Poison Ivy Appreciation 2018

[kjn]

A great summary of theories regarding the strange treatment of Ivy over the past few years. I think ALL of them play into it to some extent or the other. And even when female characters destroy sales, there is still confusion with what to do with them, as seen with the cluelessness regarding Wonder Woman even after how stupendous a year 2017 was for her.

Funny you should mention Wonder Woman. Looking at Ivy today, with her power set and her natural connection to ecofeminism, she makes a lot more sense within Wonder Woman's supporting cast rather than Batman's.

But I'm not sure you can be edgier than Catwoman—she has those claws for a reason…

[Confuzzled]

Lol this mock Batman #181 cover by way of Batman '66 by Tim Shinn made me laugh:

[Frontier]

Lol this mock Batman #181 cover by way of Batman '66 by Tim Shinn made me laugh:

Southern Belle '66 Ivy was a fun one .

[Green Ghost]

Heroes in Crisis #2 Preview shows Poison Ivy's confession:
hic-2-1-1540415145688.jpg

So her fate will be revealed in this issue and most likely means she was killed in the massacre.

I don't want to judge it too early, but this page shows what bothers me for years: We barely get Ivy stories without Harley. While Harley get dozends of stories for herself, writers feel the need to put Harley in Ivy's stories or it has to be explained why Harley isn't there.
This page was supposed to be about Ivy, but even that got highjacked by Harley. And since HiC is about her anywhere, Ivy's death will just be a gimmick to motivate Harley.

It's frustrating...

[Mistah K88]

I actually agree with you. Ivy has been treated like Harley's sidekick for years now... I think it's time for Ivy to...branch out... keep Harley away for a while. Let Ivy be her own character again.

[Frontier]

Heroes in Crisis #2 Preview shows Poison Ivy's confession:
hic-2-1-1540415145688.jpg

So her fate will be revealed in this issue and most likely means she was killed in the massacre.

I don't want to judge it too early, but this page shows what bothers me for years: We barely get Ivy stories without Harley. While Harley get dozends of stories for herself, writers feel the need to put Harley in Ivy's stories or it has to be explained why Harley isn't there.
This page was supposed to be about Ivy, but even that got highjacked by Harley. And since HiC is about her anywhere, Ivy's death will just be a gimmick to motivate Harley.

It's frustrating...

One thing I liked about Chu's "Cycle of Life and Death" is that she wrote Harley out pretty quickly .

[Jackalope89]

She was a key part in the first arc of Trinity Rebirth. And not a mention of Harley.

[lucius121]

She was also in batgirl damage and birds of prey with no mention of Harley. In fact the only books she really shown with Harley are Harley’s solo and her appearance in King’s Batman The others are out of continuity. Even when they both appeared in metal there was no interaction between them. But hey it’s fun to hate on Harley especially on this forum.


That being said I’m not very happy with this preview as it’s almost guaranteed that Ivy is going to die, killing off Ivy is a terrible idea especially as it seems that primary reason is as some kind of emotional trauma for Harley. The whole thing is messed up.

[kjn]

She was a key part in the first arc of Trinity Rebirth. And not a mention of Harley.

One can always find exceptions, but I have the same impression as Green Ghost and Mistah K88. It might thus be of interest to do some statistics, using the DC wikia.

Since New 52 (Prime Earth), Harley Quinn has 337 appearances, and Poison Ivy 158 appearances. Both are quite healthy numbers. I saved both lists as text and ran a diff; Harley Quinn had 264 unique appearances, and Poison Ivy 85. In 73 issues both appeared.

As a control, I added in Catwoman, with 232 appearances, as she is associated with both of them. Compared to Harley Quinn, Catwoman had 194 unique appearances, and Harley Quinn 299 unique appearances. They shared 38 appearances. Compared to Poison Ivy, Catwoman had 177 unique appearances, and Poison Ivy 103 unique appearances. They shared 55 appearances. In 30 issues, all three appeared, so 43 are Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn only, 25 are Poison Ivy and Catwoman only, and 8 are Harley Quinn and Catwoman only.

Note: this counts every appearance, even simple mentions, flashbacks, or being present in a single frame, up to being the protagonist or primary antagonist. More granular data would require manual checking of every issue.

From this, Poison Ivy is about as likely to appear alone as together with Harley Quinn, while Harley Quinn appears three times as often by herself compared to Poison Ivy, and Poison Ivy also often appears in association with Catwoman. Harley Quinn is in comparison more independent of both. But Poison Ivy is still associated more strongly with the Gotham City Sirens concept than either Catwoman or Harley Quinn, with only 60 appearances without either of them. The matching number for Harley Quinn is 254, and for Catwoman 169, if I'm keeping my numbers under control.

So I'd say that both views are correct here: Poison Ivy still has a decent independent presence, but she is very often used together in association with either Harley Quinn or Catwoman, or both.

[Confuzzled]

One can always find exceptions, but I have the same impression as Green Ghost and Mistah K88. It might thus be of interest to do some statistics, using the DC wikia.

