Characters / Batman: Poison Ivy

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Poison Ivy

"You know you can't resist me. No man can."

Real Name: Pamela Lillian Isley

First Appearance: Batman #181 (June, 1966)

"My name is Poison Ivy. Welcome to the dusk of man. The age of flora has dawned."

Poison Ivy was created by Robert Kanigher in 1966 debuting in Batman #181 as a villainous Expy of Bettie Page, as well as a replacement villainess for Catwoman, who had graduated from an Anti-Villain into an Anti-Hero. She was also meant to be DC's take on the then-recent feminist movement, as she would be an independent villainess not tied to any other villain as their Baroness or lover. At her core, however, she is a Femme Fatale and one of the deadliest in all of comics.

Her most consistent origin is that of a botanist named Dr. Pamela Isley who has an obsession/affinity for plants. Following some type of lab accident (which may or may not have been caused by corrupt supervisors/backers), she becomes the eco-terrorist known as Poison Ivy. Though she started out as a Badass Normal only using plants as her gimmick, due to several levels taken in badass and many Retcons, she has gained more and more powerful Green Thumb abilities over time, as well as pheromone powers and various forms of poisons and toxins (usually delivered by skin contact, with a natural preference for kisses). She is also sometimes revealed to be half plant herself. This makes her one of the rare Batman villains that has legitimate superpowers.

She, like Catwoman before her, has become more and more sympathetically portrayed as time goes on. Sometimes, Ivy's a love interest for Batman too, with several stories implying something deeper between them. On the other hand, she has gained a regular Love Interest in Harley Quinn, whose main portrayal is as the Joker's ex-girlfriend and former sidekick. In 2015, DC editorial confirmed that Ivy and Quinn are sexual partners, making them one of the most prominent same-sex couples in comics. Both women have also become affiliated with the Suicide Squad and the Birds of Prey, making them very ambiguous Heel Face Revolving Doors.

In 2015, Poison Ivy received her first-ever self-titled comic, in the form of a limited series called Poison Ivy Cycle Of Life And Death.

Works that feature Poison Ivy as a main character

Comic Books

• Harley & Ivy (2004): Belonging to the continuity of Batman: The Animated Series. Ivy and Harley engage in various lighthearted, morally-gray shenanigans.
• Poison Ivy Cycle Of Life And Death (2015): A reformed Ivy is trying her best to make a serious career as a scientist.
• Poison Ivy (2022): Set after the events of Fear State. Ivy is Brought Down to Badass and dying, so she leaves Gotham to enact a final Evil Plan to get rid of humanity and restore nature. The story is told in the form of Ivy's love letters to Harley.
• Poison Ivy: Thorns: A graphic novel released under the DC YA line, set in its own continuity retelling Ivy’s origin story as during her high school years.

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Tropes associated with Poison Ivy:

