After waiting all my life, I finally have some halfway decent 1966 Batman toys on the shelf. But as I set them up for the first time, something seemed to be missing. Harley, of course!

But our dear kookey gal didn’t exist back then. So I asked myself what she might have looked like, had she been around to appear in the days of Adam West and Cesar Romero. I felt she should also appear more as a “moll,” and less like a super-villain in her own right, as so many of the female sidekicks did back then. I was also influenced by Paul Dini’s original sketch of Harley, as seen in the classic book Batman: Animated.

Fortunately, I had an old Marvel Legends Rachel Grey in the fodder supply. I really liked the sculpt of this figure, and had tried to use her in previous projects, but she always got passed over. Her time had come!

I didn’t have to change much. I filled in the exposed abs, lengthened the gloves, and added the hat and collar. The rest is a snazzy paint job.

Sometimes when I make a “Harley that wasn’t there” figure, she tends to stand out from the figures she’s meant to blend in with. I felt sure that would be the case here, too. But on the shelf, she looks like she was always meant to be there.

Created September 2013