Poison Ivy (comics)

Poison Ivy
Promotional art for Batman: Gotham Knights #15 cover. Brian Bolland, artist.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Batman #181 (June 1966)
Created by	Robert Kanigher Sheldon Moldoff
In-story information
Alter ego	Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley
Team affiliations	Birds of Prey Gotham City Sirens Injustice League Injustice Gang Secret Society of Super Villains Suicide Squad S.T.A.R. Labs Super Foes
Notable aliases	Paula Irving
Abilities	Expertise in botany, toxicology, virology Ability to control pathogens and plant life-forms Secretes spores, pheromones, floral toxins and virulence factors to injure, kill, control, or intoxicate Hyperactive immune system: Immunity to all-known pathogens and toxins (such as bacterium, prion, fungusm, protozoan and viruses); prevents her from having children. Semi-mystical connection to the "plant world" through a force called The Green

Poison Ivy (Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley) is a fictional character, a DC Comics supervillainess who is primarily an enemy of Batman. Created by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, she first appeared in Batman #181 (June 1966).^[1]

Poison Ivy is depicted as one of the world's most prominent eco-terrorists. She is obsessed with plants, botany, and environmentalism. She uses toxins from plants and mind controlling pheromones for her criminal activities, which are usually aimed at protecting the natural environment. Fellow villain Harley Quinn became her recurring partner-in-crime and possibly her only human friend. She has proven to be one of Batman's more powerful foes, being one of the few members of his Rogues Gallery to display anything close to superpowers. Pamela Isley a.k.a. Poison Ivy has been portrayed as a love interest for Batman in some comics. In one comic, Ivy was robbing a charity gala Bruce Wayne was attending. Ivy's first kiss was poison, the second its antidote. When they first meet, Ivy's toxic lips planted a seed of toxic rapture in Bruce. But when she later kissed a dying Dark Knight, Ivy unknowingly cured her intended victim and established a budding romantic tension between them.

Creator Robert Kanigher modeled Poison Ivy after Bettie Page, giving her the same haircut and Southern drawl as Page. In her first appearances in 1966, no origin was developed; she was merely a temptress. When she first arrived in Gotham City, her costume was a one-piece, strapless green bathing suit, covered with leaves. Leaves also formed her bracelets, necklace and crown. She wore green high heels and yellow-green nylon stockings with leaves painted on them. These particulars changed somewhat when she re-appeared.

Poison Ivy was promoted after the rise of feminism brought the need for a greater number of more independent female villains in the series. She was also used to replace the increasingly sympathetic Catwoman as a clearly antagonistic female supervillain foil for Batman, and then made further appearances in the Batman comic book series and in Suicide Squad. The second, retconned origin story provided for her by Neil Gaiman in the late 1980s linked her to Swamp Thing and his original Black Orchid as a human-plant hybrid. She has since appeared in starring roles in Gotham City Sirens and Birds of Prey.

In the 1997 film, Batman & Robin, she was portrayed by Uma Thurman. Poison Ivy has been featured in the television series, Batman: The Animated Series and The Batman, brought to life by voice actresses Diane Pershing and Piera Coppola respectively. She is significantly younger on The Batman than in any of her other incarnations - a teenager in fact, who nevertheless proves to be one of the most powerful criminals in the world.

IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time ranked Poison Ivy as #64.^[2] She was ranked 21st in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.^[3]

Publication history

Following the character's initial appearance, Poison Ivy continued to appear in the various Batman comic book series and had a major role in Suicide Squad and the Black Orchid mini-series. An origin story was later retconned for her.

The character was partly inspired by the short story Rappaccini's Daughter,^[4] written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Robert Kanigher has stated that she was originally modeled after Bettie Page.^[5] Artists such as Jim Lee draw her in a green form-fitting one-piece bathing suit.^[6][7]

Fictional character biography

Pre-Crisis

Dr. Lillian Rose,^[8] a promising botanist from Seattle, is seduced by Marc LeGrande into assisting him with the theft of an Egyptian artifact containing ancient herbs. Fearing she would implicate him in the theft, he attempts to poison her with the herbs, which are deadly and untraceable. She survives this murder attempt and discovers she has acquired an immunity to all natural toxins and diseases.^[9]

Post-Crisis: Life in Seattle and Gotham

Following the events of the DC maxi-series comic Crisis on Infinite Earths, which massively retconned DC Universe history and continuity, Poison Ivy's origins were revised in Secret Origins #36, 1988, written by Neil Gaiman.^[8] Pamela Lillian Isley grows up wealthy with emotionally distant parents. She later studies advanced botanical biochemistry at a university with Alec Holland under Dr. Jason Woodrue. Isley, a timid shy girl, is easily seduced by her professor. Woodrue injects Isley with poisons and toxins as an experiment, causing her transformation.^[10] She nearly dies twice as a result of these poisonings, driving her insane. Later, Woodrue flees from the authorities leaving Isley in the hospital for six months. Enraged at the betrayal, she suffers from violent mood swings, being sweet one moment and evil the next. When her boyfriend has a car accident after mysteriously suffering from a massive fungal overgrowth, Isley drops out of school and leaves Seattle, eventually settling in Gotham City.^[11]

