The Harley Quinn animated series has portrayed another major character as queer.
The DC animated series has been teasing a romantic relationship between supervillains Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, played by Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell, for some time.
But the most recent episode of the show’s second season dropped a surprising reveal about an entirely different classic Batman villain.
The episode “Riddle U” sees Harley Quinn and friends pulling of a heist at Riddle University using false identities.
Supervillain Clayface gets extremely queer
But while the main characters opt for conventional disguises, the shapeshifting villain Clayface, voiced by Alan Tudyk, opts for the disguise of female student Stephanie – a disguise it’s revealed he has actually been using for some time, even getting romantically entangled with a guy called Chad.
While it sounds like a typical queer panic comedy set-up, the show ultimately evades the pitfall – with Clayface ultimately harbouring lingering feelings for Chad even after his return to his original form.
Harley Quinn featured the villain Clayface as “Stephanie”While it’s pretty clear the character is intended to be LGBT+, there’s no specific consensus on what label to apply to shapeshifters when it comes to gendered attraction.
One fan on Twitter quipped: “You, a Philistine: Clayface is gay because dates boys while in a female form. Me, an Intellectual: Clayface is straight because she’s a woman attracted to men. She’s trans, you dopes.”
Another responded: “I hope the big reveal on this show is that EVERYONE is gay.”
A third fan joked: “Bruce Wayne runs around with a sweaty teenager in hot pants. Nobody’s got a problem with that, though?”
Clayface definitely isn’t the only LGBT+ character on Harley Quinn
Meanwhile, Harley Quinn showrunner Patrick Schumacker has trailed that the show’s second season will explore the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.
In an interview with Metro earlier this month, he said: “It will develop more, and it’s definitely going to evolve into, I think, what a lot of people are hoping it will.
“What I can say is, we wanted to do it – it was always on the table… it felt interesting to us or felt like, maybe even important to us, to do it.”
He added that the plotline was not included in the first season because it largely focused on the character finding empowerment after escaping from the Joker.