Really Good At Being This Bad — Reviewing ‘Poison Ivy – Volume One: The Virtuous Cycle’

A growing number of colorful ‘rogues’ from Gotham City cross paths with Batman regularly. Some of them more than others. Certain ones (especially the clown) tend to hog all the spotlight and take up space. This is quite a shame because there are so many interesting characters in that sphere with things to say.

At long last, one of them has the regular spotlight that she deserves.

After having massive world-changing powers ripped away from her and going from two beings back to one, Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy is a woman on a mission. While individual humans can be cool and great, the mass of humanity is not only destroying the world little by little, but themselves as well. Poison Ivy has a plan to deal with this at last, even if that means that she too is going to die since she is part of humanity.

We’re given such a dark but relevant and refreshing look, not only into Pamela’s headspace, but also at our world. Yes, in the conventional sense, she is the villain of the story and has a body count, but there is more to things than hero and villain labels. In the real world, these issues broached are not so clear-cut, and some of the points made about humanity are not wrong. There are also explorations of deep depression within, especially once we learn fully what Ivy has lost. It all culminates in a story that is about confronting trauma, including the individual most responsible for that trauma.

G Willow Wilson does a masterful job at allowing us into Pamela’s head, showing us that there is humanity within her even if she fights it and tries to stick to her bloody plans. Harley Quinn remains the thing that anchors Pam to humanity. That love is still there despite their being broken up and apart, and Pam’s plans will see the world and herself end. It’s refreshing to get a story that is from a villain’s perspective that is nuanced and deep, but also gives us such a great look at humanity, both the good and the bad.

One of my favorite elements sees a version of the Caped Crusader come into play. During heavy hallucinations, it’s a version of Batman that is Ivy’s inner voice pushing her on. Batman is a never-ending enduring strong force and it makes sense that Ivy’s mind would turn to that to keep her going, along with her annoyance at him. Facing her trauma, she needs a voice different than the versions of Harley she was seeing through the whole series.

In every issue, Marcio Takara and Arif Prianto create something visually spectacular that slides between absolutely gorgeous and terrifying at the drop of a hat. Simple, grounded moments appear detailed and normal with colors that feel familiar to us. While many of the hallucinations and uses of the spores are wild and warping filled with bright vivid otherworldly style colors. We’re given moments of the villain coming out of Ivy that are truly grotesque and terrifying, but are bright and colorful at the same time.

Inherently there is a heaviness to this story, and we feel that within the art and colors. Often the overall appearance of the pages is set by Ivy’s emotional state. Those moments of happiness or a sense of completion help lighten the pages considerably. Making it strike harder once those colors get darker.

The final two issues feature pages from Brian Level, Jay Leisten, and Stefano Gaudiano on art, inks, and colors respectively. They very much match the nightmarish but hauntingly beautiful tone that had been set by Takara and Prianto previously. In a way, Level’s art is even more terrifying as there is a roughness and a sort of elongation effect going on. All the panels are shifted around in interesting ways, making way for a grotesque powerful full-page spread that is just a sight to behold.

Helping make all this work even more is the fantastic lettering work that Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou pulls out every single issue. From the always great depiction of the journal captions from Ivy (giving us a great peek into her mind), to the warped text and bubbles that come with the wild terrifying nightmare hallucination moments we get in this book. Often, I like seeing sentence case used as a sort of normal tone of speaking. I have to say I really dig how Otsmane-Elhaou uses it to indicate whispering, while a leveled all caps case is the normal volume, and then bubbles get all huge, and text skyrockets in size for the yelling/terror moments.

Bubbles that are jagged to fit in sounds made as something happens or just a giant exclamation point are some fantastic comic book stuff I love to see. Not to mention all the powerful, very much felt, and hard-to-miss SFX that is most certainly something we the reader can hear as we gaze upon these pages.

Poison Ivy: Vol 1 – The Virtuous Cycle is now available from DC Comics.