She begins her criminal career by threatening to release her suffocating spores into the air unless the city meets her demands. Batman, who appears in Gotham that very same year, thwarts her scheme, and she is incarcerated in Arkham Asylum.^[12] From this point on, she has a kind of obsession with Batman, he being the only person she could not control. Over the years, she develops plant-like superpowers, the most noticeable being a lethal toxin in her lips; she is able to literally kill with a kiss.

In subsequent issues, she states that she only started a life of crime to attain sufficient funds to find a location to be alone with her plants, undisturbed by humanity. A few years later, she attempts to leave Gotham forever, escaping Arkham to settle on a desert island in the Caribbean. She transforms the barren wasteland into a second Eden, and is, for the first time in her life, happy. It is soon firebombed, however, when an American-owned corporation tests their weapons systems out on what they think is an abandoned island. Ivy returns to Gotham with a vengeance, punishing those responsible. After being willingly apprehended by Batman, she resolves that she can never leave Gotham, at least not until the world was safe for plants. From then on, she dedicates herself to the impossible mission of "purifying" Gotham.^[13]

At one point, Batman travels to Seattle to ascertain information on Pamela Isley's life before she became Poison Ivy. Here, Batman states that both of Pamela's parents are dead. When and why they died has been left undetermined.^[11]

While in Arkham, Poison Ivy receives a message through flowers that someone is to help her escape. That night, two women, Holly and Eva, successfully break Ivy out and bring her back to their employer. She is less than happy to discover that it is the Floronic Man, formerly known as Dr. Jason Woodrue, her former college professor that conducted the experiments on her. The only human portion of him remaining is his head, while the rest of his body is plant-based.

After striking a deal with him in the underground tunnels of Gotham, Ivy receives a trunk full of money in return for samples of her DNA. Woodrue intends to combine their DNA to create a "child", all while flooding the streets of Gotham with high-powered marijuana. The purpose of this is to create a world economy run on hemp and to have their offspring control it. Batman intervenes, but is overcome by Woodrue's henchwomen, Holly and Eva. However, Ivy turns on Floronic Man and lets Batman go to fight the intoxicated maniac. In the end, Batman decapitates the Floronic Man, and Ivy escapes with her money.^[14]

At times, Ivy demonstrates positive, even maternal traits. When Gotham City is destroyed in an earthquake, rather than fight over territory like most of Batman's enemies, she holds dominion over Robinson Park and turns it into a tropical paradise. Sixteen children who are orphaned during the quake come to live with her as she sympathizes with them having suffered a traumatic childhood herself.^[15] She cares for them like sons and daughters, despite her usual misanthropy.

That winter, Clayface (Basil Karlo) pays Ivy a visit, hoping to form a bargain with her. This would entail her growing fruits and vegetables, having the orphans harvest them, and him selling the produce to the highest bidder. She wants nothing to do with the plan, and she attempts to kill him with a kiss. Clayface overpowers her, however, and imprisons Ivy and the orphans for six months in a chamber under the park's lake. He feeds her salt and keeps her from the sun to weaken her. Eventually, Batman comes and discovers the imprisoned orphans and Ivy. The two agree to work together to take Karlo down. Batman battles Clayface and instructs Robin to blow up the lake bed above, allowing the rushing water to break apart the mud, effectively freeing Ivy. She fights Karlo, ensnaring him in the branches of a tree and fatally kissing him. She then proceeds to sink him down into the ground, where he becomes fertilizer for Ivy's plants. Batman, originally intending to take the orphans away from Ivy, recognizes that staying with her is what is best for them, and they remain in her care until the city is restored. Also, as part of a bargain to keep her freedom, Batman arranges it so that Ivy provides fresh produce to the starving hordes of earthquake survivors.^[6][16] Soon after, Ivy finds Harley Quinn, who had almost been murdered by the Joker, among the debris of the earthquake and nurses her back to health. The two have been best friends and partners-in-crime ever since.^[17]

