Harley Quinn Annual #1 (2024)

After spending a while reflecting in her cell, a large orderly appears to take her away, warning her to cooperate or receive a shock from his stun gun. Using a powerfully putrid belch, she blinds him long enough to steal the stun gun and turn it on him. Escaping into the hall, she locates a room where she finds Bash and Bliss working with Ivy to create a formula of some kind for someone called Master Edgar. Harley bursts in, glad to know that Ivy is not being held captive - but her friend doesn't seem to recognize her. Hoping to snap Ivy out of it, Harley plants a kiss on her lips, but nothing. Angrily, she demands to know what's been done to her friend.

At knife-point, Dr. Bliss admits that the effect will wear off of Ivy within twenty minutes. Harley continues to try to snap her friend out of it, all the same, but spots Dr. Bash carrying a jar of something. She smashes it, and instantly the hallucinogenic gas within begins affecting them all.

Ivy hallucinates meeting the Swamp Thing) in the swamp, and flirting with him. Unfortunately, despite her efforts, he fades away. In his place, though, stands Harley, who promises not to go anywhere. Together, they start burning down polluting factories. Rewarding themselves, they take a dip in a pool of nectar within a giant flower. Unfortunately, they attract a giant bee as a result. The bee begins using shamelessly bad one-liners to try tp pick them up, prompting the girls to drown it in the nectar.

Dr. Bliss hallucinates being a prisoner at Arkham, sharing dinner with the other inmates in the cafeteria. Harley, though, isn't a fan of the prison food, and tells the warden to shove it. Bliss escapes onto a beach, thinking her hallucination has improved, until a giant Harley Quinn rises from the sea in a Godzilla costume, eating innocent swimmers.

Harley's hallucination is of her original comic book hero Hurl Girl. She imagines that Dylana Dean is her son Jerry's teacher in school, and Dylana overhears Jerry talking about how his father) has invented a gun that can turn humans into animals which he intends to use on Harley. Dylana decides to warn Harley, and must become Hurl Girl to do it. She barfs her way to Harley's roof, where Harley is playing with the Scatapult. Unfortunately, she's too late to stop the Joker from turning both her and Harley into animals. Harley becomes a kitty, and Hurl Girl becomes a bird - which makes them natural enemies, so Hurl Girl flaps away for her own safety.

Surprisingly, Harley isn't upset about turning into a cat, but rather her mistreatment by the Joker for years. He is unapologetic, warning that he s never going to change. This makes her angry, and she rips his face clean off, and eats it. When he still refuses to apologize, she eats the rest of him too. Unfortunately, this doesn't sit well with her stomach, and she upchucks a massive, sentient hairball. She decides to make him her side-kick, and the pair become a super-hero team called Harley Cat and Hairball.

Dr. Bash's hallucination sees him and Dr. Bliss as analogues for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, solving the mystery of Jack the Ripper from Baker Street. While investigating, though, Dr. Bliss is grabbed and murdered by the Ripper - who is Harley Quinn.

Soon the hallucinogenic wears off, and they all regain their composure on the floor, surprised to find what appears to be a talking, floating egg on a plate standing in front of them. Disturbed, Ivy wonders just what happened, and Harley explains the whole story. Angrily, the egghead warns that they are his to control, but his threats are unimpressive until he ducks out of the room and returns with legs and tentacles. He introduces himself as Edgar Fullerton Yeung), master of the cosmos. He promises to tell them his secret origin, and each of the assembled offers their own sarcastic version of it before he can get a word out. Angrily, he strangles Dr. Bash before deciding that they don't deserve to hear his story.

They beg him, and three hours later, they're all in tears from how dramatic and tragic a tale it was. The gist of it, though, is that he had needed Doctors Bash and Bliss to enlist Ivy to help create a potion to make people like him so that he'd stop being treated like a crazy egg man. Ivy points out that she would have helped willingly. He responds that he had no time, as he is to be evicted from his rent controlled apartment within the next two days, and can't find a new place. Harley gives him a big hug, explaining that she can help by giving him an apartment in her own building.

Soon, he's moving in, and Tony admits that he shouldn't have much trouble paying the rent if he joins the freak show downstairs or working the concessions stand. After giving a helping hand in the move, Ivy calls Harley up to talk privately on the roof. she thanks Harley for coming to save her. Smirking, Harley celebrates their friendship by releasing some of the gas from earlier - a concentrated version that will surely cause all of Brooklyn to hallucinate.