Poison Ivy‘s upcoming six-issue solo series features a frightening mix of body horror with numerous scenes of people and plants melding together, according to writer G. Willow Wilson.
An Entertainment Weekly preview of Poison Ivy #1, illustrated by Marcio Takara, shows a casually-dressed Ivy confronting a pair of men with rifles. As Ivy makes the vegetation around her grow profusely, she strides up and whispers close to one of the men’s ears — possibly infecting him with undetectable plant particles. The man instantly begins coughing blood, and within the span of two panels, a series of mushroom spores violently explode from his neck and face.
“This is a bit of a departure for me in terms of subject matter and, uh, grossness,” Wilson said regarding Ivy’s deadly powers. “There’s quite a bit of body horror in this. I wrote moderate amounts of plant-based body horror into the script, and Marcio, who is an actual genius, took it and pushed it out to the nth degree. It’s incredibly detailed and beautiful. It’s gonna be wild.”
While Poison Ivy is perhaps best known for her poisonous kiss, this is not the first time that she has made spores erupt from the bodies of her victims. The classic 1993 Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #3 featured a story where Ivy used a fungal poison that made grey mushrooms burst from the skin of her foes. In recent years, Ivy’s powers have evolved far beyond poison and granted her the ability to directly control plant growth, especially as the character has become connected with the Green — the elemental force of nature in the DC universe often associated with Swamp Thing.
For Ivy’s new series, Wilson specifically took inspiration from the 2018 science-fiction horror film Annihilation, which starred Natalie Portman as a biologist investigating a quarantined zone called the “Shimmer” which was replete with mutated wildlife, including living plant matter. Wilson added that the series would dive into the implications of a damaged environment, with Ivy eager and willing to take out her frustrations on humans.
“Climate change is front and center in this whole thing,” Wilson said. “That logline is so appropriate because you hear it and you’re like, ‘Oh, that sounds so uplifting!’ But if you know anything about Ivy, that’s the most ominous thing you’ve ever read. Any gift to the world from Poison Ivy is bound to be good for some, and probably not good for us.”
Poison Ivy #1 goes on sale on June 7 from DC.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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