After Gotham City is reopened to the public, the city council wants to evict her from the park and send her back to Arkham Asylum, as they are uncomfortable with the thought of a "psychotic eco-terrorist controlling the equivalent of 30-odd square blocks." They also mistakenly believe that the orphans in Ivy's care are hostages. The Gotham City Police Department threaten to spray the park with R.C. Sixty, a powerful herbicide that most certainly would have killed every living plant in the park, including Ivy, and more than likely do harm to the children. Ivy refuses to leave the park to the city and let them destroy the paradise she had created, so she chooses martyrdom. It is only after Rose, one of the orphans, is accidentally poisoned by Ivy that the hardened eco-terrorist surrenders herself to the authorities in order to save the girl's life. Batman says that, as much as she would hate to admit it, Ivy is still more human than plant.^[18]

Later on, she and other Gotham characters are manipulated by the Riddler and Hush. Her task is to hypnotize both Superman and Catwoman, using Catwoman to steal ransom money from Killer Croc after the original plan is interrupted by Batman while Superman serves as a 'bodyguard' when she hides in Metropolis. However, she abandons Catwoman to be killed by Killer Croc, and Batman is able to keep Superman busy in a fight (aided by the Kryptonite ring he was given long ago) long enough for the Man of Steel to break out of the spell. Soon afterwards, the Riddler, who is being chased and attacked by Hush, approaches Ivy and seeks her protection. Ivy, who is angered by the manipulation, battles the Riddler physically and psychologically. She comes to physically dominate her opponent, humiliating Riddler and temporarily breaking his spirit.^[19]

Poison Ivy comes to believe that her powers are killing the children she had looked after, so she seeks Bruce Wayne's help to reverse her powers and make her a normal human being once more. Soon after, she is convinced by Hush to take another serum to restore her powers and apparently dies in the process. However, when her grave is visited shortly thereafter, it is covered with ivy, creating the impression her death would be short-lived.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25]}

Shortly after, Poison Ivy appears briefly in Robinson Park, killing two corrupt cops who killed one of her orphans (although whether this takes place before or after the aforementioned storyline is unknown).^[26]

"One Year Later", Ivy is alive and active. Her control over flora has increased, referred to as being on a par with Swamp Thing or Floronic Man. She also appears to have resumed her crusade against the corporate enemies of the environment with a new fanaticism, regarding Batman no longer as a main opponent, but as a "hindrance."^[27] After arriving back from a year-long absence, Batman discovers that Ivy has been feeding people including "tiresome lovers", "incompetent henchmen", and those who "returned her smile" to a giant plant which would digest the victims slowly and painfully. She refers to these murders as a "guilty pleasure". In an unprecedented event, her victims' souls merge with the plant, creating a botanical monster called Harvest, who seeks revenge upon Poison Ivy. With the intervention of Batman however, she is saved. Poison Ivy is left in critical condition, and the whereabouts of Harvest are unknown.^[27]

In Countdown #37, the Piper and the Trickster are hiding out in a greenhouse, picking fruits and vegetables from the plants. They run into Ivy, who is talking to her plants (presumably being told that Piper and Trickster hurt them), to which she reacts by tying them up in vines with the intention of killing them. She is then shown to have joined the Injustice League Unlimited and is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run.^[28]

In the "Battle For The Cowl" storyline, she is coerced by a new Black Mask into joining his group of villains that aims to take over Gotham. She and Killer Croc unsuccessfully attempt to murder Damian Wayne.

Shortly after, she escapes from Black Mask's control and forms an alliance with Catwoman and Harley Quinn, leading into the ongoing series Gotham City Sirens.

During Hush's ploy to hurt Batman through hurting his loved ones, Hush kidnaps Catwoman and surgically removes her heart. After being saved by Batman, she is operated on by some of the most gifted surgeons in the world, including Doctor Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific. Zatanna also gives her a magic antidote to help heal her wounds. In order to get even with Hush, Selina enlists the help of Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Oracle, Holly Robinson, and Slam Bradley to track down all of Hush's accounts, pilfer them, and leave him penniless. Selina pays Holly, Harley, and Ivy over $30 million each, hoping that they would use the funds to leave Gotham to start fresh somewhere else.^[29] However, Harley uses her money to go on a shopping spree, while Ivy gives her money away to organizations in Madagascar and Costa Rica for reforestation.

After rescuing Catwoman from Boneblaster, a new villain trying to make a name for himself, Poison Ivy takes Catwoman back to Edward Nigma's townhouse. When there, Catwoman sees that Ivy has been keeping the Riddler under mind control so that she and Harley could use his townhouse as a hideout. Here, Catwoman decides that with Gotham City more dangerous than ever with all the gang wars and a new Batman, a partnership with the other two women would be advantageous. However, Ivy fears that Catwoman has lost her edge and prowess, and consults with Zatanna on the nature of Catwoman's injuries. Zatanna responds that Catwoman has psychological wounds that would need healing. Ivy resolves that she and Harley would provide Catwoman with "positive female reinforcement". The three then agree to become a team. However, Harley and Ivy have one condition: they demand that Catwoman reveal to them the true identity of Batman.