A-G

• Abusive Parents: As of New 52 and on, Ivy's father was extremely abusive towards her mother. He always bought her flowers as an apology. Of course, he eventually killed Ivy's mother and buried her in their beloved garden. Naturally, about a decade later, Ivy killed him.
• Adaptational Heroism: She gets hit with this in a few continuities:
  • Batman: Arkham Series: She's portrayed as being more focused on protecting her plants than going on eco-terrorist sprees, and refuses to team up with other villains. In Arkham Knight, she even helps Batman save Gotham from Scarecrow's Cloudburst, though doing so costs her her life.
  • DC Comics Bombshells: She only ever uses her powers against the German hierarchy.
  • DC Super Hero Girls: She's portrayed as an adorably dorky straight-up superhero.
  • Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: She's only a belly dancer in the film with no signs of her powers in it. She dies to Jack the Ripper.
  • Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass: Ivy is just a student activist with no powers who organizes nonviolent protests.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Through her origin comic by Neil Gaiman and his later Black Orchid miniseries which established that the science experiment Woodrue put her through was just a channel and she's actually, like Black Orchid, a mystical being called a May Queen with a connection to The Green (of Swamp Thing fame). She was actually part of the same student group that included Alec Holland, his future wife, John Slyvean (who made the Black Orchids), Jason Woodrue and Bella Garten (added in Batman (James Tynion IV))
• Adaptational Villainy: On the flip side, she gets this treatment in Injustice 2; she's a lot colder and more aloof to Harley than usual, and even almost kills her with her pheromones without a hint of remorse. Additionally, her dialogue with Swamp Thing implies that she isn't even interested in protecting the Green - she just wants its power all to herself.
• Adapted Out: In her original Silver-Age origin, she was seduced and manipulated by a man named Marc Legrand, who tricked her into stealing a rare plant and poisoned her with it to cover his tracks. Upon her rebirth, Ivy transformed Marc into a tree-like monster as her pet brute. Modern continuities usually omit Legrand entirely and replace him with Dr. Jason Woodrue as Poison Ivy's "creator".
• Affectionate Nickname: In the comics and other media, Harley Quinn always uses nicknames for her, which include Pam, Pammy, Pam-A-Lam, Ive (pronounced like "I've"), but most commonly Red.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: She is DC's answer to Marvel's The Enchantress as they are both Femme Fatale supervillains with seduction based mind-controlling powers that frequently flirt with their respective heroes. Hilariously enough, Marvel then made an equivalent to her in their popular Runaways series, named Klara Prast. As Klara is only in her preteens, she doesn't copy the sexual nature of Poison Ivy. She just has Poison Ivy's power over plants.
• Alluring Flowers: As part of her repertoire of Green Thumb powers, she can use pheromones to get men to do her bidding. Depending on the Writer, it can work on women as well, especially lesbian or bisexual ones. Since she's a scientist, however, she can upgrade her abilities or develop new pheromones that compel a person regardless of sexual orientation or target. For instance, one concoction causes two men (who were previously shown to be attracted to women) to start uncontrollably making out with each other.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: She sometimes has green skin, especially the versions of her that are part-plant. The Sirens series showed that she could turn this off by adjusting the chlorophyll in her skin along with relevant hormones to return to a pale-skinned redhead.
• Antagonist Abilities: Ivy is typically a pushover if you can actually get in a solid blow on her. The problem is getting past her plant mooks, resisting her Glamour and Mind Manipulation powers, and not letting her poison you. If you can get past all of that, she can't put up much of a fight. But that's a big "if".
• Anti-Villain: She wants to protect plant life and stop humans from polluting the world and deforesting it. The problem is that she views a plant's life as infinitely more valuable than any number of humans' lives (even if it's just a tiny leaf, since that leaf can sprout into a new plant).
• An Arm and a Leg: When she shows up in the future of Rotworld her right arm has been withered by attacks from Black which has effectively killed the world.
• Attention Whore: A frequent trait in her early appearances, where she was primarily motivated by becoming recognized as a notorious criminal. Her debut revolved around trying to upstage the top three most infamous female supervillains in the world.
• Badass Bookworm: She's a very talented and knowledgeable botanist and chemist, but she's also one of the most deadly people on the planet, with powerful control over nature.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • She is the Veronica to Catwoman's Betty and Batman's Archie. Although Catwoman is a criminal also, she's far more sympathetic and has more nice/heroic qualities.
