We are back with another comic book review. This time with something a little bit different, Poison Ivy issue #1. Totally was not ready for this but what a pick up. Click the link If you want to check out last week’s review of Batman: Fortress #1. A reminder I will be reviewing the following:
Cover Art
Story
Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App
All right so why did I pick this one up? Well for one I had the intention of picking up some women led comics and as I walked into my local comic book shop I saw a whole row taken up by Poison Ivy variant covers, though I think that mainly had to do in part with it being PRIDE month. I took a little walk through the rest of the shop and checked out the comics available then ultimately came back to Poison Ivy’s shelf and picked this issue up.
Cover Little bit of a creepy vibe from this cover but I think that’s what really drew me into it. Up until now, the comics I have been getting are all of superheroes, not villains. To see Poison Ivy front and center with a plate of meat that she is eating made me think Oh, she means business! The tag, “Humanity Had Its Chance” also gave me some thoughts that this could be a look at a villain unleashing all hell on everyone. But it’s nice to see the full character on the issue and then to have her surrounded in a bunch of plants and flowers is a nice touch. As if she were making death look pretty.
This is where we see Poison Ivy use her parasitic mushrooms to just brutally murder these guys. Epic.
Story In the opening pages we get a sense of how ruthless and evil Poison Ivy is along with a bit of overview about her. We learn she is now back in a physical body and that this story is not about revenge but instead about love. Interesting. The setting is Wyoming with two farmer guys driving around in their truck and coming upon a group of dead cows. They are trying to make sense of how it happened and what is covering the cows mutilated bodies. In comes Poison Ivy saying that it’s a class of parasitic mushrooms and gives them a taste. What follows is a couple badass panels showing one of the men enduring a horrific death and transformation into mushrooms.
She then gets back in her truck that she borrowed from a couple, but really she killed them and has their decomposing corpses in the back. All throughout the book we have Poison Ivy narrating what is going on and giving us a bit of background info. For instance we learn of her having a falling out with Harley and things ending over something, not sure what.
For a second I wasn’t sure who this was and then I figured it had to be Harley.
From what I gather, Poison Ivy is just mad at the world/humanity and is determined to destroy everything in her path. We get another notion of this when some dirty old sleaze balls harass her after leaving the bar and end up paying the ultimate price for it. I thought these panels were also really awesome not only because of the action but i really liked the colors used in this spread as well as the last the panel in particular that shows her blowing some type of smoke or dust.
Love this panel because of the purplish/pink evening tones paired with another brutal killing.
Towards the end of the issue we get a better sense of what or why Poison Ivy hates humans so much. Instead she explains that she doesn’t hate humans, but hates humans as a whole collective species. She goes on to say that they are an invasive species and so that’s why she hates them so much. She accuses the humans of using up all the resources on the planet and suggest extinction is the best scenario moving forward because the earth deserves to live and not be destroyed by the human species. As you can see in the image below there is a full page dedicated to an awesome Poison Ivy covered in plants and her hair being magnificent. I’m not sure if that’s like an actual form in which she can take or if it’s how she envisions herself.
Now this part I was a little confused at, not sure if this was something that actually happened or this is something she envisions her body as.
Overall Rating I give this a 4/5. Pretty hyped for this series and hope to learn more about this other form she can take. Had there been a little bit more info on her relationship with Harley ending and her form I would of given this 5 out of 5. Hopefully we learn more in the next issues.
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