In this review of Poison Ivy #41, Poison Ivy deals with the fallout following her deadly attack on the “tech czar” Marie Henley.
Poison Ivy #41 main cover by Jessica Fong (DC Comics)
POISON IVY #41
Written by G. WILLOW WILSON
Art by DAVIDE GIANFELICE
Main Cover: JESSICA FONG
Variant Covers: NOOBOVICH, KYUYONG EOM, CHAY RUBY
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 2/4/26
This comic book review contains spoilers
Following the murder of tech guru “Marie Henley” from Poison Ivy #40, Ivy attempts to flee the scene. However, having turned Gotham City into a militarized police state, Commissioner Savage’s troops are able to neutralize and incarcerate Ivy before she can get away.
She wakes up in a call with half a dozen Falcone family minions and Great White Shark. She finds out from one of the inmates that while the law-and-order fanatics want her to be thrown in SuperMax prison, everyone else sees her as a hero.
Meanwhile, Janet-from-HR meets with Juhi from the Mayor’s office to see if the Mayor’s office will provide any leniency towards Ivy considering the broader circumstances in Gotham. Juhi makes it clear that they will not be supporting Ivy’s police brutality before she goes into a closet to conjure a metaphysical entity to spy on Janet going forward.
Back in jail, Great White Shark convinces Ivy to leverage her cult following into mainstream support for a political bid for Mayor. Once Ivy gets her fanmail and Janet and Harley show up for moral support, she decides to run.
Analysis
Poison Ivy #41 brings back series writer G. Willow Wilson and last month’s artist Davide Gianfelice to tell a status-quo altering story for Ivy. The story of Ivy murdering an evil tech guru is a not so subtle reference to the 2024 shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. The Gotham City citizen who helps Ivy escape the crime scene goes as far as to say “I can’t say I condone murder, but that tech boss lady was guilty of murder herself, and worse. She just used fancier words to describe it,” pretty much parroting the pro-Mangione sentiment that was widely seen online.
The interpolation of real world events is nothing new for this book, but this outing does nothing to comment or dissect the actual moral grey area of political violence. The incident is used as more of a prop for Ivy to gain public support in a way that feels in character to both herself and the Gotham City-psyche at large. Ivy’s journey from committing this impulsive assasination to deciding to run for Mayor also feels stilted and not entirely in character. I suppose you could argue that her leadership in the Order of the Green Knight planted a seed (hehe) for political leadership, but there’s no reason why she would suddenly develop an interest in the institutions of Gotham City as a career supervillain. Really, this just feels like a DC mandate that was handed down to Wilson which she tried to make the most out of with her characteristic socially aware writing style. It feels like a big leap but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested to see where it goes.
The scene between Janet and Juhi feels pretty superfluous except for the closet deity which did pique my interest even though there’s not much to go on. It also seems like they’re intentionally obscuring the identity of “Mayor Horgan” unless I’ve missed their appearance in Fraction’s run on Batman.
Davide Gianfelice does a serviceable job with the issue’s art although I do miss Marcio Takara and am hoping he makes a return soon. Something about the way Gianfelice draws Ivy feels wildly inconsistent and you end up with panels like the top of page 4 which are quite unflattering. A lot of the faces look like he forgot to erase some proportional guide lines, and his depiction of Janet basically looks like an entirely new character. On the plus side, his splash panels generally look good and Arif Prianto provides great coloring as usual.
Final Thoughts
A decent status-altering issue that piques my interest for the future. I just wish Ivy’s motivations were a bit more clear and consistent issue to issue.
