Originally published on Patreon
The second issue of Poison Ivy sees our central character continuing her quest across the US, hoping to spread her deadly new spores to as many people as possible.
The bulk of this issue takes a small break from her journey as Ivy stops off at a roadside diner. She gets to know a few of the people that she meets, including a beautiful female thief who reminds her of Harley a little, as well as a kindly cook who seems full of joy.
Whilst this all seems lovely, it has a very sinister edge, as Ivy intentionally infects everyone in the diner with spores that will eventually cause horrific deaths for everyone there. She even makes note of the fact that she infects a family with what seem like cute, well behaved kids. It's kind of one of the more disturbing things I've read in a while from DC.
I'd mentioned in my previous Poison Ivy review that the book has a horror vibe to it, and that felt very present here too, though in a more subtle and insidious way. In our modern world it's hard to see Ivy as a villain, she makes some great points about how fucked the world is and how humans are to blame. how can you see someone wanting to stop mass global destruction as evil? Getting her to cause the awful deaths of lovely people who haven't done anything wrong is a good way I suppose.
Though, we don't see these deaths. They're not confirmed. So there could be room to this to be stopped, for Icy to change her mind or to be prevented from activating her spores within these people. But honestly, I'm not sure if the book is going to go that way or not. and I love that ambiguity, that we don't know yet is Ivy is going to become a merciless child killer or not.
I really enjoyed getting into her head in this issue, and seeing the way that she sees the world. I particularly liked it when she went into if she was vegetarian or not, and explained some of how mass farming for vegetarians and vegans actually cause more environmental damage than eating meat; a lesson I think a lot of veggies and vegans refuse to learn because they, like Ivy says, get off on feeling like they're doing good by not eating chicken.
This was a great issue for getting to know this character, for seeing how her mind works, and for getting some big stakes put on the table. It's not always a comfortable read, but this book remains a fascinating one for sure.
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