Poison Ivy #42 – G. Willow Wilson, Writer; Marcio Takara, Artist; Arif Prianto, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: Over the last few months, this series has gotten a lot weirder – and it seems like it’s now about to jump right off the slippery slope into being the strangest book in DC’s main line. We ended the last arc with Ivy seemingly deciding to run for Mayor, and now we’ve got a flash forward to her first day in office. How did she win the seat while being Gotham’s most wanted right after murdering the Police Commissioner’s AI liaison? It’s not clear, but there’s a lot of hints that she may have used her powers to manipulate the city or otherwise stolen the seat – and a bit of rhetoric that hints that this might be the way forward. Fight fascism with fascism? Ivy clearly plans to rule with an iron fist, neutralizing Savage right from the start and unleashing her Order of the Green Knight to enforce her environmentally-friendly policies without mercy or due process. It’s all pretty in-character – for a supervillain, which Ivy hasn’t felt like for a while.
Her team of advisors is also eyebrow-raising, featuring her girlfriend Janet, her new ally Juri, as well as plant-man Peter Undine and deranged criminal mastermind Warren White, better known as the Great White Shark. Together, this team pretty much immediately intimidates all the power structures in Gotham, sets about wiping the slate clean – but Ivy isn’t happy. She’s not comfortable with this kind of power, her past sins are coming back to haunt her – including a creepy visit from Xylem, the avatar of the Rot who she cut a deal with – and the end of the issue showed that pulling this off cost her something that a lot of people won’t be happy about. I’m reserving judgement on this story as a whole so far, but based on this first issue, it doesn’t feel like a sustainable status quo long-term, and I’m very curious to see how this wild twist spins out and affects the rest of the Bat-line.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