Eventually, Ivy and the other Sirens ambush the Riddler at his office (with Ivy using her plants to truss and gag his secretary), telling him that they've been framed for the murder of a young nurse. He agrees to help clear their names, and during the discussion Ivy reveals that she has recently taken up a job at the Gotham division of S.T.A.R. Labs under an assumed name (Dr. Paula Irving).^[30] She is eventually kidnapped and placed in a specialized containment unit by a researcher named Alisa Adams, but escapes and turns the table on her captor by binding her with vines. Ivy initially informs Adams that she plans to kill her, but instead decides to let her live after seeing a photograph of Alisa's young daughter. Ivy then threatens Alisa into keeping her mouth shut about her true identity, telling her that she will change her mind and kill her if she reveals her secret to anyone.^[31]

When Harley Quinn betrays her friends and breaks into Arkham Asylum with the goal of killing the Joker, she ultimately chooses instead to release Joker from his cell, and together the two orchestrate a violent takeover of the facility.^[32] Poison Ivy arrives and tries to convince Harley Quinn that the Joker is evil, but Harley Quinn refuses to believe her and knocks Poison Ivy unconscious. After they are defeated by Catwoman and Batman, Catwoman then tells Poison Ivy that they are no longer friends, after Ivy had drugged Catwoman in an attempt to discover Batman's identity. Poison Ivy is taken in Arkham Asylum.^[33] Ivy soon escapes and ambushes Harley in her cell, binding and gagging her former friend before she can defend herself. Ivy struggles with the decision to execute Harley for her betrayal, but ultimately releases her after realizing that she is still her friend. Together, the two set off to find Catwoman and make her pay for leaving them behind.^[34] The two of them found Catwoman and fought her on the streets. While they were fighting, Catwoman confessed that she saw good in the both of them and only wanted to help them. When she told them that she only kept tabs on them because Batman wanted to keep them under control, Ivy lashed out onto the city by using giant vines to destroy buildings, cursing at Batman for manipulating her. Batman was about to arrest them, but Catwoman helped the two of them escape.^[35]

The New 52

In this timeline of The New 52, Poison Ivy is recruited into the covert-ops group known as the Birds of Prey. Though she is specifically hand-picked by the team's leader Black Canary, the other members of the group protest Ivy's inclusion, citing her violent past and connections to various murders.^[36] These suspicions are proven correct when Ivy poisons the team and forces them to attack corrupt companies she wants to destroy until Katana apparently kills her.^[37] Ivy survives the injuries and returns to Gotham, breaking out Clayface/Basil Karlo in order to manipulate him into becoming her husband. Batman intervenes to help her, mainly because the locations she attacked were the Penguin's properties. Detective Comics 14 ends with Ivy being captured by Penguin's men.^[38] She is buried alive by them, but survives long enough to be rescued by Penguin's right-hand man, Ogilvy, who has taken his boss' businesses after the Joker's return. He proposes an alliance with her.^[39] However, Karlo, who Batman had set free from Ivy's control, tracks down and attacks the villainess; her fate is left unknown.^[40]

Origins

^[41] These origins, in this new DC universe, were presented in a special issue of Detective Comics (#23.1), during the "Villains Month" event in September 2013.

In this timeline of The New 52, Pamela Isley was born with a skin condition that prevented her from leaving her home, the garden was the place where she spent most of her limited time in the outside. Her father constantly beat her mother until he finally murdered her and buried her in the garden. While in college, Pamela sold pheromone pills to other students to study its effects until she was caught by police. She used a powerful version of the pills to mindcontrol the Dean so he would drop the charges and let her graduate from college with honors. While visiting her father in prison, she kissed him with a poison that was secreted from her lips that killed him.

Later she landed an internship in Wayne Enterprises in its Bio-Chem division developing pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications. She was fired after proposing Bruce Wayne to develop chemicals that trigger social or behavioral responses (basically brainwashing). As she was escorted out by security, she accidentally spilled the chemicals she was working with on herself, giving her powers to control plant life and immunity to all poisons and viruses.

Teams and alliances

• Poison Ivy joins Two-Face's gang for a short period of time during Batman: Dark Victory, when she murders crime boss Lucia Viti on Two-Face's orders. She is notably the only member of the gang to be upset by Two-Face's casual murder of fellow gang member Solomon Grundy, a plant-based entity. The gang is broken up after Two-Face's apparent death at the hands of the Joker.