  • She is the Betty to Joker's Veronica and Harley's Archie. Compared to the Joker, she is far more loving and affectionate toward Harley. Granted, it's not saying much and she isn't above her own problems.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Somewhat. Back when she was just Pamela, she was actually pretty shy and demure with the implications of having controlling parents. Then her accident happens, (sometimes because of a college professor, The Floronic Man) and she finally vents out her problems and issues.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn's relationship has primarily been this way since they met in Batman: The Animated Series (though DC kept it as subtexty as possible for years). Harley is head-over-heels for her boyfriend, The Joker. The Joker is extremely physically and emotionally abusive but Harley always goes back to him in the end. Ivy on the other hand has feelings for Harley and the two have a much more stable relationship, but Depending on the Writer Harley is either oblivious, knows of Ivy's feelings but ignores her, or has flings with Ivy when she and the Joker are separate. Starting with the New 52 reboot, DC revamped Ivy and Harley's relationship to be more obviously romantic and requited. They're either Friends with Benefits or a non-monogamous couple.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Her New 52 design made her eyes entirely black, save for her glowing green irises.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Redhead to Harley's Blonde and Catwoman's Brunette in the Gotham City Sirens.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • What keeps her from being a purely evil character despite her occasional state as a Misanthrope Supreme is her completely alien sense of right and wrong. In short, she considers crimes in terms of their effect on nature, starting with plant life, then animals, with humanity on the lower scale.
  • On the other hand, she targets men through seduction before killing them which doesn't advance her goals and seems to be more her way of venting out at being hurt by people (especially Jason Woodrue.)
• Body of Bodies: Harvest is a creature of sentient vegetation made by Poison Ivy. It was created when a carnivorous plant that Poison Ivy fed her victims to absorbed the personas of the people it ate. In this form it was able to rapidly regenerate and transform itself into any plant life it chose and would manifest itself with the faces and other physical characteristics of Ivy's victims across its surface. Harvest attempted to take revenge on Poison Ivy by attacking her inside Arkham Asylum although Batman intervened and protected her. Harvest was seemingly destroyed in this battle although Batman remarked that its regenerative abilities meant it could come back and attack again at any time.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Ivy poses in one of these in almost every appearance. Partly justified in that she isn't completely human and that her powers work by seduction.
• Born from Plants: Commonly does this to birth her hybrids, sometimes her initial transformation calls for her being wrapped in plants like a chrysalis of some kind.
• Botanical Abomination: Regularly makes hybrids form various plants to create defensive and offensive tools, including things like the Man-Eating Plant or two and her 'Feraks' seen in No Man's Land. Sometimes she is one herself merely in the shape of an alluring woman to entrap her prey.
• Breakout Villain: Became one of Batman's most recognized foes since the 90's thanks to Batman: The Animated Series, even getting featured as a lead in Gotham City Sirens. Even if Poison Ivy is a Batman villain, she has become something of a recurring villain in the grand universe like Black Adam, although she rarely is a Big Bad.
• Charm Person: Ivy's pheromones tend to work like this. She can also use more direct Mind Control through toxic kisses (when they don't just kill outright). The scope and effects of these powers are Depending on the Writer.
• Clark Kenting: Downplayed in Gotham City Sirens, when Ivy goes to work for a lab the only difference between her disguise and her usual look is a pair of glasses and a lab coat. What she does do is use her powers to revert back to her original skin colour, instead of the current green.
• Create Your Own Villain:
  • A rare example of a villain creating another, hostile-to-them, villain. Ivy herself is usually the creation of a pre-mutation Floronic Man, a minor DC villain with Swamp Thing style powers. However, the Floronic Man (Jason Woodrue) was not a villain when he experimented on Ivy.
  • One post-90s storyline involves a Man-Eating Plant she overused for assorted petty reasons developing sapience and becoming Harvest, which yearns to kill her.
• Cultured Badass: She is quite versed in being sophisticated and lady-like. However, she mostly uses it as part of her Femme Fatale allure. She also drops obscure botanical knowledge at the drop of a hat, often in the context of explaining that You Are Already Dead to her poisoning victims.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
  • In her "environmentalist" depiction, Poison Ivy's powers would allow her to influence people far more effectively and acceptably if she'd use them in a sensible fashion. It's generally justified that she fails to realize this because she's a Tautological Templar, who either doesn't understand that non-violence can be more effective at convincing people than violence or simply her demands are too unreasonable to be taken seriously.
  • Averting this is at least attempted in "Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death", where she tries to market more legitimate eco-friendly creations of hers as opposed to her traditional methods of just running around turning people into plants or feeding them to mutant carnivorous trees.
  • A possible aversion appears in another example: when Harley pointed out that some of her plants (such as vines as strong—or stronger—than steel beams or organisms that produce light) could help humanity, Ivy bitterly responded: "I don't do that, Harley. I don't save people. I'm poison, remember?" It's implied that given the opportunity, she would like to use her plants for good (or at least legal monetary gain), but people don't expect her to, so she doesn't.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being around Harley so much gives her a lot of practice.
• Defrosting Ice Queen:
  • Upon meeting Harley, Ivy softened somewhat towards humans, but still manages to be quite strict whenever Harley screws up her plans. Which is frequently.
  • In the New 52 Birds of Prey, she is completely unapologetic for her murderous crimes in the past, but is willing to assist Black Canary and company and work as a team. Even if she does mutter complaints along the way.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • Mainly how clearly she is a Plant Person. Some artists will show her as someone with basically human skin and hair and green clothes who could easily blend into a crowd; others will have with her obviously green skin and vines growing out of her body. Still others take a more subtle Uncanny Valley approach, with her appearing mostly human until you look closer and notice the flower patterns all over her.
