Originally published on Patreon
Poison Ivy is a character that's been through a lot of changes over the years, the biggest one being her going from a regular villain into something of an anti-hero. The strangest thing about this change, however, is that she herself has changed very little. Instead, they way people see her has changed.
We live in a world where climate change has caused some serious damage for the planet. Temperatures are out of control, weather is going wild, and multiple species are dying. We're facing what is fast becoming a certainty that humanity is not going to survive these changes. As such, a character who fights against deforestation, pollution, and the destruction of the planet is absolutely going to look like a hero.
So how do you keep someone like that from becoming a fully fledged hero and keep them in the grey area between hero and villain? I suspect this is what the new Posion Ivy series is going to attempt to do.
The first issue opens with Ivy having killed off cattle with a strange fungus. When she's approached by the farmers, she lashes out at them too, killing them with the same fungus. Through narration that she's leaving in the form of a letter we begin to learn that there's something wrong with Ivy, that she might be sick in some way, and is heading to Seattle.
Along the way Ivy uses the fungus to kill more people, thinks about the physical changes she's been through recently, and laments at the end of her romantic relationship with Harley Quinn.
It's not clear what's motivating her at this point, why she seems to have started hurting more innocent people, but I suspect that there's more here than there first appears. Ivy doesn't seem herself at all, and I suspect that she's being affected by the fungus in some ways too.
Poison Ivy #1 has a tone that's much more in line with the horror titles DC are producing, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this become an out and pit horror title. Which might be the perfect direction to take things. It'll definitely keep the character interesting, and make it more than just a series where we don't end up rooting for the villain.
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