WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the story “The Green Deal” from Batman: Black & White #4 by Chip Zdarsky, Nick Bradshaw & Aditya Bidikar, on sale now.
Batman has earned himself plenty of enemies over the years, with many of them becoming threats not just to him and Gotham City, but sometimes even the greater DC Universe. One of his most powerful foes just made an overt offer to turn over a new leaf though — one that Batman ultimately refuses to believe in, and with good reason.
Batman: Black & White includes a moment between Batman and Poison Ivy where the latter offers to finally become an ally to the Dark Knight — but can Batman really trust her to follow through.
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Poison Ivy has always been something of a wild card among Batman’s rogue’s gallery. Her powers and ambitions make her one of the most dangerous of Batman’s regular enemies, and her casual distaste for much of humanity means she’s easily driven to murder and carnage if that achieves her goals. However, she genuinely does have an admirable end-goal — ensuring plant-life survives on Earth, and that natural life continues to grow in at least some form. Her intentions — along with a surprisingly strong heart — allow her to occasionally fight alongside the Dark Knight, develop friendships with others, and even form a powerful relationship with Harley Quinn. There are hints that in the future, Ivy and Batman will bury the hatchet and work together, genuinely doing good for the world on a massive scale.
In “The Green Deal,” Ivy tries to start her way towards that path — albeit in a pretty brutal way. Deciding that the fortune afforded to Bruce Wayne could help in her missions, Ivy storms Wayne Manor — dragging the corpses of Thomas and Martha Wayne to the surface in her eagerness. Batman confronts her, but Ivy begs to be heard — and even lowers the bodies and tries to calm down her plants to prove it. Ivy explains to Batman that Wayne Industries has consistently proven to be a potential ally, with all of his policies being environmentally friendly. This gives her confidence that she could convince Bruce Wayne to work with her on a new project.
Ivy reveals she has created a super-plant that creates incredible amounts of oxygen and is nearly indestructible. If she had access to the Wayne-Tech labs, she could perfect the plant life and spread it through the world — helping amend the damages done to the environment by humanity. In doing so, Ivy could finally feel confident her crusade was accomplished and even offers to finally join Batman as a hero and help bring down the scores of villains that remain in the world. Ivy’s argument suggests that together, she and Batman could genuinely save the world. But Batman quietly and quickly explains his ultimate fear — that Ivy would inevitably turn against humanity again. With these super-plants, she could finally achieve total victory and wipe out all other life that she deems a threat to plants.
Batman even breaks down that while Ivy wanted to talk to Bruce Wayne, she wasn’t really willing to come and try to convince him. Instead, she brought vines to bind him, toxins capable of driving someone mad, and even a plant that could have turned Bruce Wayne into a zombie-like state that would follow her every command. Batman quickly catches Ivy by surprise and captures her, explaining that he has his own plan in place to save the world — and despite her intentions and words, Ivy’s true colors are “on display in a garden.”
It’s a sad moment for Ivy, who does seem to genuinely want to affect positive change in the world and would be happy to do so with willing partners. But the fact that she’s come prepared to force it proves she still has a long way to go before becoming a genuine ally to the world. However, it is also a reminder that there are some Batman villains who have the potential to become better, such as Harley Quinn — and the idea that Ivy could eventually see the errors of her ways and become an ally is a potentially game-changing one for the Dark Knight. It’ll be interesting to see how her new role as Queen Ivy plays out with this offer to the Dark Knight in mind, especially in a post-Joker War Gotham City.