  • Tim Sale's portrayal of Ivy is by far one of the most extreme depictions, giving her a hairstyle that's literally a giant bush growing out of her head. It gives the impression of her emerging out of a nearby forest or jungle.
  • Artist P. Craig Russell illustrated Ivy looking rather demure and somewhat mousy in the two-part "Hot House" story arc set after her original arrest in the Post-Crisis era, something virtually no other artist has done barring whenever Ivy's disguised. However, under the effects of her pheromones Batman sees Ivy as more of a Plant Person, ethereal with green skin and leaves and plants in her hair. This offers the interpretation Ivy's jaw-dropping beauty is really the effect of her pheromones altering the way everyone perceives her.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Sometimes she is an extremist eco-terrorist bent on protecting Mother Earth from the ravages of humanity; originally and just as often, she is just a glorified superhuman crook and seductress in it for the money. She's even occasionally shown concern for "innocent" human life, children especially, most famously in a particular issue of Gotham Central, and in Gotham City Sirens. Some more recent portrayals also verge on Humanoid Abomination, depicting her as a being who, while mostly human in appearance, is of completely alien and inhuman morality and thinks more like a sentient plant with a side of Hive Queen.
  • Her specific brand of ecoterrorism also tends to vary. Sometimes, she's driven by a very intense desire to protect the natural environment from pollution and exploitation; other times, she's simply a plant supremacist seeking to free the vegetable kingdom from the rule of humans; how much she cares about animals, and whether she considers them more akin to plants or to humans, also fluctuates. Her actions can similarly vary from retributive strikes against active polluters to indiscriminate attacks against population centers.
  • Of all people, Paul Dini once wrote Ivy straight-up cruel and unsympathetic. The story in question depicts her seducing random people (both men and women) off the street, taking them to her lair and feeding them to her carnivorous plants. On top of that, it shows Ivy enjoying and mocking the lengthy suffering of the victims being slowly digested by the plants. Batman was so disgusted by her actions that, for a brief moment, he entertained the idea of ending Pamela's life.
  • Is she insane because of a lonely, neglected childhood? Was her turn to villainy the result of chemical and biological alterations affecting her mental stability or cognitive processes, with serious psychological consequences? Is she driven by her history of being betrayed by men? Or is it some combination of all of the above plus some garden-variety sociopathy? Notably, Neil Gaiman gave her an origin that hints at all of these possibilities, but ultimately suggests the answer is unknowable. Later writers have chosen to emphasize particular angles or thrown in their own ideas.
  • Gail Simone's second Batgirl Annual in the New 52 era offered the idea of Ivy suffering from an extreme form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, explaining her changes in personality and mood a result of the changing seasons.
• Discontinuity Nod: When her Post-Crisis origin was first established, Neil Gaiman briefly mentioned her original backstory involving Marc LeGrand and the Egyptian herbs. Ivy laughed this off explaining that was all a lie she came up with and was surprised anyone actually believed it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Sometimes she's willing to straight-up murder all of humanity because they mistreat plants, other times it takes a personal attack against her or those people or places she cares about.
• Does Not Like Men: As part of her Straw Feminist motif, Ivy is typically portrayed as being disgusted by men. She finds them stupid, smelly, grotesque, ill-mannered, and easy to manipulate. The sole exceptions are Batman and a few other select males whom she feels aren't all bad. This depiction is falling by the wayside in favor of her Blue-and-Orange Morality covering plants. In all of her origin stories, a man royally screwed her over. Silver Age? Her lover and partner in crime betrays her and tries to poison her. Post Infinite Crisis? Her college professor and crush, Jason Woodrue (later the Floronic Man) experimented on her and turned her into an abomination against her will. New 52? Her dad straight up murdered her mom and buried her in their garden.
• Drugged Lipstick: The most common explanation for her deadly or mind-controlling kiss when it isn't naturally part of her biology.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Originally, Ivy was a much more obvious Expy of Bettie Page, and even had a southern accent much like Page's. She also didn't have any real plant powers and was just a criminal with a serious plant motif going on.
• Earthy Barefoot Character: As part of her nature gimmick, she is usually shoeless, even when not naked.
• Eco-Terrorist: The current trope image, given she goes through extreme and oft-violent ways in her crusade for the plants (The Joker even said "Poison Ivy has the Green Thumb... but all she shows the rest of the world is her middle finger!").
• Enemy Mine: In some iterations she will temporarily assist heroes against villains who threaten greater ecological damage than she attributes to normal humanity.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Usually, her plants are her darlings and she'll even try to sacrifice her own life to save theirs. Later in her publication, she started treating Harley Quinn this way as well, as perhaps the only human being Ivy truly loves.
  • Starting around Batman: No Man's Land, Ivy has also taken a protective stance toward children.
