Talk:Poison Ivy (character)/Premerge
 | This Comics WikiProject page is an archive, log collection, or currently inactive page; it is kept primarily for historical interest. |  |
Untitled
[edit]- For other uses of the phrase "Poison ivy", see Poison ivy (disambiguation).
| Poison Ivy | |
|---|---|
 Cover to Batman: Gotham Knights #15 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 | Pamela Lillian Isley |
| Team affiliations | None |
| Abilities | Expert botanist/botanical toxicologist, able to create new plant species and plant/animal hybrids. Can exude various floral toxins to injure or intoxicate. Immunity to all toxins. Has the ability to manipulate plants and has a semi-mystical connection to the plant world through the force of nature called the Green. |
Poison Ivy is a DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of Batman. Created by Robert Kanigher, she first appeared in Batman #181 (1966).
Description
[edit]Poison Ivy is a very attractive red-headed woman, dressed in a form-fitting, green costume, who is obsessed with botany and botanical toxicology. She draws toxins and potions from plants, as well as from her own bloodstream, and uses them for her crimes. Ultimately, she seeks to destroy human life and create a world ruled by plants. She is usually portrayed as a seductress and uses her sex appeal to manipulate men to her advantage.
Character history
[edit]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. 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, she was not heard of 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.
Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, a botanist from Seattle, was once a very intelligent scientist who knew just about everything about plants. That is, until a scientist named Jason Woodrue (aka Floronic Man) conducted experiments upon her. The experiments placed toxins in her blood stream that make her touch deadly and allow her to be immune to all poisons, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. They also made her barren, and she has treated her plants as children, mothering them, ever since. Thus, she became Poison Ivy. She would become more plantlike later during a confrontation with Catwoman, when one of her formulas fell on her, giving her green skin. In some adaptations she can control plants. 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.
Being physically attractive, Ivy is known to be able to seduce men and women alike, often using plant pheromones to do so. She specializes in hybrids and can create the most potently powerful toxins in Gotham City. In the comics and the 1997 film Batman And Robin, the toxins her body produces are often administered to victims with a kiss. 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 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.
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.
Another positive side of her was shown when she took care of some children after an earthquake that leveled Gotham City left them orphans.
Poison Ivy recently came to believe that her powers were killing the children she 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 it was covered with vine and ivy, creating the impression her death would be shortlived. A short time later Poison Ivy returned 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.
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.
In other media
[edit]- In Batman: The Animated Series and spin-offs, Poison Ivy was voice-acted by Diane Pershing. Her first appearance involved an assassination attempt on Harvey Dent, whom she was dating at the time, as retribution for the construction of Stonegate Penitentiary. The prison was built over a field that was the last habitat for a rare flower. In the earlier days of the Animated series, her meta-human characteristics, such as her immunity to toxins, were downplayed or outright ignored, instead 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.
Later in the series, she would become more and more plant-like, her skin turning chalk-white, and gaining the ability to control plants and produce acids from her body. She also underwent something of a personality change. While she still had a deep sense of devotion and love toward plants, she no longer seemed to have the fanatical mindset she once possessed toward them. Ivy also became more humorous and seductive in personality; this coincides with the depiction of her relationship with Harley Quinn as genuninely sympathetic. Although she apparantly died in the episode "Chemistry," she would return again in several spin-off serieses, including "Static Shock," "Justice League" and a co-starring role in the Gotham Girls web-toon.
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.
- Uma Thurman played Poison Ivy in the film Batman and Robin. This incarnation, boasting strange costumes and even stranger hair styles, is largely considered the worst version of the character. 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" (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 Tremblor and the Batman. She awoke in an ambulance afterward and manifested powers similar to her other incarnations, most noteably 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.
There has been some controversy surrounding Poison Ivy. Some comic book adaptations show that Ivy has chlorophyll (not blood)flowing through her veins. If in fact you did have chlorophyll in place of blood your skin would be green, because chlorophyll is a pigment. In most comics, movies, and television, Ivy is shown with white skin. This has been a source of controversy for many years. In recent years, DC Comics has depicted Ivy with green skin in some comics, although most keep her with white skin. 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 chlorophyl 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.