Poison Ivy

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Poison Ivy (real name Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley) is a DC Comics supervillain and is primarily an enemy of Batman. Created by Robert Kanigher, she first appeared in Batman #181 (1966).

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Description and personality

Poison Ivy is a red-headed woman with green eyes who is obsessed with plants, botany and botanical toxicology as well as environmentalism and sees herself as one of "the world's most prominent eco-terrorists" (quote Gotham Girls). She is somewhat misanthropic and at times she has even mentioned that she would like a world solely ruled by plants.

Ivy draws toxins and potions from plants, as well as from her own bloodstream, for use in her crimes. She is usually portrayed as a manipulative seductress, usually dressed in her signature form-fitting green 'bathing-suit' costume. She often is depicted barefoot. Her skin is usually a snow-white alabaster, but in some more-recent appearances she has a soft-green hue.

Ivy is usually insular, preferring the sole company of plants. Contrasting this is her close friendship with Harley Quinn, her recurring partner-in-crime and potentially only human friend. The two even had their own comic mini-series, Harley & Ivy.

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Character history

Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, a promising botanist from Seattle, was 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 attempted to poison her with the herbs, which were deadly and untraceable. She survived this murder attempt and discovered she now had accquired an immunity to all natural toxins and diseases. (World's Finest Comics #252)

Image:Batman181.JPG Post-Crisis, her origins were revised. Isley studied advanced botanical biochemistry university with Alec Holland under Dr Jason Woodrue. Woodrue impersonated LeGrande and poisoned Isley as an experiment, causing her transformation into Poison Ivy. [1] She nearly died twice as a result from these poisonings, driving her insane. The testing also made her barren, and she has treated her plants as children, mothering them ever since. (Batman: Shadow Of The Bat 1995 Annual #3, Batman 1997 graphic novel: Poison Ivy)

Poison Ivy was a member of the original Injustice Gang of the World, which fought the Justice League on several occasions. She also joined the Secret Society of Super-Villains for a mission against the Justice League. Years later, she was coerced into being a member of the Suicide Squad. During this time she used her abilities to enslave Count Vertigo.

She also has been friends with the Joker's sidekick Harley Quinn. Unlike most villain team-ups, their partnership seems to be genuinely rooted in friendship, and Ivy really wants to save Harley from her abusive relationship with The Joker. (Their close friendship, particularly in the animated series, fueled fan-speculation of possible lesbian undertones - enough so that a number of creators have made tongue-in-cheek alusions to the speculation [most notably in the Batman: The Animated Series tie-in comics, and the Joker-Mask comic])

At times Ivy has shown positive, even maternal traits. When Gotham City was destroyed in an earthquake she, rather than fight over territory like most of Batman's enemies, took over Robinson Park and turned it into a tropical paradise. Dozens of children who were orphaned during the quake came to live with her, and she cared for them despite her usual misanthropy. After Batman rescued her and the children from being enslaved by Clayface, he recognized that staying with her was the best thing for them, and they remained in her care until the city was restored.

By that point, the police were adamant that she leave the park and release the children, even though they wished to remain. Ivy planned to martyr herself along with the park rather than have it destroyed by military defolliants, but relented and turned herself in rather than endanger the children.

Poison Ivy came to believe that her powers were killing the children she had looked after, so she got Batman to reverse her powers and make her a normal human being once more. Soon after she was convinced by Hush to take another serum to restore her powers and apparently died in the process. However, when her grave was visited shortly thereafter, it was covered with vine and ivy, creating the impression her death would be short-lived. A short time later Poison Ivy appeared in Gotham Central #32 , killing some corrupt cops who killed one of her orphans, though whether this takes place before or after the aforementioned storyline is unknown.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

"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 increased fanatical vigour, regarding Batman no longer as a main opponent but as a 'hindrance'. Template:Endspoilers

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Powers and abilities

The dangerous experiments placed a deliberate overdose of plant and animal based toxins into her blood stream that make her touch deadly and allowed her to boost her immunity to all poisons, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Some comics have even gone so far as to depict her as more plant than human, breathing CO2 and requiring sunlight to survive.

Ivy is known to be able to seduce men and women alike, often using pheromones to do so. This (and her relationship with Harley Quinn) have led some fans to believe that she is bisexual, although most stories make it clear that Ivy is uninterested in any sort of romantic relationship with humans.

She specializes in hybrids and can create the most potently powerful toxins in Gotham City. Often these are secreted from her lips and administered via a kiss. They come in a number of varieties, from mind controlling drugs to instantly fatal necrotics. Her skin is toxic as well, although contact with it is usually not fatal.

In some adaptations she can control plants via telepathy. For example, in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell she was able to manipulate plants telepathically, 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.