  • Some storylines and comics show that Ivy's feelings for Batman go beyond mere attraction and that she has genuine love for him. In some of them (such as the Cast Shadows graphic novel), he may reciprocate (or at least mutually attracted). All that said, just as with Catwoman, she's always more dedicated to her cause, which means she always forgoes a future with him in favour of returning to villainy.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Depending on the Writer, she won't harm the sick, elderly or children. More consistently, however, she won't use any villainous methods that do more harm to the environment than necessary.
• Evil Smells Bad: Inverted: she is often described as having a pleasant floral smell, and her Mind Control powers usually involve good-smelling pheromones and fragrances.
• Evil Redhead: An evil woman with red hair.
• Evil Versus Evil: Thanks to Having Standards and Loved Ones, she's taken on corrupt, murdering cops, polluting corporations, and (often on behalf of Harley) even the Joker himself.
• Expy: Of Bettie Page, which was more evident in her original appearances but still remains with her status as a Shameless Fanservice Girl.
• Fame Through Infamy: Her early appearances (including her debut) commonly had her being motivated by trying to become famous through her criminal acts.
• Femme Fatale: With greater emphasis on the Fatale. Ivy doesn't like Man — and we mean that in regards to both the species and the gender. Thus, any sexual enticement or favors she offers are typically just manipulations to get a hapless dupe under her control. However, there are some men she has found worth her interest — primarily Batman, but occasionally other men who have proven to be sympathetic to her goals or more interesting than others.
• Fertility God: Ivy has commonly been worshipped as a nature and fertility goddess, due to her sexually-appealing appearance and ability to grow entire forests even in urbanized areas and other places where plant life should not be sustainable. As a scientist (and misanthrope), Ivy is usually quick to dismiss these claims, but will also take advantage of believers to fulfill whatever goal she strives toward.
• Fiery Redhead: She's actually usually chill, even if in a deceptive way, but her angry side is still a sight better avoided.
• Flanderization:
  • Ivy went from a normal woman who just used plants as a gimmick out of insanity to a half-plant woman with actual power over plants and who, Depending on the Artist, even looked plant-like. Many people seem to prefer this latter iteration.
  • Ivy went from a Straw Feminist to an Eco-Terrorist.
• Foil: Was made to be a replacement for Catwoman and has become an antithesis to her in many ways. Catwoman is an animal lover mostly depicted in a skin-tight black outfit, Poison Ivy is a plant lover mostly known for wearing revealing green outfits. Catwoman is a thief who does her own fighting, complete with a whip for her weapon, while Poison Ivy is an eco-terrorist who does little fighting on her own and prefers using her plants do her fighting for her. Catwoman doesn't harm innocents while Poison Ivy has no qualms, though both have an affection for children. Both also share an interest in Batman; Catwoman greatly admires him and works with him, becoming one of the two women he loves and close enough to learn his true identity, while Poison Ivy varies from just having a sexual attraction to possibly being in love with him despite being more willing to harm or kill him if need be, and while Batman has shown some level of sympathy for her, he does not often return her affections.
• Friend to All Living Things: A downplayed, villainous example. She does love all plants, and in most incarnations is an Animal Lover as well. Unfortunately, she regards all humans (except for Harley Quinn and possibly Catwoman) to be worthless scum deserving of death.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Around the eighties or so In more modern stories she tends to fight in the nude, often to underscore how alien her thinking is.
• Fungi Are Plants: She has occasionally controlled fungi with her Green Thumb, despite her powers explicitly drawing from the Green. In DC lore, this is the mystical force with domain over plants, while fungi useually falls under the domain of the Grey, a different force.
• Gaia's Vengeance: She sees herself as this and claims to be carrying out the will of Mother Nature (or to embody Mother Nature herself). How much of this is true and how much is a delusion is up to your interpretation.
• Garden of Evil: She tends to constantly be making these for bases of operations, which is only logical.
• Garden Garment: She's usually wearing leaves and flowers the amount of.. foliage can very heavily of course.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Pretty much how her relationship with Harley is portrayed. As well as their..."extended" friendship with Catwoman, who is also Bi.
• Glass Cannon: Ivy relies mostly on her plants when it comes to physical fights and isn't a very effective hand-to-hand combatant against more highly-trained brawlers like Bats himself or even Catwoman. Random Mooks, though, she tends to be fine fighting.
• Glamour: She has pheromone abilities which allow her to control other people, usually men. She can also stimulate hormones and pleasure centers by touch, taste and smell, as well as take more direct control via a kiss.
• Good Powers, Bad People: The current image trope. Ivy's control over plant life would have been fairly benevolent on its own. Too bad she is an insane and genocidal misanthrope.
• Green Means Natural: The chlorokinetic villainess Poison Ivy has green eyes, generally wears green, and sometimes has green skin.
• Green Thumb: The quintessential plant-themed comic book character. How much power she has constantly changes, but at her full power, she's been shown capable of summoning, growing and manipulating entire forests to demolish city blocks. Neil Gaiman's origin links her to the Green, the elemental force connecting all plant life, and the idea's seen use since, particularly post-Flashpoint with Swamp Thing back in mainstream continuity.

