Poison Ivy #9 – G. Willow Wilson, Writer; Marcio Takara, Artist; Arif Prianto, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: It’s been the big unanswered question about this run—what’s going on with Harley and Ivy? We know that things have been rocky between the two of them since the whole Queen Ivy fiasco, and Ivy’s obsession with the Lamia spores and her return to villainy certainly made it look like they wouldn’t be making up any time soon—especially with Harley making a go of heroism in Gotham. But last issue revealed Harley was making her way to Ivy’s new home—and she opens this issue by crashing Ivy’s new living situation with corporate refugee Janet. As usual, Harley makes any room she’s in lighter and MUCH more chaotic, and it doesn’t take long before she starts breaking through Ivy’s protective layers. She even doesn’t seem particularly afraid of Ivy’s new apocalyptic bio-weapon, and is instead more interested in them as a consciousness-raising experience—which means she wants to get high on spores.
An issue where Harley and Ivy spend most of it tripping on fungi spores would usually be pretty funny, but there are some thornier issues lurking around the horizons, of course, Ivy has been acting like an older, more vicious version of herself lately, and no one’s going to notice it more than Harley. She manages to identify what’s driving Ivy and not just get her to confront some of it—but possibly break through the psychological block that’s been making her rely so much on the spores in the first place. Most people think this series is wrapping after 12 issues—it was originally slated to only last six—and that means Wilson has a lot to put back in the bottle by the end. This is the first issue that gave fans any real hope that it would end with Ivy going back to being an antihero, and that in and of itself makes it a win in my eyes. But the passion the creative team clearly has for the Harley/Ivy relationship is what’s really going to make it a hit.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
