Poison Ivy #27 – G. Willow Wilson, Writer; Marcio Takara, Artist; Arif Prianto, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Poison Ivy has spent most of her time in this run fighting against twisted ambassadors of the Green, perverting her power in the name of cruelty and misogyny. But now she might be up against something even scarier – political anger. A new terror group, the Order of the Green Knight, has taken up her cause and elevated it to random violence – blowing up a grocery store that nearly killed Janet from HR. No surprise, Ivy is immediately blamed for this, with wanted posters going up all around Gotham and Batman being on the prowl for her. He’s surprisingly reasonable once he confronts her – thanks to the very true fact that Ivy has never failed to take credit for her crimes – but it’s not long before Ivy gets the chance to confront one of the goons taking these actions in her name. And then it becomes clear that there might be something much darker going on than just copycat radicals.
I’m really liking how Wilson is writing Ivy in this new era. She’s very much a back-to-basics version, with some of her classic powers and a much healthier outlook on the world again. But at the same time, she has a lot more awareness of the larger cosmic forces influencing her and involvement in the strange new ecosystem that’s emerged in Slaughter Swamp. This is one of the best settings in comics at the moment, particularly the strange new ghost town that Janet is holing up in to keep her safe at the moment. Halloween might be over for the time being, but this issue is near-perfect for that scene. However, this issue does have to lose a few points for that seriously bizarre ending, adding another weird wrinkle to the romantic complications of this series so far. But overall, this is another wonderfully weird installment in the most unlikely hit book DC has had in a long time.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
