Poison Ivy #47: Bad Seeds Prologue

The walls are closing in in Poison Ivy #47 as the creative team sets the stage for the new Batman event, Bad Seeds. Relative to recent issues, Poison Ivy #47 is more plot heavy. It lacks the nuance that has provided opportunity to deliver commentary on the real world. That said, Poison Ivy #47’s heavy focus on the Parliament of Trees storyline and the effort to position it for Bad Seeds doesn’t lose track of Ivy’s role as mayor. Indeed, her strategy to get the Parliament of Trees off her back requires her to be mayor to succeed.

Her heavy-handed actions have cost her almost every ally she had, and now it’s time for desperation and vengeance. Ivy’s reign as mayor has been a clear car crash storyline. She has been her own worst enemy from that start. Wilson never lost track of Ivy’s totalitarian-esque tendencies, so even readers who might have been rooting for her to succeed could see the fall coming. This “saw it coming from a mile away” quality makes Ivy’s fall especially satisfying because she truly earned her fate.

Poison Ivy #47 also brings emotional power via Harley Quinn. Janet from HR seeks Harley out in the hopes that Harley can temper Ivy’s behavior. Wilson goes in a somewhat unexpected direction by not writing Harley as reflexively supportive. Harley wants to see some changes made before she gets involved and one of those is for Janet to go away. Wilson ties this into both plot and ongoing character arcs by making it about Janet’s enabling qualities as opposed to something based purely on jealousy or rivalry. Janet has been a part of the series for so long that this has actual stakes.

Characters are expressive to the point of over exaggeration. Fernandez’s style plays into the strong emotions at play in the story, whether that be Ivy’s anger and resentment or Janet’s shock and worry. At times Fernandez’s style, with its slightly too big mouths and too wide eyes almost goes too far, potentially working against the more serious if not extreme feelings behind Wilson’s story. But the art never quite gets to that point and ultimately it blends well with the narrative.

These exaggerated instances aside, most of the characters lack significant detail. In the multiple instances of larger crowd sequences, the characters are closer to blank slates. It works well enough, but in an issue where Ivy is responding so extremely to protests from Gotham citizens, additional detail on those citizens would be welcome.

Arif Prianto’s coloring is vivid throughout the issue. Paired with Leandro Fernandez’s tendency toward exaggeration when it comes to emotional moments, the coloring at times pushes in the direction of being over the top. There is limited nuance to much of the issue.

There is no shortage of shouting and otherwise emphasized dialogue throughout Poison Ivy #47. Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou uses irregular, often spiked dialogue bubbles and harsher fonts for this dialogue. Like Fernandez’s exaggerated style of character expressions, these lettering choices add to the high energy of the issue.