• Poison Ivy is a member of the original Injustice Gang of the World, which fights the Justice League on several occasions.^[42]

• She joins the Secret Society of Super Villains for a mission against the Justice League.^[43] She later joins Alexander Luthor, Jr.'s incarnation of the Society.^[44]

• She is coerced into being a member of the Suicide Squad. During this time, she uses her abilities to enslave Count Vertigo.^[45]

• Her best friend is the Joker's girlfriend Harley Quinn. Unlike most villain team-ups, their partnership seems to be based on genuine friendship, and Ivy sincerely wants to save Harley from her abusive relationship with the Joker. Accordingly, Poison Ivy despises the Joker, and the two exchange vicious banter at every opportunity. In the final storyline of the Gotham City Sirens series, Harley suggests that Ivy may be in love with her, an accusation that stuns her.^[33] The following issue has Poison Ivy acknowledge that she may indeed love Harley, though it is not made clear if her intentions are romantic, or if she merely views Harley as a sister.^[34]

• The partnership between Harley and Ivy has also at times included Catwoman, such as in episodes and issues of the Gotham Girls webtoon and comic book series. In the mainstream DC Universe, the three formed an alliance in the pages of Gotham City Sirens.^[29]

• Aside from having Harley as her ally, Ivy usually works alone. With or without Harley, Poison Ivy is adept at committing crimes and is one of Batman's most lethal enemies thanks to a combination of her intelligence, beauty and power over plants and pheromones.^[46][47]

• Poison Ivy would later be invited to join the Birds of Prey by Black Canary during The New 52 reboot. Katana and Starling reject the idea and even attack Ivy, but after a brief scuffle, the women begin working together as a team.

Powers and abilities

The dangerous experiments that transformed Pamela into Poison Ivy placed a deliberate overdose of plant and animal based toxins into her blood stream that make her touch deadly while also allowing her to boost her immunity to all poisons, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. This immunity also includes Joker venom.^[48] Some comics have even gone so far as to depict her as more plant than human, breathing CO₂ and requiring sunlight to survive.

Despite retaining in her earlier appearances her Caucasian, red-haired appearance, in time the amount of vegetable toxins and chlorophyll in her tissue tinted her skin permanently green. After years of practice, she regained the ability to consciously control her appearance, restoring herself to an almost fully human facade, with only her lips and eyes tinted a bright shade of green.

Ivy's body produces pheromones that make people susceptible to mind control around her, although strong-minded people like Batman are usually capable of resisting. She was even once able to control Superman with the use of kryptonite and ordered him to fight Batman in a fierce battle that Batman managed to survive.^[44][49][50]

She specializes in hybrids and can create the most potently powerful floral toxins in Gotham City. Often these toxins are secreted from her lips and administered in her preferred way, a poisonous kiss, usually after professing false love or affection for her victim. They come in a number of varieties, from mind-controlling drugs to instantly fatal toxins.

In some adaptations, she can control plants with her mind. For example, while in Arkham, she was able to manipulate and animate plants, using roots to form supports for a tunnel she and another inmate named Magpie were digging to escape, and also spawning glowing fungi to entertain Magpie.^[51]

Poison Ivy is identified by the Swamp Thing as a being with an elemental mystical component, whom he calls the "May Queen".^[52] Writers have not referred to her in this way in quite some time. Ivy also shows capabilities of using the Green to communicate over great distances, as she manifests in a vase of roses in Zatanna's dressing room to talk to the magician.^[53]

Poison Ivy carries, on her current costume, a certain amount of live vines: coupled with her natural ability to commune with plant life, they act as weaponry, or defensive/grabbing appendages. Their supply is, however, limited.^[54]

Ivy's capabilities were greatly reduced in Batman: The Animated Series; her only physical power is an immunity to poison. Her deadly kiss was only possible with a special lipstick poisoned with toxins extracted from a plant.^[55] She admits to having a "hyperactive immune system" which prevents her from having children.^[56] In The Batman, she can even exhale mind-controlling spores in the form of a blown kiss.

Sexuality

Although Poison Ivy's sexuality has never been directly identified in comic books, she indicates an attraction to both men and women. But an interview in Wizard Magazine of Paul Dini suggests that she is pansexual and has no standards as to love.^{[citation needed]}

Males

• She says numerous times that she is in love with Batman and even expresses a sexual attraction for his "perfect physique". ^[12][13] Although these occurrences are placed close to the beginning of Batman's career, Ivy reveals that she still harbors feelings for Batman. ^[57]
• At one point, she is drawn to Two-Face and attempts to seduce him. She kisses him without an intent to poison him, but is rebuffed by a Harvey Dent who is still pining after his estranged wife Gilda. ^[47]
• During a gathering of female super villains, she refers to Deadshot, a former teammate from the Suicide Squad, as a "stud-muffin". ^[58]
• During her time working with Hush, she can be seen considering a relationship with him when offered and grows closer to Bruce Wayne. ^[59]