She has been known to carry a cross-bow and a vine whip which she also has used as a lasso. At times, the vine has had thorns on it. She also occasionally uses hand thrown and blowpipe launched poisoned darts.

Poison Ivy's athletic abilities have grown over the course of her career. She has learned a limited style of martial arts fighting. She is a proficient at climbing and leaping. She is a strong and fast swimmer.

In Batman: The Animated Series, her only physical power is an immunity to poison, and when using a poisoned kiss, she uses lipstick poisoned by toxins extracted from a plant. She admits to having a "hyperactive immune system" which prevents her from having children. In The Batman, she can even exhale mind-controlling spores in the form of a blown kiss.

Poison Ivy has been identified by the Swamp Thing as a being with an elemental mystical component, who he called the 'May Queen'. Writers haven't referred to her in this way in quite some time, and it's unknown whether she still retains this mystical identifier, or has lost that for a purely scientific nature.

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In other media

  • In the DC animated universe, Poison Ivy was voice-acted by Diane Pershing. Her first appearance, in Batman: The Animated Series, involved an assassination attempt on Harvey Dent, as retribution for construction over the last habitat of a rare flower. In the earlier days of the Animated series, her meta-human 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", in which she ostensibly reforms, that her unique condition has left her unable to bear children.

Image:GothamGirlsCvr2.jpg

Later in the series, she would become more and more plant-like, her skin turning grayish-white. Ivy also became more humorous and seductive in personality, coinciding with her genuinely sympathetic relationship with Harley Quinn. Although supposedly dying in the episode "Chemistry," she apparently survived and returned in several spin-off series, including "Static Shock," and a the Gotham Girls web-toon, in which she held co-starring role. The character also starred in her own miniseries alongside Harley Quinn, and was given her swan song in the critically acclaimed "Batman Adventures" comic book series, which is stories about Batman's adventures in Gotham City after a break from the Justice League. Apart from a lobotomized Ivy from an alternate universe, she has never appeared directly on Justice League, to the disappointment of fans. Due to the "Bat Embargo," it is unlikely that she ever will.

  • Uma Thurman played Poison Ivy in the film Batman and Robin. This incarnation, boasting over-the-top acting, strange costumes and even stranger hair styles, is largely considered the worst version of the character, a sentiment in line with the over-all derision poured upon the film from fans and critcs alike. This Isley was transformed when she was murdered by her mad scientist boss, and soon fell in love with Mr. Freeze, leading to a partnership to destroy Gotham City.
  • Piera Coppola currently voices Poison Ivy in the animated TV show, The Batman, complete with a new origin with stronger ties to Barbara Gordon. In this Gotham, Poison Ivy was a young environmental activist, and Barbara Gordon's friend. She convinces Barbara to help her with her "protests," which were actually scouting missions on pollutionary companies for her hired mercenary, the corporate saboteur Temblor. In an attack on one such company, a plant mutagen fell on her during a battle between Temblor and the Batman. She awoke in an ambulance afterward and manifested powers similar to her other incarnations, most notably telepathic plant control, and an ability to exhale mind-controlling spores when she blows a kiss at her desired target. She swiftly turned her powers to furthering her ecoterrorist career, before being stopped by Batman and Barbara, in her debut as Batgirl.
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Scientific incongruity

There has been some controversy surrounding Poison Ivy's biology. It has been mentioned that her blood contains chlorophyll which, being a pigment, would theorhetically cause her to have green skin. However, most portrayals of her (particularly earlier ones) depicted her with either ordinary tan, or off-white skin. This has been a source of fan speculation for many years.

In recent years, DC Comics has depicted Ivy with green skin in some comics, although these are an exception to the norm. Although DC has made no real attempt to explain this incongruity, many fans believe that Ivy has the ability to consciously control her own body chemistry, and can change her blood to chlorophyll at will. Evidence for this is her ability to control what sort of poison her lips secrete (she has used types that were deadly, caused unconsciousness, created hallucinations, and put people under hypnotic control) and the fact that her skin is treated as toxic at some times, and harmless at others.

An alternate explanation for in storyline this was offered in Gotham Knights, where a chemical formula of Ivy's falls onto her skin and causes the pigmentation change.

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Trivia

  • Pamela Isley aka 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 modelled 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. At her first appearance, her costume was a one-piece, strapless green bathing suit covered with leaves. Leaves also formed her bracelets, necklace and crown. She also wore green high heels and yellow-green nylon stockings with leaves painted on them. These particulars changed somewhat when she re-appeared.
  • Failing to catch on as a character, Ivy was not heard of again until 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. An origin story was later concocted for her.
  • In Batman: The Animated Series, a shot of Pamela Isley's identification card shows her height as 5'2"(1.57m).
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See also

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External links

fr:Empoisonneuse (Batman) it:Poison Ivy

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