Comic Book Review: Poison Ivy #26

G. Willow Wilson starts a brand new chapter with Pamela Isley in this review of Poison Ivy #26.

Title: Poison Ivy #26
Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artist: Marcio Takara
Colors: Arif Prianto
Letters: Hassan Otsamne-Elhaou
Cover: Jessica Fong
Variant Cover Artists: Jenny Frison, Noobovich, Kelley Jones, Daniel Sampere, Sebastian Fiumara
Release Date: October 2, 2024 

This comic book review contains spoilers 

The Story

Poison Ivy #26 opens as Janet from HR, now mercifully renamed just ”Janet,” is shopping at an overpriced supermarket for Pamela Isley-approved foods.  This proves to be a difficult task as even something as innocuous as almonds winds up on the do-not-buy list due to the effect it has on the water table and bee population.  Just after she’s finished shopping, a masked eco-terrorist sprints past her before the supermarket goes up in flames.  

Back at home, Pamela comforts Janet who is nursing her wounds as the couple watches news coverage about the explosion.  They report that the attack was carried out by an eco-terrorist group called “The Order of the Green Knight.”  Isley then leaves to bike up to the swamp where a ghost town has cropped up (the same one Killer Croc discovered last issue).  In the process, she sheds her street clothes and dons her classic leaf-covered leotard. 

Meanwhile, Janet discovers a crude environmental shine outside of their apartment door as more eco-terrorist attacks occur in the city.  When she flips on the news she sees a report: “‘Poison Ivy’ identified as leader of the ecoterrorist organization: The Green Knight.”   

Analysis

Willow Wilson taps into some interesting territory with this first chapter of a new arc in Poison Ivy #26.  Namely, this Weather Underground-inspired terrorist group who borrow their namesake from Arthurian lore, as well as Ivy’s potential involvement in it.  The initial news broadcast reports that sixteen people, including two children, were killed in the supermarket bombing.  Marcio Takara depicts Ivy as having no reaction to this.  If it turns out that she is in fact the ringleader, that’s pretty cold, even for her.  The only person she seems legitimately concerned about is Janet which illuminates an interesting contradiction in Ivy’s internal morality.  She wants all of humanity to perish, except for the few people that she cares about.  

Perversely, I’m hoping the reveal at the end of Poison Ivy #26 is true because of the dramatic conflict that would create between Isley and Janet.  Janet may be in love, and she may love the environment, but is she willing to overlook child murder?  And all the lies Ivy has fed her?  My analysis of Ivy’s expression and behavior in this issue leads me to believe that she’s not in on it, but I would love to be surprised.  If she is in on it, then Wilson and Takara will be leaning the character towards full on psychopathy.  Then again, this is the same person who wants to eradicate human life from the planet.

Ultimately that’s the balancing act villain books like this must walk: making a misanthropic villain sympathetic.  But in the fiction of 2024, I think audiences are ready to route a villain with no regard for human life as long as you give them a morally justifiable alternative like the environment.  We’ll have to wait till next month to see if everything in this paragraph is nullified.  

The other subplot about Ivy exploring the swamp’s reemerged ghost town is markedly less interesting.  We do get to see Ivy don her classic costume, but after 26 issues, I weirdly prefer Takara’s green jumpsuit now.  The few passing references to Woodrue gave me shivers after how poorly the last arc ended.  

After a slew of fill-in artists, seeing Takara back on this book for a full issue feels like a breath of fresh air.  Nobody has drawn Poison Ivy this good.  And I’m talking about in the history of comics.  From Sheldon Moldoff’s sassy almost carny influenced depiction to Jim Lee’s lascivious physics defying version that was created top down as an ultimate male fantasy, nobody has drawn Ivy more personable, endearing, and relatable.  She’s still as beautiful as ever but she seems like a real person with thoughts at agency, rather than the anatomically exaggerated pinup model she’s been depicted as in decades past.  

Final Thoughts

Poison Ivy #26 presents a solid start for this new arc with a few interesting avenues for G. Willow Wilson and Marcio Takara to explore.  Here’s hoping that it ends stronger than the last arc.

Editor’s Note: You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.