Females

• After manipulating Catwoman, Ivy states to her, "No man or woman can resist me." ^[49]
• She forcibly kisses Supergirl (her first on-panel kiss with another woman). However, the purpose of this (storyline wise) is to determine whether Supergirl is susceptible to Ivy's poisons as Superman had been. ^[44]
• Her relationship with Harley Quinn has frequently been used as a point of reference to support the theory of her lesbianism or bisexuality. This is due in part to the non-continuity pinups Bruce Timm drew of the two characters hugging, the visual innuendos in the Batman: the Animated Series episode "Harley and Ivy", and the Batgirl one-shot by Paul Dini in which Barbara Gordon asks Harley about the "close friendship" that she and Ivy share (to which Harley sarcastically responds that people say the same rumors about Batgirl and Supergirl).
• In Detective Comics #823, written by Dini, Batman discovers that Ivy has a DVD of her feeding victims to a mutated pitcher plant. It is heavily implied that Ivy receives sexual gratification from viewing this homemade snuff film; she specifically states, after Batman shows one clip from it to her and Robin, that "Natalie put on a much better show" than the male victim in the clip seen.

Other versions

JLA: Created Equal

In JLA: Created Equal, Ivy and Swamp Thing team up to mentally travel through the Green, to try and discover what exactly caused the event which wiped out almost every male on the planet. But the trip is too much for her and it shatters her mind.

Batman: Crimson Mist

In Batman: Crimson Mist, Ivy is one of the many villains whom the now vampiric Batman kills for blood, the vampire Batman's presence causing her plants to wither around him as he gives Ivy the kiss she always wanted, commenting that he could only want her while in the darkness and decay of corruption. Her head is apparently left at GCPD headquarters after her demise.

Elseworlds

• In Batman & Demon: A Tragedy, Ivy is characterized as an elfen healer. She gives Bruce Wayne a cure for his night terrors, only to be slaughtered by Etrigan the Demon.

• In Justice League International Annual #5, published under the Elseworlds banner, Ivy is one of 10 superhumans who has made herself known to the public. In this story, Ivy has the power to seduce and control men, as well as the ability to secrete poison from her touch, willingly.

JLA/Avengers

In JLA/Avengers #3, Poison Ivy appears as a servant of Krona and attacks Aquaman and the Vision as a part of a group of villains. Poison Ivy strangles Aquaman in vines but is blasted by Iron Man and defeated.

Flashpoint

In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Poison Ivy is subsequently killed by Batman.^[60]

In other media

Television

• Poison Ivy appears in several series for the DC animated universe voiced by Diane Pershing.
  • In Batman: The Animated Series, she first appears in "Pretty Poison" where she is involved an assassination attempt on Harvey Dent as retribution for construction over the last habitat of a rare flower.^[55] In the earlier days of the animated series, her metahuman characteristics (such as her immunity to toxins) were stated on many occasions, portraying her as a human with an extreme affinity for plants. She mentions in "House and Garden" where she ostensibly reforms that her hyper-immune system has left her unable to bear children.^[56]
  • In The New Batman Adventures, she was aesthetically revamped to look more plant-like and her skin turning pale greenish-white.^[61] She also became more humorous and seductive in personality, coinciding with her genuinely friendly relationship with Harley Quinn. Her fanatical mindset regarding the despoiling of plants and the ecosphere was also greatly reduced. She supposedly dies in a shipwreck in the episode "Chemistry".^[62]
  • She returns in the Static Shock episode "Hard As Nails". She and Harley open a "support and cure" website that would lure female metahumans to Gotham claiming that it's a clinic to cure metahumans. When Static pursues a classmate that calls herself Nails to Gotham, he ended up running into Batman and ended up ambushed by Harley and Ivy. When it came to a heist upon a ship carrying gold, she and Harley doublecross her only for Static and Batman to save her. During the conflict, Static's powers couldn't work on Ivy's plants but weren't immune to Nails' claws. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn were defeated in the end.
  • Poison Ivy had a co-starring role in the Gotham Girls web-toon.
  • In the Justice League series episode "A Better World", an alternate universe version of the character appears only once in a lobotomized form. She is a prisoner at Arkham Asylum and she is also allowed to work as the prison's gardener. Bruce Timm stated that he had turned down pitches for Poison Ivy episodes on Justice League so they could focus on new characters and storylines, only bringing back a minimal number of villains from previous shows.^[63]

