We Love A Bit Of Mess: Reviewing ‘Poison Ivy’ #14

The nightmares are over. It’s time to return to the regularly scheduled pheromonal programming. Except things are far from normal.

A murder mystery within a building that defies all laws of reality. A dark alley encounter with the Batman. Janet from HR is getting all flirty again. Oh, and Poison Ivy is caught smack dab in the middle of the weird. Huh, never mind, that is pretty normal.

Poison Ivy #14 delivers the next chapter in this always fantastic series from G. Willow Wilson, Marcio Takara, Arif Prianto, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Unlike many other titles, this series was lucky enough to be able to pretty much stay itself during its Knight Terrors tie-in issues. Keeping the same creative team, and tapping previous artist Atagun Ilhan to play again, really helped with that. Essentially it was a detour but one that was meaningful because it kept up the deep character work and horror tones that make this series shine.

Takara, Prianto, and Otsmane-Elhaou are such a dynamic artistic trio. Everything about the visuals in this book is gorgeous, doing so much to build out a unique personality-filled experience.

Kinetic, emotional energy is the foundation upon which Takara builds. Depth and detail are very clear in every panel, no matter if the shot is a wide one or a close-up face shot. These characters have life to them and everything they are feeling or dealing with can be felt instantly. Slipping between the more absurd or horror bits and the more down to Earth ‘real’ moments is easy as can be. Not a single step is lost in these transitions as she makes sure they blend so smoothly you can’t imagine one without the other.

A darker tone is inherent across the pages, enhanced by the color palette that Prianto employs.

There are plenty of bold vibrant colors to be found, giving the space more of that personality I mentioned. Yet, there are also tons of shadows and darkness that make sure we remember this is a story that toes the line, whichever line that might be. It’s also a darker tale both in horror and just in aspects of humanity/human emotion. All the colors have a more toned-down appearance, whether vivid or shadowy, keeping to the more grounded feeling accompanying the absurd.

Everything said about the rest of the art goes for the lettering as well. Otsmane-Elhaou goes the extra mile every single time to make sure that not only does the lettering convey the necessary messages, but it’s fun and big at the same time. Fonts shift and change as do bubbles to showcase different volumes, tones, and emotions quite easily. Vivid colors come into play for some of the caption boxes and dialogue bubbles, giving a fun pop but also fitting the characters they represent.

Also love the inclusion of SFX in simple ways (such as Janet’s shrug) or having SFX-like elements in speech bubbles (Harley’s ha-ha laughter bursting out of her bubble). Such visual flairs remind us that comic books are a fun unique malleable medium.

In each chapter, Wilson finds a way to keep readers on their toes. We get a lot more of the usual exploration of Ivy as a character, she’s primarily alone and reflects on herself and even talks to us the audience in a way, mixed with more. A lot of the horror/absurdity is similar in nature, there is a theme to it after all, but Wilson makes sure not to repeat herself in approach. Even for an issue that is part of a story arc, it feels both like a stand-alone but also the chapter in an overall story which speaks highly of her writing abilities.

Those seem like tones that are too far apart to bridge, yet here we are.

Emotionally I love that these characters are messy. Not just because they are more chaotic or closer to villains, see Harley’s point about good/bad being such a reductive way to see things, but because they are humans. With emotions and desires, they make mistakes. We see that here with Janet, and also that Ivy and Harley’s relationship, as much as they are in love, is still a work in progress as things happen in life.

Also, this book instantly rules because we see Janet from HR hit Batman with a bag. That’s some top-tier stuff right there. I mean the lurking vigilante deserves a good bag hit.

Poison Ivy #14 is now available from DC Comics.