H-Y

• Half-Human Hybrid: Later depictions of her tend to state that she is one, with various explanations as to how she got that way.
• Happiness in Mind Control: Her mind-control powers occasionally work this way. It's best seen in The Long Halloween, when Carmine Falcone hires Ivy to put Bruce Wayne under her spell and get him to agree to let Gotham Central Bank to launder Falcone's money (Wayne's on the board of directors and the lone holdout in keeping the gangster at bay). While enchanted, Bruce is essentially a passenger in his own mind, but he feels oddly content and calm while connected to "the Green."
• Hates Rich People: She's pretty misanthropic in general, but she has a particular hatred toward the ultra-rich because of how many of them made their money off of environmentally destructive business practices.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: She has worked alongside heroes in the past, especially the Suicide Squad and the Birds of Prey. However, she always has her own agenda, so trusting her is a bad idea. She also tries to reform every now and again, but it never really sticks.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Her relationship with Catwoman. With Harley, you can hold the "heterosexual".
• Hide Your Lesbians: There was massive speculation and Flip-Flop of God regarding whether or not she and Harley Quinn were lovers as far back as their original Girl's Night Out Episode in Batman: The Animated Series. They were always considered a little bit too close for BFFs. In 2015, DC finally admitted to the relationship and has ran with it ever since.
• Hopeless Suitor:
  • Despite her wishes, she doesn't actually stand much of a chance with Batman. His affections are torn almost completely between Catwoman and Talia al Ghul. Poison Ivy, though physically tempting to him, doesn't often blip on his emotional radar.
  • Pre New 52 she was this for Harley, as no matter how close the two were Harley would always run back to the Joker when he came calling. Averted Post New 52 although, ironically, their relationship changed to be an open one, in which both girls are sexually available to other people.
• Hypocrite:
  • In her "eco-terrorist" depiction. Ivy likes to complain about how she is "forced" to do the things she does because humanity won't listen to reason — when that same complaint can be leveled against Ivy herself!
  • Also, it's kind of hypocritical that a woman who claims to want to protect plants from being exploited does so by... manipulating plants to grow in all manner of unnatural ways.
  • Lampshaded in one of her possible pre-fight banter routines against Swamp Thing in Injustice 2:
    Swamp Thing: You claim to serve the Green.
    Poison Ivy: The plants are my babies.
    Swamp Thing: So why treat them as slaves?
  • For all her disdain for humanity and hating using people, a large part of her motivation boils down to payback for her neglected childhood and heartbreak from her college professor, which is a very personal, selfish, and petty driving force.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Ivy is used to her looks and pheromones getting people to do anything he wants. However, both Batman (due to his Heroic Willpower) and Harley (because she's crazy and immune) are exceptions and thus both have Ivy's affections.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Actually, despite her typical hatred for humanity, her identification with plants, and the fact she is often depicted as enjoying feeding human victims to her Man Eating Plants, the idea that she might eat human flesh herself has been used very, very rarely, if it's ever been used at all.
• The Immune: Sometimes this is her original powerset other times it's one of the benefits of being a Plant Person
• Implied Rape: It is suggested that she was the victim of it during Batman: No Man's Land in the story where Batman and Robin save her from Clayface, considering she was naked, subjected to Terms of Endangerment by Clayface and touches her face while she was captured, outright used "defiled" in describing what he did to her, and even recounted that he ignored that she begged for mercy when he tries pleading for his life.
• Kiss of Death: The example of this trope in comics to the point that her kissing someone is always a sure Oh, Crap! moment. Her powerful floral toxins are often secreted from her lips and administered via a kiss. She can use her powers through any skin contact, but enjoys doing it by kiss.
• Know Your Vines: Inverted, she makes other people mistake plants as harmless. It's so easy to mess a plants biology so something a person should be deathly allergic to appears as something harmless. As several of her victims have found out.
• Leotard of Power: The "classic" depiction has a green leotard with some leaves pasted on, later as her powers expanded it became a Garden Garment that she creates, some series like The Batman have it as part of her body that grows out.
• Living Aphrodisiac: One of her powers, via her pheromones. She is also the page image.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: As Ivy's powers have increased, she has become steadily less and less human. Nowadays she has more in common with Swamp Thing than Catwoman.
• Love Triangle: She loathes The Joker due to his abusive control and manipulation of Harley. She also hates the fact that his control over Harley is so tight that Harley is always unsure of herself or her own sanity and will often ditch Ivy to run back to her "Puddin'" in an instant. Ivy still cares for her regardless of this, though. Ironically, this means the two are less likely to try to kill each other than most of Batvillain rivals. Ivy wants Harley to leave Joker, and Ivy killing Joker would just drive Harley away. Joker, for his part, thinks it's funny that Ivy can't really touch him.