• Poison Ivy appears in the animated TV show The Batman voiced by Piera Coppola. This incarnation is complete with a new origin and rose-like hairstyle and dress as well as stronger ties to Barbara Gordon. Poison Ivy is a high school student and environmental activist, but she was also Barbara Gordon's best friend. Prior to her first appearance, she was sentenced to a youth detention center repeatedly for delinquent acts during her protests. She convinces Barbara to help her with her "protests," which were actually scouting missions on polluting companies for her hired mercenary, the corporate saboteur Temblor (voiced by Jim Cummings). She uses a voice scrambler in order to recruit Temblor to carry out her missions of ecoterrorism. During one such mission, a plant mutagen (referred to as "chlorogene") falls on her during a battle between Temblor and the Batman. She awakes in an ambulance afterward and manifests powers similar to her other incarnations, most notably psionic plant control, and an ability to exhale mind-controlling spores when she blows a kiss at her desired target. She swiftly turns her powers to furthering her ecoterrorist career, and takes the name Poison Ivy, before being stopped by Batman and Barbara in her debut as Batgirl. In the fifth season premiere, she is forced into helping Lex Luthor take control of Superman by using her mind-controlling spores and lacing them with Kryptonite dust.

• Poison Ivy appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold voiced by Jennifer Hale in "Chill of the Night!" and later by Vanessa Marshall in following appearances. In "Chill of the Night!", Poison Ivy appears among other villains in an auction for a supersonic weapon held by arms dealer Joe Chill. When Chill asks the villains for protection against Batman and admits his role in creating him, Poison Ivy and the others try to kill him, but Batman stops them. Poison Ivy later appears in the teaser of "The Mask of Matches Malone!". She and her army of henchwomen (whom she dubs her "Flower Children") kidnap Batman and she tries to seduce him into becoming her king. After Batman refuses, she orders her guards to feed him to a giant Venus Flytrap. Before the creature can consume Batman, Black Orchid (disguised as one of Ivy's henchwomen) comes to his rescue. Black Orchid frees Batman and they both work together to defeat Ivy. She also has a key role in the opening of "Crisis: 22,300 Miles Above the Earth", in which she is present at Batman's roast. She later makes cameos in "Knights of Tomorrow", "Joker: The Vile and the Villainous" and "Mitefall".

• Poison Ivy appears in the Young Justice episode "Revelations" voiced by Alyssa Milano. She is seen as a member of the Injustice League whom serve as proxies of The Light (Project Cadmus' Board of Directors).^[64] Poison Ivy works with her teammates to create a massive plant creature that attacks various cities across the globe, with the intention of extorting a hefty ransom from the United Nations. Robin and Miss Martian successfully destroy the creature, and the Injustice League members are soon apprehended by the Justice League.
• Poison Ivy makes a cameo appearance in the Super Best Friends Forever episode "Time Waits for No Girl".

Film

• Uma Thurman played Poison Ivy in the film Batman & Robin. Dr. Pamela Isley is a botanist, working for Wayne Enterprises' arboreal preservation project in South America. She is experimenting with Venom to create animal-plant cross-breedings capable of fighting back and protecting the world's plants from "the thoughtless ravages of man". However, her senior colleague, Dr. Jason Woodrue, steals some of her Venom samples in order to transform a prisoner into Bane. Isely is outraged that her research has been corrupted, and when she rejects Woodrue's advances, he tries to murder her by sending her crashing into shelves lined with beakers containing Venom and other animal-plant toxins and chemicals. She is transformed into a poisonous hybrid of human and plant. She kills Woodrue by administering a kiss with her venom-filled lips, and vows to establish botanical supremacy over the world. She allies herself with Bane and Mr. Freeze, and plans to freeze the Earth with a giant freezing cannon, which will destroy the human race and enable Poison Ivy's mutant plants to "overrun the globe". She ensures Freeze's cooperation by pulling the plug on his cryogenically frozen wife, Nora, and convincing him that Batman had done it. Ivy then lures an infatuated Robin to her garden hideout and tries to kill him with a venomous kiss; the attempt fails, however, as Robin had coated his lips with rubber. A furious Ivy throws Robin into her lily pond and entangles Batman in her vines, but they are able to free themselves when Batgirl unexpectedly arrives and traps the villainess in her own floral throne. After Batman, Robin and Batgirl foil the villains' plan, Ivy is imprisoned in Arkham Asylum with a vengeful Freeze as her cellmate. ^[65] Though Batman & Robin was almost universally panned, Thurman's performance as Ivy was widely regarded as one of the high points of the film.

