I think about it I'm like, hmm, can I say this? Lawyer, lawyer! [Laughs] I can say we're going to hunt her, so you know that she's basically going to get away.

CBR: In issue #7, you're re-jiggering the origin story for Harley. Is that all part and parcel with you wanting to show her as more than Mr. J's sidekick?

AG: Once again it goes with what I've been saying about the whole New 52 and especially "Suicide Squad," which is; it's familiar but fresh. What's the familiar thing that we all know about her, and what's the fresh take on it? I think, when you look at Harley, she's still [Joker's] doctor, he's still her patient, they still meet at Arkham Asylum -- it's really the inciting incident that changes. We're diving a little deeper into the actual psychology of what it is. What makes her turn, what makes her fall for him, what makes her decide to go down his road? There are all these things we're going to visit and examine for the reboot of her origin. How did she get her white skin? She's not albino, but she's close to [the Joker] with chalk white skin. All those things, we will establish.

CBR: It seemed like Harley was exploring a "relationship" with Deadshot -- is this new twist going to play into the "Hunt?"

AG: Let's just put it this way -- it's definitely going to get dealt with! [Laughs]

CBR: The Suicide Squad members are all hardened criminals, but who's the scariest bad guy in your book full of criminal badasses?

AG: I think that's part of what we're going to do in this book. We're going to find that the girl who has no powers and is apparently the most underestimated is actually the most dangerous person in the group. By the end of this book, people are going to be like, "Wow, you don't want to screw with Harley Quinn." And Deadshot is also obviously a real badass. I think everything is going to come to a culmination here, everything from the relationship we basically started laying down to who's in charge of the Squad, who's in the Squad; it's all going to peak by the end of #7.

I wanted to also say there are going to be a couple of issues coming up, too, that are going to lead to some things. To take a moment to talk about the other characters; we're going to get into why King Shark has been evolving, we're going to find out what's been happening to him, so we're going to start to explore King Shark and why he's been so out of it. And everyone thought Savant died in book one. Well, we're going to find out what happened to Savant, because he appears in "The Hunt For Harley." We're going to find out more about El Diablo, his powers and what the tattoos mean and all that stuff. And Black Spider -- what's his background? What's he doing there, what happened to him after the diner where he got shot, is he going to be back in the front or is he going to die? We learn more about Yo-Yo, who is an interesting character -- who is he, what is he, where does he come from? And there are these great covers; on the "Hunt For Harley" I think Paul Renauld, a French artist, did the first cover. The cover's just amazing. And then Ivan Reis, who's killing it on "Aquaman," is the second cover.

CBR: With all these different characters replacing Squad members, how do you go about deciding who you are going to bring in? Is it something where you consider the team dynamic or are there other considerations?

AG: I think there's a mixture of considerations, and that's one of them. You ask, how does this person affect the rest of the team? Someone like Captain Boomerang comes in, and he's in charge, basically given the detonator to the neck bombs. Holy cow! Obviously, from the moment he sees Deadshot-- they know each other from the past and they don't like each other. I always say it's the male alpha monkey problem -- stick a bunch of male alpha monkeys in the room and let them kill each other. So yes, that definitely comes into consideration when you're picking everybody, and it's also just a wink to the old fans who love Boomer like I do and want to see him. I think you'll see some other visits, as the issues go on, of other people coming in and how they play into this new Squad. It's exciting! I'm glad to have Captain Boomerang back on board.

CBR: And you've also got Yo-Yo, who you mentioned earlier and who seems to be a completely new character.

AG: Yo-Yo is a completely new character. Part of the great opportunity I'm getting with the book, and I know a lot of times, as an avid reader, myself, of comics, and as an old fan of Ostrander's "Squad," you always knew who the dude with the red shirt was, and you were like, "I've never heard of that guy, that guy's dead." Any time you introduce someone new, they're like, "Oh, he's cannon fodder." I think people are going to be very surprised who sticks around and who does not. I really like Yo-Yo a lot. He's got this great, interesting power where he can fluctuate his weight, hence the name Yo-Yo, and he's sort of like a crazy teenager in a lot of ways. As you'll see from his opening line, "Don't worry, a string doesn't come out of my ass," that's a great introduction to him. He carries that sense of humor with him along the way, interacting with all the different characters.

CBR: Let's talk about the interior art for the book, and what it's been like working with Federico Dallocchio.

AG: Federico's amazing. It's so funny, when he sends me pages, I always say it's like Christmas morning. I can't wait to open them and see what new stuff he has. He's such a talented guy, and when I look at his stuff -- this isn't a knock on them, but I think certain artists just look like comic book artists, and I love a lot of those artists, but when I look at Federico's stuff, I'm like, "Wow, he's really original." I don't know who looks like him. He really has his own style and that's what I love about what he's bringing to the book.

I think he's got that original style, but I also think he's really good at catching emotion within the panel. I just love the way he'll place something. He picks the right angle to play them at, which I think it really makes the page pop. I have to give him 95% of the credit -- every now and then, he'll call me and say, "Hey I was thinking of this" -- though he lives in South America, so I should say he actually Facebooks me! He has a really clear sense of not only these characters, but also how they feel in the book and how to lay them out in the panel.