In Poison Ivy #22, the creative team delivers a book that is light on story and heavy on action, culminating in one big battle royale between Ivy and Jason Woodrue.
Poison Ivy #22 by G. Willow Wilson, Haining & Arif Prianto. Cover by Jessica Fong.
Title: Poison Ivy #22
Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artist: Haining
Colors: Arif Prianto
Letters: Hassan Otsamne-Elhaou
Main Cover: Jessica Fong
Variant Cover Artists: Frank Cho, Sabine Rich, R. Kikuo Johnson, Elizabeth Taroque
Release Date: May 7, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers
The Story
In this issue, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Solomon Grundy, and Janet from HR face off against a mutated Jason Woodrue. In the midst of the conflict, Woodrue summons all the labia-infected human zombies to attack the others. Ivy uses her powers to mutate into an “OP” plant creature herself as Janet, Grundy, and Croc take shelter in their hunting shack. Ultimately, Ivy attempts some form of self-sacrifice, hoping that she’ll talk down Woodrue along with herself. My guess is, we’ll be seeing them both again soon.
Analysis
Some people like comics that are just 22 pages of one extended action scene, and that’s what we get here. For me, this is even more uninteresting than Ivy’s disappointing origin story arc we just resolved in Poison Ivy #21. This entire conflict still hinges on the fact that Ivy and Woodrue previously had a relationship together despite Woodrue being given no depth in this entire run. He’s a pure-evil mustache-twirling villain, and the fact that he’s still referring to his plan as a science “experiment” is absurd. What is the experiment now? What will happen if Ivy wipes out all human life?
At times, G. Willow Wilson seems to show a self awareness of the ludicrous nature of this dynamic such as in Ivy’s line: “it’s difficult after having spent your young adult life idolizing someone, to realize that beneath the genetically altered plant-hybrid zombie lord is a complete loser.” It’s a funny line, sure, but it also undermines Ivy’s intelligence in the entire last arc of this run. At this point, it feels like nobody in this series is acting rationally or comprehensively; it’s just a plant-fueled kaiju fight. And a subpar one at that.
The few moments we get with Killer Croc, Janet from HR, and Solomon Grundy are just padding to meet the page requirement. That storyline has had no interesting developments in months, and this issue is no exception. If this series is to keep going, it is in need of a major reset. The cliffhanger at the end indicates, we’re still going to be milking this Woodrue labia storyline for at least another few issues. But after the sporadically interesting origin story detour, the main story feels more than ever like it’s run out of steam. To say this issue could’ve been an email is an understatement, it could have been a subject line: Ivy vs. Woodrue. And we won’t even know the outcome for a whole other month.
Poison Ivy #22 by G. Willow Wilson, Haining & Arif Prianto. Cover by Jessica Fong. (Image courtesy of DC Comics.)
The Art
Marcio Takara’s absence is noticeable here. Haining does a decent enough job approximating Takara’s style, to where the change is not immediately noticeable from the opening pages. As the issue goes on, however, one may start to notice a dip from Takara’s innovative page layouts and character subtitles that have served to elevate weaker issues in the past. There are times, such as when Ivy spreads herself out along the “mycelium network,” that it’s hard to tell what is even happening without Takara’s psychedelic artwork to distract us. This is true of the issue’s climax as well.
To be fair, Arif Prianto and even Hassan Otsamne-Elhaou do what they can to bridge that gap with their usual vibrant colors and unique speech bubbles. At the end of the day, this is still a decent-looking issue despite the decline in quality from recent months.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advance copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
