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Poison Ivy

Today is International Women’s Day, and both of us here at Graphic Novelty² have joined forces for the fourth year with some other amazing bloggers to celebrate women under the auspicious blogging series title of:  Fiction’s Fearless Females! For the next few weeks, we will have five bloggers sharing who they believe is a fictional woman to be admired, and we will share each entry of the series on our blog. First up is Michael from My Comic Relief– whose blog is must reading for his brilliant views on comics, Star Wars, social justice, Doctor Who and of course these DC ladies! 

By Michael Miller of My Comic Relief

It’s International Women’s Day and for the fourth year in a row I’ve teamed up with some fellow bloggers – Kalie of Just Dread-full, Jeff of The Imperial Talker, and Nancy and Kathleen of Graphic Novelty2 – to celebrate some of our favorite female characters in all of fiction.  This year I was having trouble deciding on who to write about.  I wanted to rewatch Harley Quinn on HBO Max and read Tee Franklin’s Harley Quinn the Animated Series: The Eat. BANG! Kill. Tour but should I write about Harley Quinn or Poison Ivy?  Then it hit me!  The entire show (and comic which serves as Season 2.5) is anchored in their relationship.  I would be hard pressed to write about one without writing about the other.  Plus, for a series celebrating “fearlessness,” it’s within their friendship where Harley and Ivy find and demonstrate the most incredible courage.  Standing beside each other, they (ultimately) own and face their greatest fears.  So I’m writing about Harley and Ivy and the type of friendship we should all be so lucky to have.

Given the focus of this piece it’ll have major spoilers for S1&2 of Harley Quinn as well as light spoilers for Tee Franklin’s (as brilliant as it is beautiful) Harley Quinn the Animated Series: The Eat. BANG! Kill. Tour.

Continue reading “Fiction’s Fearless Females: Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy” →

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Poison Ivy: Thorns

Pamela Isley is a loner who loves plants. So much so that she releases a gas (toxic to humans, not plants, of course) in a local park in an effort to stop it from being bulldozed and constructed over. A few people get seriously sick, and residents in the surrounding area need to evacuate. This leads one of Pamela’s classmates, Alice Oh, to stay temporarily with Pamela and her father. Though Pamela would rather hang out in the greenhouse her mother donated to her high school than with her peers, Alice is all right. She’s helped Pamela avoid Brett, a guy at school who bothers her. However, Pamela isn’t sure she can trust Alice; especially with the family secrets she and her father keep. As she and Alice get closer, as more than friends, can Pamela open up?

This is a perfect pre-Halloween read. The overall tone is dark, gothic, and creepy. Most of the story takes place in the Victorian Isley mansion, or in settings surrounded by plants. Readers who know that Pamela eventually becomes Poison Ivy will be interested in this origin story, but horror and suspense fans will find plenty to appreciate as well. Pamela’s honest struggles to open up and do the right thing in this story juxtaposed against the knowledge of who she eventually becomes is what makes this read so tense.

What was most interesting to me was the seamless inclusion of feminism into Pamela’s character. She states more than once throughout the book that she has had enough of men controlling her body. It fits within the context of the story (that I can’t go into for spoiler reasons), but also is interesting given the history of the character as a femme fatale who uses her womanly charms to get what she wants. A teenage Pamela standing up for herself, specifically to stop men from taking advantage of her body, added a depth to her character that I hadn’t realized was missing until now. I had good timing reading this shortly after the new abortion laws being passed in Texas (though admittedly, Pamela takes “my body, my choice” to the extreme here!).

Contributing to the suspenseful atmosphere are the murky, muted colors and low lighting in the art. Pamela’s red hair is the brightest thing on most pages, but not by much. The linework is sharp and thin, evoking the titular thorns and reminding readers that no one person or place is safe.

Though you’ll come for the perfectly creepy atmosphere and art, you’ll stay for this queer and feminist representation of Pamela Isley becomes Poison Ivy. Add it to your TBR pile this October!

– Kathleen

Keplinger, Kody and Sarah Kipin. Poison Ivy: Thorns. 2021.