• Mad Scientist: Possesses not only a disturbed and unhinged love for plants, to the point of preferring them to people, but a good enough grasp of biology to make use of said plants.
• Male Gaze: Any drawing or rendition of her is likely to focus on her feminine body parts first and foremost.
• Mama Bear: Towards the orphans she looked after, as well as her plants, and Harley when the Joker's involved.
• Man-Eating Plant: She specializes in siccing these on her enemies. Darker portrayals of the character tend to enjoy using these to "dispose" of people she's become bored with — something that came back to bite her when the combined pain and anguish of one plant's victims mutated it into the vengeance-seeking Harvest.
• Master Poisoner: Her main form of attack; it helps that her body makes it on its own, though she can make it in a lab just as well.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: In-Universe, this is often a key part of her modus operandi, and she has a long history of turning men into her thralls or even into mutated pawns only to dispose of them casually once they have Outlived Their Usefulness.
• Mind Control: In addition to her Glamour powers, she can flat out control a person if she manages to kiss them or induce some other means of control into their system. Not even someone who is strong in will and body like Batman, or flat out immune to poisons, like Superman, can resist her control.
• Misanthrope Supreme: In many of her depictions, she despises the human race and sees them as a cancer that must be removed so that plants can thrive.
• Morality Pet: Though “moral” might be stretching it somewhat, considering that they’re both technically villains, Harley Quinn is generally one of the only people who Ivy legitimately cares for, and many of her more sympathetic/heroic moments are done for the sake of Harley’s happiness.
• Moral Pragmatist:
  • When portrayed as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, she typically sides with whoever is most willing/able to help her goals to protect endangered plant and animal life from human neglect and greed. In her 2016 series, she tries to reform and return to being a scientist since the academic community is more than willing to throw money and resources at her project because of the huge potential it possesses.
  • Averted when it comes to the Joker. Ivy has no problems killing the Joker in theory, it's just that it'd hurt Harley, too.
• Most Common Super Power: Her buxom breasts are portrayed as D-cup-sized.
• Ms. Fanservice: One of comics' major examples of the trope, and the single best example in all of the Bat-books. Ivy is a very beautiful woman who has a very enticing body. She tends not to wear anything, other than leaves and vines (along with sexy outfits that she wears with green tights). In the New 52, she got a form-fitting outfit, but even that just amounts to plant spores and leaves hugging up on her body, though she went back to her normal green bathing suit-like outfit. Even when in battle, she usually speaks in a sultry tone, uses sexual innuendos, and takes stock Playboy Playmate poses while her plants fight for her.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Some portrayals of her emphasize this motivation. She got mutated when she fell for a guy Playing with Syringes; now she is obsessed with controlling men.
• Pet the Dog: Will occasionally demonstrate that she's not all bad, compared to the usual psychopaths Batman deals with. Most notably during the No Man's Land arc, where she took in several dozen orphans despite her grudge against humanity. Very Depending on the Writer, though.
• Pheromones: Poison Ivy uses these to get men to do her bidding. Depending on the Writer, it can also work on women as well, especially if that woman is a lesbian or bisexual. Since she's a scientist, however, she's able to upgrade her abilities or develop new pheromones that compel a person regardless of sexual orientation or target. For instance, one concoction causes two men (who were previously shown to be attracted to women) to start making out with each other uncontrollably. Said pheromones are usually represented as green or pink squiggly lines, as the reader obviously can't smell them, although whether the people in-universe can see them or if it's just for the reader's benefit is often unclear.
• Plant Person: The example, in comics. Often, her skin is colored green and she protrudes leaves to cement the fact.
• Poison Is Evil: Poison Ivy, of course. She has altered her body to the point where she can enchant men with pheromones and slay them with a kiss. Her blood is deadly.
• Poisonous Person: Her body (and the plants she controls) typically utilize a wide variety of poisons and toxins which can kill in anywhere from seconds to days.
• Polyamory: DC describes her relationship with Harley as "girlfriends, without the baggage of jealousy".
• Powers Do the Fighting: Ivy isn't a physical fighter. The only powers she directly uses against a person are her good looks, pheromones, and poisons against an enemy. Occasionally, she also can grow Combat Tentacles in the form of plant vines. Aside from that, her Man Eating Plants always do the dirty work for her while she stands around looking hot.
• Rape and Revenge: It was implied that Clayface forced himself on her during Batman: No Man's Land and she promptly gets her revenge on him once she's freed.
• Reclining Reigner: Typically reclines or slouches on some type of throne or seat while her plant minions and Slave Mooks carry out her commands.
• Redhead In Green: Her primary clothing is green, and her skin color has also become green in some depictions, but she is always a red head.
