Posted in: Batman, Comic Spoilers, Comics, DC Comics, Spoilers | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, deadpool no spoilers, harley quinn, poison ivy

DC Looks At Pasts, Presents and Futures of Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy

DC Comics has played hot and cold with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy over the years. Made a couple in Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner's run on the Harley Quinn title, DC Comics has not exactly doubled down. There were comments that this Harley Quinn series wasn't in continuity with the rest of the DC Universe. When they appeared elsewhere, they were seen as single. Solicitation copy for a statue of the pair was reworded so they were no longer a couple but best buds. The TV series took its cue from the comic book and saw they get married – at the same time the Harley Quinn comic had a new creative team, were forbidden from using Poison Ivy, or even talking about her. A planned ending for Heroes In Crisis that would have reduced Poison Ivy to just a bud, was ignored by creative, the follow-up series failed to turn Poison Ivy into a "big bad", even if a passionate kiss goodbye between the two was bowdlerised to a peck on the cheek.

Recent Batman continuity and The Joker War brought the Harley and Ivy situation into DC mainstream continuity, even if they were narratively kept apart. Harley Quinn is still carrying around her poison ivy plant – which Ivy used to communicate with Harley's friends. Poison Ivy was either heading to Gotham to take revenge,  or captured in Catwoman and used as a manufacturing base. Probably both. And in this week's Batman Urban Legends, through flashback, their relationship is embedded into DC continuity. It's taken roots, not good pulling them up now.

Of course, DC Future State has a different look back in The Next Batman, with Poison Ivy seeing the relationship as toxic. Of course, that is a future that the DC Comics titles don't have to reach…

Instead, they could aim for the one in DC Love Is A Battlefield, still together at the end of times.

New Harley Quinn writer Stephanie Phillips has said that their storyline will continue in her Harley Quinn comic book series, but Bleeding Cool can confirm – not in the first issue, out two weeks. As she tells Batman, she's not ready to deal with that yet. But it looks like it won't be long.

Becauuse DC Comics has announced a Pride anthology for June, with a Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn story by Mariko Tamaki & Amy Reeder, and the following cover for Harley Quinn #4 in June, has the pendulum swung back in that direction?

And as to whether this story continues in just Harley Quinn or in Batman, or in Harley Quinn And Batman, that is yet to be defined.

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