Why Harley Quinn Season 3 Didn’t Include a ‘Who’s Thanos’ Joke, Explains Show’s Writer

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One of the most popular baddies from DC is Harley Quinn and ever since Margot Robbie took on the role for the Suicide Squad movies, her popularity has only grown. But that is not the only spot we see the best of her. For fans, the HBO Max animated show has to be on the watchlist. The series already has two seasons and the third comes out at the end of this month. And the trailer suggests, there’s going to be more menace. The show could’ve had an MCU joke but it was excluded.

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Harley Quinn gets a Season 3
Harley Quinn gets a Season 3

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Harley Quinn writer explains why the Marvel joke was not included in season 3

With the Suicide Squad director, James Gunn making an appearance in the show, people thought it would mean some nods to Marvel as he is also the man behind the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. But the writers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, in an Instagram Live AMA, confirmed there are no such things. In his cameo, James Gunn will be seen directing a Thomas Wayne biopic. He recorded his lines while he was in Vancouver, shooting Peacemaker.

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Harley Quinn writers share why the removed a Marvel joke
Harley Quinn writers share why they removed a Marvel joke

You may also like: James Gunn To Star In Animated Harley Quinn Series On HBO Max

The writers also revealed that they had included a Marvel joke but removed it from the final cut. They shared, “We even had some Marvel jokes in there, which we ended up not being able to include in the show… I think we ended up just like 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.”

James Gunn is a fan of the Harley Quinn animated series

The writers also revealed in the Live AMA how they got the director onboard to do a cameo on the animated series. They shared, “But I am a fan. I knew he was a fan of the show and had posted a bit about it on Twitter… We followed each other and we had never really spoken but I DM’d him out of the blue and I was like, ‘Hey, shot in the dark but…’ And within 15 minutes, he had responded that he’s definitely interested… [and] a month later we were recording it. And it was very cool and he was such a good sport about just making fun of past work, making fun of just everything in the zeitgeist in the DCEU and whatnot.”

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James Gunn will appear in the series
James Gunn will appear in the series

Also read: Harley Quinn: 7 Epic Quotes That Make Her DCAU’s Greatest Hero

Though it is really hard to say that writers really excluded the Marvel jokes because of a creative point of view, or just the higher-ups want to avoid it. But Marvel does have references to DC existing as comics or shows in their world, the recent example being Eternals. In the movie, a kid compares Ikaris to Superman.

Harley Quinn comes out on July 28, 2022.

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Source: Instagram

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Written by Gargi

Articles Published: 464

Gargi Mishra is the Senior Editor at FandomWire. Serves as the Editor for writers and pens hard-hitting, industry-shaking, ace-tier editorials herself. A film student, she's the repository of everything infotainment at FandomWire. Above all, she loves K-Pop, K-Dramas, and Anime.