Date night!
Creative Staff:
Story: G. Willow Wilson
Art: Marcio Takara
Colors: Arif Prianto
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
There sure is nothing quite like a romantic night with your sweetie in the swamp to make your mouth water. It’s the dawn of a new day as Pamela Isley makes her return to Harley and Gotham City with a lovestruck Janet-from-HR in tow. The tension’s so thick you could cut it with a fan boat’s propeller!
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things I like to do is find a recent series that I wish I had time to get into but didn’t, and be able to just sit and focus on it for a couple of months to catch up. Poison Ivy launched in summer 2022, and it wasn’t the right title for me at the time, but being able to take it in weekly going forward is a big positive for me. The book comes from writer G. Willow Wilson, whom I’ve had mixed luck with over the years, while Marcio Takara handles the artwork. Takara puts in some really fantastic designs and great kind of horror visuals that fit for the character and how her power works, which Arif Prianto takes to a whole other level with the color design, especially digitally on a good-sized screen. Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou has a lot of creativity to work with this through the lettering, and there are so many neat scenes for it. It’s a solid to strong team with a character that’s perfect for it.
With Ivy back in Gotham, figuring out the right balance is important when it comes to Harley, as well as everything else that makes up the city. This issue does it well by having her head out for the day, since Harley prefers the night anyway, as Ivy needs to reacclimate to the city and its rhythms. She’s been gone so long she’s aware that she’s not doing the things she needs to in order to not be seen. But the reality is that her return is something that’s going to cause problems, so I like that, in her own way, she’s proactive with it by returning to the park where all the big bad stuff went down. Batman’s obviously been watching for her to surface and to confront her here, but it’s more just to get a handle on where she’s at and for them to basically leave each other alone unless Ivy steps over the line again. It makes sense for Batman, knowing what he knows, and as Ivy is trying to figure everything out, she’s at least not just directly criming again.
All of this serves well to remind Ivy that she needs a place to crash outside of the city should things go south, and that has her setting up shop in a cabin in Slaughter Swamp. It’s fun to watch her go through this, and to find that Croc has been hanging out there, which leads to the two of them agreeing to a deal for it. Since he has a hard time in the city because of her past actions, and what Luthor is doing in creating massive housing buildings where it’s just to park money rather than house people, she’s game to investigate and see what wrenches she can throw into it and help both Croc out and achieve her larger goal. The book, as always, has a lot of political messaging through it because Ivy completely lives it in her own way. It can be a bit blunt in a 22-page book, but it’s what drives her actions in the way similar to how other characters do. Finding something unexpected in one of the buildings that’s of the Green certainly sets her on an interesting new path, however.
In Summary:
Bringing Ivy back to Gotham wasn’t something I was keen on this soon, as I really wanted another year of books away from the city. But it was inevitable and I get it. The balancing act is playing against Harley and the chaos she brings, as well as the fun of the relationship dynamic. I was far more interested in seeing how Batman would handle things, and the pivot to Croc worked well. But I really enjoyed seeing Ivy without any heroes or villains for a large chunk of the run so far, so going back to the mess that is Gotham is a mixed bag for me at the moment. Lots, lots more to go, however.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: June 6th, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
Chris Beveridge
http://www.fandompost.com
Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.
He likes to write a lot, as you can see.
