Graphic Novel Review - 'Poison Ivy, Vol. 1: The Virtuous Cycle' by G. Willow Wilson (Writer), Marcio Takara (Artist), Brian Level (Penciler), Stefano Guadiano (Inker), Jay Leisten (Inker), Arif Prianto (Colourist), Hassan Ostmane-Elhadu (Letterer)

A more horror-themed turn with Poison Ivy's character is what gets me back in DC's good graces. Who knew?

After reading the underdeveloped, underwhelming, rushed, poorly-planned out, stupid and broken 'The New Champion of Shazam!' comic run, not to mention the recent convoluted mess of 'Wonder Woman' storylines, I'd seriously begun to think that DC wasn't even trying anymore. Fortunately, G. Willow Wilson and her team of artists showcase their talents in creating the best comic featuring and revolving around Poison Ivy/Dr. Pamela Isley from the main canon in flipping years.

'Poison Ivy, Vol. 1: The Virtuous Cycle' is creepy, horrifying, tragic, yet beautiful, philosophical, introspective, and weirdly kind of sweet and hopeful in some places. Mostly it's bittersweet and sad. But it is consistently entertaining, moves its plot along at an even and dynamic pace, and it leaves you in awe as much as it shocks and disgusts you. It is like a lovingly-drawn road trip story, mixed in with 'The Last of Us' and 'The Sandman'.

Poison Ivy is at her lowest, at her peak, at her end, at both her most powerful/deadly and her weakest. Losing her connection to the Green, the earth's horticultural core, she decides to personify Mother Nature - the nurturer, the healer, the grower, and the destroyer, the rot, the decay, the rebirth, the cycle of life. She aims to spread her lamia fungal spores everywhere she goes, to everyone she comes into contact with, to kill off the human race, including herself, in a last ditch effort to save the earth from certain doom; from the "invasive species" that is short-sighted humanity (and from some unspecified upcoming apocalypse, leading to another DC event, I dunno).

Pam wants to come across as indifferent as nature itself is when it comes to taking and giving life. She is dying from the very spores within herself that she is spreading to others. She is no longer "Queen Ivy". She is no longer one with the Green, but still desperately wants to be its agent. And to top it off, the former godlike being turned lost soul has abandoned everyone she knew and loved before, telling herself that they betrayed her, when they'd tried to save her life and bring her back to herself (long story there).

In that last sentence, "everyone" specifically means Harley.

Harley, the love of Ivy's life. Her one link to her humanity. Her seed of hope for a dying old earth's future where there are living people, renewing and conserving and prospering everything; a hope which she has been trying to disbelieve, denounce, and deny.

When all else fails, faith and love could be the murderous, carnivorous and dare I say cannibalistic Ivy's saviour.

The poor woman's been through a lot. A hell of a lot. Maybe it's time to cut her some slack and let this "villain" save the world, instead of the only-reactive-and-complacent-in-the-system heroes, as she knows true evil and wants to eliminate it. To nip it in the bud, as it were; root out its rotten core, then exterminate the global, systematic, societal disease. Ivy does spare some good and kind people - notably women, women victims, and women who are into gardening - on her killing spore spree, so she still has heart, morals and ethics, as reluctant as she is to admit it.

This comic is also narrated by Ivy as a sort of letter to Harley. A goodbye letter, or a "sorry" and "I love you" letter. It is sweet and tragic, and leaves hope that this couple can and will overcome anything, and will get back together, because they need each other, to quite literally survive.

Because they are Harley and Ivy, and they are forever, even if our home planet as we know it isn't.

'The Virtuous Cycle' is very, strongly LBGTQ and sapphic women-friendly. The dream sequences and flashbacks of Ivy being intimate with Harley (and, slight spoiler, another woman in the present) are gorgeously drawn, and colourful and pretty. The artwork overall is amazing, with no fanservice, thank the goddesses, but the female-friendly (sexual or platonic) moments are striking, breathtaking. I applaud Wilson for writing this, and the artists for drawing these scenes, and DC for allowing it all, and with such rawness, realness, sensitivity and taste. The horror elements are not the only "adult" content in the comic, and there is appropriate, artistic restraint in all presentations (and representations).

Additionally, there is the message of women taking back control and ownership of their bodies in the persistently patriarchal system, like so many recent 'Poison Ivy' stories, which is much appreciated.

I won't reveal anymore here, but I'll say that in conclusion, 'Poison Ivy, Vol. 1: The Virtuous Cycle' is a "supervillainess" comic that, despite everything, despite its overarching themes of conservationism, existentialism, and entropy, there is the bittersweet tinge and tang of hope and love to the whole thing. The people and animals turning into dead husks for mushrooms to grow on may be horrific, but the men in positions of power are even more sordid. It is all about Poison Ivy, and her self-appointed 

genocide/suicide mission, and struggles and trauma (caused by being a woman suffering in the patriarchy 

and by being in the DC universe). Harley may be the key to her ultimate salvation and freedom, but the clown antiheroine isn't in the story much, and Ivy can live without her, for now.

I love how this complex and extremely human woman of the green will go above and beyond to save and sustain the earth - even if it costs her her life - and to help out every fellow woman she meets, along her ecoterrorism way.

Virtuous indeed. A cycle to maintain. Just with no killing of innocents next time, for Queen Ivy.

Like with Marvel, I may give up on consuming DC media for good. I'm so burned out and done with so many things. Well, regardless of what happens from this point onwards, I'm glad to leave it all behind on a high, satisfying note, with the latest run of Poison Ivy's comic storyline, when her character has been mishandled too many times in the past. Come full circle? Never. It's superhero comic books and media, it will never be over, and this chapter of Ivy's life is far from finished.

But I'm happy to leave it - and DC in general - there.

For now.

Final Score: 4/5