After being on the run for so long, Poison Ivy makes her return to Gotham City. However, she does not receive a warm welcome from the local authorities upon her arrival. Instead, she finds herself coming into direct conflict with Commissioner Vandal Savage, and is presented with an ultimatum that could force Ivy to compromise herself and her mission.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Poison Ivy #40!
Poison Ivy #40 opens with a narration from Ivy ruminating on her love-hate relationship with Gotham City. Like many of us, Ivy has a complicated relationship with the place that she calls home. Ivy says of Gotham, “It’s the place where I first heard the earth screaming. The place where I fell in love. I’ve shed so much blood in these streets that the asphalt might as well be part of my body. I hate leaving it…almost as much as I hate coming back”.
For Pamela Isley, Gotham City is intrinsically tied to her identity and is the place where she found her purpose in life through her transformation to Poison Ivy, and where she experienced love and belonging for the first time. But it is also a place that represents pain, and perhaps even failure. Returning to Gotham brings these emotions to the surface and forces Ivy to confront the harsh and unpleasant realities surrounding Gotham and her contradicting sentiments on what her home represents to her. It is a deeply human aspect of Ivy that affords the reader new insights into the character. With these thorny feelings towards Gotham City, it is understandable that Ivy would feel apprehensive about coming back home to a place that has not always been kind to her.
Once back in Gotham City, Ivy wastes no time in getting to work. Her first target: the headquarters of a petrochemical corporation. After her team succeeds in blowing up the empty headquarters, Ivy willingly turns herself over to the GCPD in order to obtain a face-to-face with Commissioner Savage. The following morning, attempts to negotiate with Savage as a representative from the Mayor’s office sit in on their meeting as an “interdepartmental liaison”, due to “allegations of police misconduct”. These allegations prove to be correct when Savage brutally inflicts violence on Ivy to demonstrate his power.
Ivy uses Gotham City as a training ground for the Order of the Green Knight in order to catch the attention of Commissioner Savage. Credit: DC Comics
Ivy soon realizes that Savage has no interest in negotiations and compares his behavior to that of a king. As Ivy says in her narration, “A king doesn’t enforce the law. A king is the law.” Despite believing that Savage is operating like a king, Ivy makes one last attempt to make a deal with Savage: If Savage allows Ivy to remain in Gotham City without the threat of arrest, Ivy will stop her people from continuing their attacks in the city.
Instead of accepting Ivy’s offer, Savage makes an ultimatum of his own. Savage introduces Ivy to his Crime Prevention Tech Czar, Marie Henley, who has developed an A.I. protocol to help “triage police resources”. Savage explains that the A.I. mega processors use a lot of water, and this has created a PR problem for Gotham City. He wants Ivy’s assistance in solving this problem in exchange for her freedom. This offer puts Ivy in a difficult situation. Assisting Savage would go against her principles; however, rejecting the offer would mean throwing away her only chance at freedom. Reluctantly, Ivy agrees to help Savage and Henley.
The uneasy truce is soon tested when Ivy learns that Gotham deliberately shut off utilities from neighborhoods the A.I. determined to be “unproductive” in order to divert water to cool the A.I. mega processors. Ivy is outraged when she learns this, and is even more outraged when Henley calls what they have done “natural selection”, telling Ivy, “Survival of the fittest. Once upon a time it meant you were healthy and strong. Today it means you create profit”. This interaction shows the fundamental difference between Ivy and Henley. Ivy may not value human life the way that she values nature and the environment, but she even finds herself disgusted and infuriated by Henley’s disregard for human life, particularly those in Gotham City who live in low-income neighborhoods, as it is implied in this issue that only those from low socioeconomic backgrounds had their utilities shut off. In the scene before this one, Ivy tells Henley that people like her are the reason that humans became a “parasitic species”. Henley’s idea of “survival of the fittest” proves this, as she is willing to drain the planet of its natural resources in the name of profit, regardless of the environmental impact or the human lives that are ruined as a result of her own greed and ambition.
Unable to control her anger, Ivy violently lashes out and attacks Henley in a fit of rage. In her righteous anger, Ivy is unaware that she and Henley are being observed by someone who takes pictures of Ivy assaulting the defenseless Henley in a seemingly unprovoked attack. The solicitation for the next issue teases that Savage will gain the upper hand on Ivy, as Ivy will be imprisoned for attacking Henley. The teaser at the end of the issue, which reads “character assassination,” also suggests that Savage might be intending to weaponize negative public perception against Ivy to discredit her image and her cause. If this is true, it could introduce an interesting new dilemma, as Ivy will have to battle a corrupt institution that seeks to destroy her, while also challenging the court of law and the court of public opinion, which has already found her guilty of being a criminal.
Overall, Poison Ivy #40 is a highly entertaining issue that puts Ivy’s principles on a collision course with the corruption festering within Gotham City. It’s also a topical issue that addresses the negative environmental impact of A.I., in particular how marginalized communities are adversely affected by the environmental harm caused by A.I. Rather than compromise her values and make peace with these corrupt forces who are plundering the environment for their own gain, Ivy stays true to who she is and fights back, rather than groveling in submission to the will of Henley and Savage. It’s a great hero moment for Ivy in her own way, where she refuses to make peace with those who can’t be reasoned with on account of how despicable, corrupt, and nefarious they are. It shows that Ivy will always do the right thing, albeit in an unconventional way that other DC heroes like Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman would not do, and we love her for it nonetheless.
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