Poison Ivy #10 // Review
Janet is trying to get her friend into the idea of going to a wellness retreat. It’s a perfectly innocent request. The two of them will be road-tripping to Gotham City. They can swing through Los Angeles and get in touch with nature courtesy of health guru Gwendolyn Caltrope. Of course, engaging her friend’s interest might not be the best idea: the friend in question is Dr. Pamela Isley. Writer G. Willow Wilson continues one of the most satisfying mainstream DC comics with the tenth issue of Poison Ivy. Artist Marcio Takara articulates drama and comedy in a style that draws in a pleasant southern California atmosphere courtesy of colorist Arif Prianto.
“Conscious capitalism.” That’s all Janet had to say. It’s a retreat involving wealthy people spending lots of money trying to be eco-conscious. Naturally, it’s the type of thing that will make a deliciously wicked, super-powered eco-terrorist like Poison Ivy really, really upset. Janet only hopes that Ivy will wait to burn it all down until after the juice cleanse. Much to her surprise, there isn’t anything too terribly wrong with Gwen Caltrope’s operation. Ivy can’t stand the culture, but there’s nothing overtly wrong about it all. Things aren’t going to go quite as expected...especially after Ivy imbibes a wineglass of “adaptogenic green juice” that happens to include hallucinogenic mushroom elixir.
Wilson’s satirical wit slices through wealthy southern California health culture. So much of what Wilson has been exploring throughout the series has been edging in and around the dark and sinister wish fulfillment of seeing a true champion of the environment go to extremes. At her best, Wilson has been playing razor-sharp comedy against the mind-numbing complexity of one super-powered woman trying to pull the Earth out of the Holocene Extinction. Beyond the social satire, Wilson takes a deep look at the inner emotional life of Ivy on an endearingly deep level.
Over the course of the series, Takara has articulated some impressively deep emotional complexity into Ivy’s face. In the tenth issue of the series, the artist delivers a breathtakingly intricate portrayal of the anti-hero. The functional green jumpsuit and black tank top that she’s been wearing have become as beautifully distinctive as her long, fiery red hair. Takara conjures the bright and sunny southern California atmosphere in bright colors that are made all the more intense by the hallucinogenic episode at the heart of the issue.
Poison Ivy has been a triumph. A real success story. The six-issue mini-series is on its tenth issue, and there are more on the way. Sometime in February, it was announced that the series would be extended indefinitely, and...honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer character...or a nicer creative team. Wilson, Takara, and Prianto have been doing an amazingly sophisticated job with a character who has never really been paired with the right team before. It’s nice to see Ivy getting along so well with the creative team that’s been ushering her through her own title.
