Harley Quinn Season 3 Couldn’t Make Fun of Marvel

The highly anticipated third season of Harley Quinn will arrive on HBO Max later this month and when the fan-favorite animated series returns it will bring with it a lot of mischief, humor, adventure, and even a guest appearance by filmmaker James Gunn who will play himself. But for all of the wild things coming in Season 3 and with Gunn, who directs the Guardian of the Galaxy films for Marvel, there’s one thing that Harley Quinn writers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker couldn’t bring to the series — jokes about Marvel.

During an Instagram AMA (via The Direct), Schumacker and Halpern explained that they had included some Marvel jokes, but ultimately “couldn’t” include them, explaining that doing so messed with the world of the series too much, though they didn’t rule out the possibility of bonus content in the future.

“We even had some Marvel jokes in there, which we ended up not being able to include in the show,” they explained. “I think we ended up just saying, ‘Eh, it kind of breaks the world of the show.’ But we had a joke… [with] Thanos and then Clayface was like, ‘Who’s Thanos?’ But it just felt like it was maybe breaking the world of the show. But who knows, maybe we’ll get some bonus content out there at some point.”

Schumacker and Halpern previously told ComicBook.com that Season 3 will cover a lot of things, including Harley and Ivy’s budding relationship.

“I definitely think we are going to see Gordon grapple with his, how should I say it, his low approval in Gotham city and the low approval of the police department in Gotham city,” Halpern said. “I think we’re going to see… we’re going to dive a little more into Ivy’s life and then history. Origins. I think we’re going to do that. I think those are really the only two things we’ve really kind of hit on so far in our preliminary discussions that were like, ‘Yes, definitely want to do those things’”

He continued, “I know we don’t want to do a ‘Are they going to break up or are they not going to break up?’ thing. I don’t think we want this to be the stakes of the season. I think we want to see… I mean, there’ll obviously be conflict and tensions between the two of them when certain things go wrong. But I don’t think we want that to be… we spent two years playing that, or two seasons, I don’t think we want to do that for a third season. So that’s what we don’t want to do.”

Season 3 of Harley Quinn is set to hit HBO Max on July 28. In addition to Gunn guest starring as himself, the season will also feature guest appearances from Harvey Guillen as Nightwing and more. Harley Quinn stars Kaley Cuoco as Harley, Lake Bell as Poison Ivy, Cheryl, and Barbara, Alan Tudyk as Joker, Clayface, Calendar Man, Doctor Trap, and Condiment King, Tony Hale as Doctor Psycho and Felix Faust, Ron Funches as King Shark, Jason Alexander as Sy Borgman, Matt Obert as KiteMan, and J.B. Smoove as Frank the Plant.

Season 3 of Harley Quinn will premiere on HBO Max on July 28th.