Harley Quinn TV Show Almost Created Its Own DC Supervillain

Across four seasons, a holiday special, and a spinoff series, the world of the Harley Quinn animated series has taken a unique approach to the DC mythos. The Max series, which is gearing up to air its fifth season, has largely followed Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco), Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), and a smattering of other DC villains — but that nearly included a wholly original character. As series creators Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker revealed to ComicBook in a recent interview, the main roster of Harley Quinn nearly included a new character unfortunately nicknamed “Brown Stain,” before deciding to stick to the established DC canon.

“We had also created our own superhero that we wanted to have, [a] supervillain that we wanted to have in our crew, who was named Brownstone,” Halpern explained in our interview, which you can check out above. “But everyone called him Brown Stain because during a high profile rescue as a hero, he sh-t his pants on live TV. And so everyone called him Brown Stain, and then that’s what turned him into a villain, because he was so upset at that. So then, he took refuge in Harley’s crew. And DC said ‘We have 20,000 supervillains and superheroes. Can you just find one of those?’ And we said, ‘Okay.’ They were totally right, by the way. 100% right. Brown Stain should not have been one of the characters in the show. DC has plenty of characters that they were letting us have carte blanche with. DC made absolutely the right call. This is not me saying ‘Justice For Brown Stain.’ This is me saying, it’s just an interesting part of the Harley lore that never happened.” 

“I think early on, we definitely were gravitating towards some other characters that felt like sort of low hanging fruit or just like a bit,” Schumacker echoed. “They were just like a gag, a very one-dimensional gag. And fortunately, enough people encouraged us to go deeper. We had Dex-Starr, the Red Lantern cat that vomits blood, just because we were like, ‘Oh, blood-vomiting cat’s funny! He should be part of the crew.’”

What Is Harley Quinn Season 5 About?

The forthcoming fifth season of Harley Quinn is set to take Harley, Ivy, and their crew from Gotham to Metropolis, a juxtaposition that will apparently allow for a lot of hilarity. As Halpern and Schumacker told ComicBook in the same interview, this “change of scenery” will put Harley and Ivy’s romantic relationship on a new footing.

“You’ll see Harley Season 5, hopefully soon. We don’t have the exact air date so there’s that to look forward to which continues sort of the story of Harley and Ivy’s relationship,” Schumacker said. “I could tease that there’s a big sort of location move. There’s been a teaser that’s been presented at Comic-Con so I don’t think I’m saying anything out of school when I say a lot of the show this season five takes place in Metropolis. Harley and Ivy decide to spice their relationship up with a change of scenery.”

The first four seasons of Harley Quinn are available to stream exclusively on Max.