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DC Bombshell Figurine Review – OG Poison Ivy and Deluxe Wonder Woman

Sorry for the change in schedule this week, folks! Nancy had to gently remind me that my queue of book reviews ran out 😅 We’ll be back to our regular post schedule next week. For now, I wanted to share two of the newest additions to my Bombshell collection this month!

We started this month with a killer find. OG Poison Ivy! She was released in one of the earliest waves of DC Bombshell figurines. As a Gotham City Siren and very popular villainess, she sold out relatively quickly, and is now hard to find and very expensive as a result. There is also risk of breakage from all the delicate parts, which will be explained momentarily. My fiancé found ours on eBay, unopened, for only retail price, and promptly scooped her up. Upon receiving her, it’s clear she would have sold out anyway, even if her character hadn’t been so popular.

She is STUNNING. In Ant Lucia’s original artwork, she is on the cover of a catalog for Gotham City Lingerie, and is modeling a new look ;D She’s easily got the most complex design and build of all those we own so far, but it pays off. Ivy herself comes attached to the base, along with the name plate, so you have to attach the vines to the base yourself. One of her vines, the one that wraps around her front, arrived broken. Flexible Styrofoam was wrapped around the “joint” of each vine, where a smaller vine shoots off from the main vine, and the break is at one such joint. It looks natural as is, so for now I’m keeping it that way. It’s a clean break and will be very easy to repair once I get around to it. My fiancé and I are in agreement that she is the crown jewel of our collection, even after picking up the sepia variant!

The deluxe Wonder Woman was at a low price on Amazon, so we picked her up as well. Though I do like the OG WW Bombshell figurine, her pose especially, her expression didn’t translate well from Ant Lucia’s art to the figurine. Her smile is a little wide and unnatural, almost Joker-esque.

The deluxe WW has a more natural expression. Her pose is just as dynamic too! She stands atop a tank, deflecting bullets off her shield and raising her sword in the air as if to say, “Let’s go!” She reminds me of the painting “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugène Delacroix.

The tank, though, I have issues with. It is COMICALLY small in comparison to Wonder Woman herself. It looks like it’s supposed to be crushed and sunken into the ground – but if that’s the case, why not dirty it up a bit? Paint some mud splatters on it, or maybe draw the build out a little bit in the back and around the sides to create a mud puddle? I understand why they didn’t do the second option, as it is already quite heavy… but a little paint would have gone a long way. It just looks too clean! Don’t worry though, I have some ideas to make it look more authentic once my fiancé and I have space to display them ;D

What do you guys think? Are these latest installments a hit or miss for you?

– Kathleen

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Batman: Harley and Ivy (The Deluxe Edition)

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Dini, Paul, Bruce Timm, and Shane Glines. Batman: Harley and Ivy (The Deluxe Edition). 2016.

I feel like a lot of my posts start out this way, but me and my boyfriend were at the comic book store one time… XD He saw this and immediately bought it. We’re both fans of Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, having grown up on all the animated series they’ve created.

There are a couple different stories in here. First, Harley and Ivy attempt to steal a rare zombie plant they plan to use on every citizen in Gotham! Batman manages to thwart their plans, but they escape to South America to harvest the plant at the source. When they get it and Ivy perfects the formula, they decide to do a test run – in Hollywood! Next is a story where the girls kidnap Bruce Wayne so they can go Christmas shopping. Then, they get hold of Robin and use him to plan all their heists! What will Harley do when her jealousy gets the best of her? Another Christmas story follows, where Harley asks Batgirl to help her recover the kidnapped Ivy. Finally, there’s a really cute story from Batman: Black and White where the girls save a little girl from a creepy guy in the absence of any other heroes.

Some other editions of this book have only the first story by Dini and Timm, but since this was the deluxe edition, it had some extras. This book is really funny. I was literally lol’ing through a lot of it XD Even though a lot of it looks like the animated series, it’s not really for kids. The humor and art get kind of racy at times. It wasn’t a problem for me, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving it to anyone under high school. Other than that, it’s a fun read and I really liked it!

– Kathleen

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