Since New 52 (Prime Earth), Harley Quinn has 337 appearances, and Poison Ivy 158 appearances. Both are quite healthy numbers. I saved both lists as text and ran a diff; Harley Quinn had 264 unique appearances, and Poison Ivy 85. In 73 issues both appeared.

As a control, I added in Catwoman, with 232 appearances, as she is associated with both of them. Compared to Harley Quinn, Catwoman had 194 unique appearances, and Harley Quinn 299 unique appearances. They shared 38 appearances. Compared to Poison Ivy, Catwoman had 177 unique appearances, and Poison Ivy 103 unique appearances. They shared 55 appearances. In 30 issues, all three appeared, so 43 are Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn only, 25 are Poison Ivy and Catwoman only, and 8 are Harley Quinn and Catwoman only.

Note: this counts every appearance, even simple mentions, flashbacks, or being present in a single frame, up to being the protagonist or primary antagonist. More granular data would require manual checking of every issue.

From this, Poison Ivy is about as likely to appear alone as together with Harley Quinn, while Harley Quinn appears three times as often by herself compared to Poison Ivy, and Poison Ivy also often appears in association with Catwoman. Harley Quinn is in comparison more independent of both. But Poison Ivy is still associated more strongly with the Gotham City Sirens concept than either Catwoman or Harley Quinn, with only 60 appearances without either of them. The matching number for Harley Quinn is 254, and for Catwoman 169, if I'm keeping my numbers under control.

So I'd say that both views are correct here: Poison Ivy still has a decent independent presence, but she is very often used together in association with either Harley Quinn or Catwoman, or both.

Neat research.

TBF I don't think people have a problem with Ivy sharing panel time with Catwoman as the two women are usually portrayed as equals like any other superhero team-up such as Batman/Superman, Spider-Man/Human Torch etc.

However, when Ivy is associated with Harley, more often than not Ivy is literally reduced to Harley's supporting character, whether in a love interest capacity or just as a BFF. That dynamic is what throws people off and is annoying. The closest parallel I have seen to this is again Emma Frost on the Marvel side. She is usually portrayed as a strong, standalone character in her own right, but when she was paired with Cyclops, some Emma fans felt she was being reduced to his supporting character. But those instances weren't anywhere to the same degree as how much Ivy is underplayed when she appears with Harley IMO.

[Confuzzled]

Heroes in Crisis #2 Preview shows Poison Ivy's confession:
hic-2-1-1540415145688.jpg

So her fate will be revealed in this issue and most likely means she was killed in the massacre.

I don't want to judge it too early, but this page shows what bothers me for years: We barely get Ivy stories without Harley. While Harley get dozends of stories for herself, writers feel the need to put Harley in Ivy's stories or it has to be explained why Harley isn't there.
This page was supposed to be about Ivy, but even that got highjacked by Harley. And since HiC is about her anywhere, Ivy's death will just be a gimmick to motivate Harley.

It's frustrating...

Sigh, looks like the theories were right from the start. C'mon DC, still holding out for you proving me wrong.

At least Clay Mann's Ivy is serving some Riverdale Cheryl Blossom vibes though.

[MentalManipulator]

Sigh, looks like the theories were right from the start. C'mon DC, still holding out for you proving me wrong.

At least Clay Mann's Ivy is serving some Riverdale Cheryl Blossom vibes though.

She really does.

It's a real shame she's likely going to die. Ivy is my favorite DC character but I stopped reading comics with her since she started being Ivy's support/sidekick. I love Harley and I love them together but Ivy has gigantic potential and is underused.

I blame Margot Robbie's casting. She made the character this sexy bomb instead of the dizzy/fun/crazy gal fro BTAS. I'm sure the Sirens movie got strapped because Robbie didn't want to star next to two other character that are historically sexier then Harley.

[Confuzzled]

She really does.

It's a real shame she's likely going to die. Ivy is my favorite DC character but I stopped reading comics with her since she started being Harley's support/sidekick. I love Harley and I love them together but Ivy has gigantic potential and is underused.

I blame Margot Robbie's casting. She made the character this sexy bomb instead of the dizzy/fun/crazy gal fro BTAS. I'm sure the Sirens movie got strapped because Robbie didn't want to star next to two other character that are historically sexier then Harley.

A possibility. Or maybe she felt a Sirens film would be riskier and bring about comparisons to Batman and Robin and the Catwoman solo movie if the characters are cheesecaked. Bloggers are claiming David Ayer's script was apparently weaker than the Birds of Prey script too, which was why execs decided to go with BoP instead.

[Confuzzled]

Maybe there is a sliver of hope? Tom King tweeted this out:

Getting a lot of tweets from Ivy fans asking about Poison Ivy in HiC. They are, every one, as polite as they are passionate.

I don't like commenting on an ongoing story. But I wanted to say how much I appreciate the tone and zeal of these awesome nerds.

[Confuzzled]

And uh, apparently he compared Harley & Ivy's relationship to that of Lois and Clark: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/10...nn-lois-clark/

So... is Ivy supposed to be Kal-El here?