Poison Ivy # 11: The Oldest Habits Die Hardest

The newest issue of the now-GLAAD-Award-winning series Poison Ivy is one of the series’ most poignant. G. Willow Wilson’s opening lines (“All living beings want one thing. To survive. A parasitic fungus wants it just as ferociously as a lion or an eagle or a human being.”) are incredibly moving. Poison Ivy #11 is character-driven, and Wilson’s compelling script and Marcio Takara’s lively visuals make it easy to get drawn in. The issue’s only misfire is its minor villains, who reinforce troubling stereotypes about fat people, associating them with greed and gluttony. That said, the issue’s real villain is Ivy herself as she continues struggling to form new habits and move beyond old (homicidal) patterns. 

Takara’s artwork moves fluidly between the protagonist’s two sides: Pamela Isley, the Sapphic sad-sack, and Poison Ivy, the Deadly Force of Nature. As always, the comic is strongest during psychedelic scenes, when shapes melt together, boundaries blur, and Ivy is at her most terrifying. In these moments, colorist Arif Prianto lets generally grounded earth tones give way to vibrant neons, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou exchanges more standard speech bubbles for wobbly-edged multicolored bubbles, resulting in a delicious sense of delirium.