Video games

Poison Ivy has appeared in most of the Batman video games over the years. In most of these games, Ivy does not fight Batman directly and usually watches in the background while Batman fights one of her plant monsters. She appeared as a boss in:

• Batman: The Animated Series
• The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Super NES.
• The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega CD.
• Batman: Chaos in Gotham
• Batman and Robin, the video game adaptation of the movie.
• Batman Vengeance
• Batman: Dark Tomorrow^[66][67]
• Poison Ivy has two cameo appearances in Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, first as a hallucination induced by the Scarecrow, and later as an imprisoned inmate of Arkham Asylum.
• In Batman: Gotham City Racer, Poison Ivy's vehicle was playable.
• In late June 2008, it was revealed in a Batman comic that she was a playable character in Lego Batman: The Videogame with her sound effects done by Vanessa Marshall.^[68] She is able to jump higher than any other character (an ability given to all female villains), increase the growth rate of particular plants, blow long-range poison kisses, and give up-close poison kisses to foes which, in turn, fall apart.
• Poison Ivy appears in Batman: Arkham Asylum voiced by Tasia Valenza. She acts as the penultimate boss. Her appearance was revamped to the naked-goddess persona, wearing only an orange prison-issued shirt and foliage panties. A 3D model of the character can also be unlocked.
• Poison Ivy appears in DC Universe Online voiced by Cyndi Williams. Sketches of her are viewable on the official website.
• Poison appears in Batman: Arkham City with Tasia Valenza reprising the role.^[69] She has taken up residence in an abandoned hotel within Arkham City's districts, isolating herself from humanity and relying on thugs seduced with plant toxins for protection. Late in the game's storyline, Ivy forges a shaky alliance with Catwoman in return for an unusual favor following a brief fight with her. She promises support from mutated plants if the latter will break into Hugo Strange's heavily guarded TYGER vault and recover a rare flower which was seized from her upon incarceration. After the player has successfully completed this stage however, Catwoman spitefully reneges on their agreement by destroying the plant rather than attempt escape with it. Poison Ivy is misled into blaming Strange for this calamity and subsequently swears revenge on Gotham City. Her costume in this is the same as the one she uses in Batman: Arkham Asylum.
• Poison Ivy appears in Batman: Arkham City Lockdown voiced by Amy Carle.
• Poison Ivy appears in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes voiced by Laura Bailey.
• Poison Ivy appears as a support card in the iOS version of Injustice: Gods Among Us, assisting Harley Quinn character cards. She is depicted with her New 52 look. She isn't seen in the console version of the game, but one of her poisonous plants is an interactable item in the Arkham Asylum stage, and she is mentioned on different S.T.A.R. Labs missions.

Miscellaneous

• In issue #16 of Batman Adventures (vol. 2), a shocking revelation is made in a short story "The Flower Girl". After too many years of exposing herself to toxins, and modifying her own DNA to the point of losing most of her humanity, a dying Poison Ivy makes her way to Dr. Holland, who is practicing science in a remote rural cottage. Barely alive, she pleads to Holland to save her life, but he explains to her that there is nothing he can do. Shortly after, she dies in his arms, and collapses into a pile of dead plants. Holland's grieving is interrupted by another Pamela Isley, whose character design matches her appearance in Batman: The Animated Series, rather than her later redesign. She states that this Ivy was a vegetable creature from a few years back, that she had created as a distraction for Batman, in order to escape from her old supervillain life in Gotham. She also says that Harley would miss her, and would be lonely if she was not around. This leads readers to believe^{[citation needed]} that the revamped Poison Ivy that appeared in The New Batman Adventures, as well as the subsequent stories that followed, was a copy all along, and that the real Pamela Isley had left her life of crime to run away during the two-year gap between both series. The comic ends with the original Pamela Isley saying "I hope it didn't cause too much trouble”.

• The character also co-starred in the three-issue comic book miniseries Harley and Ivy, and was given her swan song in the critically acclaimed^{[citation needed]} The Batman Adventures comic book series, which contains stories about Batman's adventures in Gotham City after a break from the Justice League.

• The Coasters' song Poison Ivy was used for the Batman & Robin movie's original soundtrack in 1997, as a cover by Me'Shell NdegéOcello. Despite the song's name, Poison Ivy wasn't the inspiration for this song but, due to the lyrics describing a girl with a very similar attitude to Ivy, it was quickly associated to the character.

• Poison Ivy is portrayed by Jaime Lyn Beatty in StarKid Productions' web-musical, Holy Musical B@man!

See also

• List of Batman Family adversaries

References

Further reading

• Daniels, Les. Batman: The Complete History. Chronicle Books, 1999. ISBN 0-8118-4232-0
• Beatty, Scott, et al., The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual. Quirk Books, 2005. ISBN 1-59474-023-2

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Poison Ivy

• Poison Ivy on DC Database, an external wiki, a DC Comics wiki
• Poison Ivy on the DC Animated Universe Wiki, an external wiki
• The Origin of Poison Ivy - www.dccomics.com
• Poison Ivy on the official Superman/Batman Adventures homepage
• UGO's World of Batman - Gotham Girls: Poison Ivy

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