Pamela Isley has been a supervillain, an ecoterrorist, and a member of the Birds of Prey and the Gotham City Sirens, but there is one realm that she has never entered before: politics. All of that changes with Poison Ivy #42, as Ivy takes on a new role as the new Mayor of Gotham City. After being elected with 70% of the vote, Ivy is prepared to implement her campaign promises, but will she be successful in working within the system instead of trying to destroy it?
SPOILERS AHEAD for Poison Ivy #42!
Last issue, in Poison Ivy #41, Pamela Isley was locked up in jail after murdering the GCPD’s Crime Prevention Tech Czar, Marie Henley, at the end of Poison Ivy #40. With the odds not looking good for Ivy seeing justice under the corrupt Commissioner Vandal Savage, Ivy devises a plan to buy her freedom and to secure a better position in her one-woman campaign in opposition to Savage’s tyrannical hold over Gotham. She decides to throw her hat in the political ring and run for Mayor of Gotham City.
Poison Ivy #42 opens following the results of the mayoral election, with Ivy elected as Mayor with a majority of the votes. Officially sworn in, Mayor Pamela Isley prepares to carry out her vision for Gotham City and wrest power from Savage. Ivy meets with Savage and demands that Savage scale down the GCPD. Despite being Gotham’s new Mayor, Savage is resistant to Ivy’s demands and bristles at her newfound authority over him. Savage refuses to reduce the number of GCPD officers on the streets of Gotham while Ivy’s Order of the Green Knight is out in full force. With this much tension between Ivy and Savage, it’s a wonder if peace can be achieved between these two rivaling adversaries, or if they are destined to be enemies forever.
Power looks good on Ivy as she settles into her role as the new Mayor of Gotham City. (Credit: DC Comics)
Some questions come up while reading this issue. Clearly, a substantial amount of time has passed between issues #41 and #42. Specifically, how much time has passed since Ivy was locked in jail and then decided to run for Mayor? How did Ivy campaign for Mayor? Who else was on the ballot that Ivy ran against? When did the Mayoral race take place? The opening of #42 skips over all of this and immediately reveals that Ivy won the election and has been sworn in as the new Mayor of Gotham City. While this is an enticing and engrossing opening, I would have liked to see how Ivy conducted herself during her mayoral campaign and the buildup to her winning the election.
Ivy is asked by a reporter how she intends to fulfill her promise to make Gotham the “greenest city on the planet”. According to Ivy, she intends to achieve this lofty goal by drastically changing Gotham’s infrastructure and getting the people of Gotham to change some of their “bad habits” through community engagement. Despite being elected with a majority of the vote, not all Gothamites are happy with having Poison Ivy as their new Mayor. A protester calls Ivy a “stupid hippie” and yells at her to “go back to Seattle”.
Next, we go to Ivy’s meeting with the Gotham City Council, where she announces her new cabinet. Ivy has chosen Warren White, aka Great White Shark, to oversee Infrastructure and Development, her ally Peter Undine as her Green Construction Czar, and Janet, Ivy’s longtime companion, to manage People and Culture, essentially Human Resources. The City Council doesn’t take too kindly to Ivy circumventing standard procedures to install her friends and allies within the Mayor’s office. Ivy pushes back against their dissenting voices,saying, “This is the only way to get things done now. You don’t get democracy back by wishing”.
The Gotham City Council is not the only party that is critical of the actions Ivy has taken since taking office. In a private conversation, Peter Undine expresses concern to Janet over what kind of impact Ivy’s newfound power has had on her. He questions whether the power has gone to her head, going as far as saying that being hunted by the GCPD might have taken a toll on her sanity, telling Janet, “It’s as if she’s learned nothing from it”. Another person uncomfortable with Ivy as Gotham’s Mayor is Juhi Prakash, Interdepartmental Liaison, who Ivy has kept around from the previous administration. Juhi is secretly plotting to unseat Ivy, but knows that removing Ivy from power will be no easy task. As she tells her magical accomplice, “You can’t get rid of tyranny with more tyranny. I hope we could avoid violence, but we passed all the off-ramps to peace a long time ago in this city”.
A prevailing narrative in this issue is the idea that Ivy is a new form of tyranny, and is potentially abusing her position of power, something that she has repeatedly accused Commissioner Savage of doing many times. While Ivy has noble ambitions and good intentions as Mayor, such as improving roads and bridges, increasing affordable housing, improving health outcomes, and making Gotham completely carbon neutral in two years, she also runs the risk of being corrupted by the very system that she has tirelessly fought against for so long. Can Ivy maintain her integrity while operating as the Mayor of Gotham, or will absolute power corrupt Ivy absolutely?
Before the issue wraps up, Ivy is visited by Xylon, a shepherd of the Grey who was awoken from his ten-million-year slumber by Ivy back in his first appearance in Poison Ivy #28. Xylon is angry with Ivy for consuming Bog Venus in Poison Ivy #38 and Poison Ivy #39. Ivy is also cautioned by Xylon that the Parliament Trees are not happy with her, and that they will not let this go “unanswered”. This warning from Xylon strongly suggests that we can expect future conflict to come with the Green and the Parliament of Trees.
Finally, the issue ends on a major cliffhanger in which Ivy tearfully reveals to Janet that winning the Mayoral election came at a great personal cost for Ivy. To find out what this great sacrifice is, readers will have to pick up Poison Ivy #43 when the issue hits shelves next month on April 1st. The solicitation for the issue teases that a familiar felonious feline will be making an appearance in the issue as well. Will Selina Kyle bring fortune or catastrophe into Ivy’s life? Check out Poison Ivy #43 in April to find out.
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