10 August 2016

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part XXXIV: Batman: Poison Ivy

Comic trade paperback, 47 pages
Published 1997

Borrowed from the library
Read February 2016
Batman: Poison Ivy

Written by John Francis Moore
Pencilled by Brian Apthorp
Inked by Stan Woch
Colored by Patricia Mulvihill
Lettered by Todd Klein

Year Fifteen, September
Like I said in my review of A Lonely Place of Dying, I've moved beyond the early days of Batman, but there are a couple more stories I want to read, follow-ups to stories from those early days. The first is this, a Poison Ivy one-shot that reunites the same art team as the excellent "Poison Ivy: Year One" story included in Four of a Kind. Poison Ivy is not as good, mostly because there's just not very much Poison Ivy in it. Brian Apthorp and Stan Woch are at their best when drawing her, but they don't get a lot of opportunity to do so here, as she drops out through the middle of the story in favor of some Batman investigations into a perfume manufacturer.

Looks like you're dead.

Of course, it all turns out to be related, but one would expect a story subtitled "Poison Ivy" to be about her, not to merely include her. The "Year One" story they illustrated really played up the sexual tension between Ivy and Batman, but that's largely absent here, too: Ivy claims that Batman is in love with her, but it just comes across as a delusion on her part, as Batman never seems tempted by her. Apthorp and Woch's artwork is great, but John Francis Moore's script just doesn't give them much of interest to do.

Poison Ivy has had enough of your shit.

Next Week: The return of Batman's lost love, Silver St. Cloud, in Dark Detective!

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