Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Immortal Legend Batman, poison ivy

Gender Swap: In The Future, DC Comics' Poison Ivy Will Be A Man

Gender Swap: In The Future, DC Comics' Poison Ivy Will Be A Man: Immortal Legend Batman #4 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, Erica D'Urso & Dan Mora

It may not have hit the Top Ten Hottest Comics Of The Week, but copies of Immortal Legend Batman #4 from DC Comics last month have been slowly snapped up by collectors for not entirely talked-about reasons. In the series, we learn that humanity achieved interstellar travel by using dark matter to warp space-time around their ships. But humanity's first experiment with dark matter tore a hole through realities, allowing creatures called Shadows to emerge and terrorize their world, with heroes Batman, Robin and Nightwing harnessing different types of energy in combat. Designed to mirror Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the Massive-Verse, Immortal Legend Batman has been revealing other characters based on the classics. As we meet Jake, on a fertile forest plant.

Jake has a secret history, at the same school that this future version of Bruce Wayne grew up in, with a similar parental history.

And has a new identity in the future, reflecting those of the DC Comics present day, as do many people, living reflections of the past. Though there are always one or two differences.

Jake is the Immortal Legend version of Poison Ivy, The Poisoned Man. And is using his abilities to try and kill the Immortal Legend Batman…

Though it is unclear whether The Poisoned Man wants to kill Batman…

… or kiss him. So basically, the Poison Ivy of old…

Poison Ivy was created by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff for Batman #181 in 1966.  Partly inspired by Bettie Page and the titular character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Rappaccini's Daughter", she was originally a misanthropic botanist and biochemist who possesses a poisonous touch, enhanced physical abilities, and a supernatural control over plant life, which she uses for the purposes of ecoterrorism.  Gerry Conway and Jack Abel first gave her an origin in World's Finest #252 in 1978. Originally, Dr Lillian Rose, PhD, a promising botanist who is poisoned by ancient Egyptian herbs as part of a heist, survives this murder attempt and discovers she has acquired an immunity to all natural toxins and diseases.

Following the events of the DC maxi-series comic Crisis on Infinite Earths, which massively retconned DC Universe history and continuity, Poison Ivy's origins were revised in Secret Origins #36 in 1988, by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. Her previous origin was now a story she made up. Now, Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, PhD, a Gotham City botanist, studies advanced botanical biochemistry at a university under Dr Jason Woodrue, the future Floronic Man. Isley is depicted as a shy girl who is easily seduced by her professor. Woodrue injects Isley with poisons and toxins as an experiment, causing her transformation.  She nearly dies twice as a result of these poisonings, driving her insane. Woodrue flees from the authorities, leaving Isley in the hospital for six months. Enraged at the betrayal, she suffers from violent mood swings, being sweet one moment and evil the next. We learn that her parents died many years ago. But she is also an agent of The Green, just as Swamp Thing is its avatar. In the New 52 reboot, in 2013's Detective Comics #23.1, Poison Ivy's story is rewritten again by Derek Fridolfs and Javier Pina. Pamela Isley was born with a skin condition that prevented her from leaving her home. She spent most of her limited time outside in her family's garden. Her abusive father murdered her mother and buried her in the garden; she later killed him with a poisoned kiss. Later, she landed an internship in Wayne Enterprises' Bio-Chemistry division, developing pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications, was fired after suggesting to Bruce Wayne that the company develop chemicals that could brainwash people, then accidentally spilt the chemicals she was working with on herself, giving her powers to control plant life and immunity to all poisons and viruses, and her relationship to The Green. Then in Batman #117 and Batman: Secret Files: The Gardener, we got another new origin for Poison Ivy and a look forward at who she will be now. With Bella Garten, The Gardener now part of the research team.  And a reference to Jason Woodrue's first appearance in The Atom #1 in 1962 as an exile from an interdimensional world, Floria, inhabited by dryads, before that would be retconned into him as a scientist using an experimental formula to transform his body into a plant/human hybrid. But Pamela Isley is now a part of the team again. And rather than being a shy scientist taken advantage of, Pamela Isley is now far more of a protagonist in her relationship with Woodrue. However it doesn't stop Woodrue from all but killing her with his experiments and restoring that Neil Gaiman/Mark Buckingham part of her origin. As well as making Batman her chief opponent – and obsession – from the beginning. As her powers begin to grow and expand to something far more… elemental, they also recall her relationship with The Gardener…

Immortal Legend Batman #4 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, Erica D'Urso, Dan Mora
The Immortal Legend Batman knows how to stop a Shadow attack, but what is he to do when the very soil beneath his feet poses a threat? Deep within the jungle of a seemingly uninhabited planet lies a poisonous threat ready to take down the Immortal Legend Batman!

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