• Ret-Canon:
  • Her relationship with Harley started in the DCAU (specifically in Batman: The Animated Series) but became canon the moment Harley joined the comics universe.
  • Ivy was originally just a sufficiently advanced botanist. These days, she's probably a plant elemental bound in human flesh.
  • Additionally, she was mainly played as The Sociopath in the comics until the animated series gave her much more pronounced ecoterrorist motives.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Tends to use her looks to do whatever she wants. In fact, this was her main gimmick (aside from plants) when she first debuted.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Ivy does not give a crap about whether or not anyone approves of her sexiness or sexuality. She wears as much or as little clothing as she cares to. In fact, when she gains a new job as a scientist in her 2016 series, she makes it clear that the only reason she dresses professionally is so that she can prove she's serious about her fresh start. The second she gets home, off her clothes go.
• Shrinking Violet: Pre-transformation will generally have her portrayed as this due to some form of abusive upbringing or personality.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: It's probably the chlorophyll running through her veins.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Surprisingly why she is drawn to Batman. Besides being able to resist her Pheromones through his beyond human willpower, there's the fact Batman lives up to be a paragon of virtue, which draws Ivy in.
• The Sociopath: She does possess some characteristics of a typical sociopath - she’s manipulative, has a Lack of Empathy towards most humans, and will stop at nothing in pursuit of her goals. However, this is ultimately averted by the fact that Ivy does genuinely care about her girlfriend Harley and her precious plants, and the fact that she still has enough of a moral compass to prioritize their safety and happiness.
• So Last Season: She went from an ordinary woman with a plant fetish and a poisonous kiss to, for all intents and purposes, an immortal nature goddess.
• Southern Belle: Her earliest appearances depicted her as having a very thick Southern accent.
• Straw Feminist: She was initially created to be DC's answer to feminism back in 1966. She's a powerful, capable, intelligent and independent woman and refuses to play second-fiddle to a male partner. However, she is also a man-hating, tree-hugging (literally), sexually-manipulative villain who doesn't just not need men, but flat out wants them all dead. That's before we get into her lesbian relationship with Harley and passive-aggressive relationship with Batman.
• Stripperiffic: Played With. She doesn't wear clothes (usually), but when she does, she molds them into bikinis, leotards, lingerie, and other fetishwear. However, she also doesn't do physical fighting, so she can technically look however she wants while she goes about her business. Also, practical battle clothing would arguably take away from her seduction abilities.
• Sudden Name Change: While her civilian name was initially established as Pamela Isley, Gerry Conway inexplicably gave her the name of "Lillian Rose" when he wrote her origin in World's Finest #252. Post-Crisis, Neil Gaiman would re-establish the Pamela Isley name (along with overhauling her origin).
• Tautological Templar:
  • This is her ongoing problem with convincing people to be more eco-friendly during her "enviro-terrorist" depictions; Pamela is either adamant that people adopt more "Green" technologies right now and uses violence to try and terrorize people into submitting, makes demands that are so unfairly slanted against human life that there's no way anybody can take her seriously, or both.
  • A perfect example of the "makes unreasonable demands" aspect comes from Batman & Robin, where she responds to Bruce Wayne pointing out that her suggestions to have Wayne Enterprises cease "toxifying the environment" by abandoning the use of diesel fuel and coolants would cause the deaths of millions of people due to cold and hunger alone by bemusedly declaring that those deaths would be "acceptable losses" to protect the planet.
• The Tease: She has no problem leading men on, but for the most part she's not actually interested in granting their desires.
• Token Evil Teammate: During her stint on the Birds Of Prey. Also plays this role in storylines where she teams up with Harley and/or Catwoman - of the three of them, Ivy is always the most overtly sadistic.
• Token Super: She serves as this for the Gotham City Sirens, possessing her trademark Green Thumb powers while Harley Quinn and Catwoman have no superpowers.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly-girl to Harley's Tomboy. Harley is more physically capable, more of a Blood Knight, and much more aggressive. Ivy is much more feminine, passive-aggressive, demure, and can't do much fighting without her abilities.
• Torture Technician: Almost as much as the Scarecrow, she's a dedicated misanthrope who loves making people suffer.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Subverted case, in that Harley, despite her faults, is generally the sole person who influences Ivy away from her misanthropic attitude and contempt of humanity.
• Truly Single Parent: Some storylines demonstrate her ability to engineer fully functioning plant "children" that can almost pass as real humans. They rarely last long, however. In "No Man's Land", she creates a whole species of mutant plant people called "Feraks" and "Cycle of Life and Death" focuses on a group of children she grows and tries to protect.
• Unholy Matrimony:
  • With Clayface briefly in the New 52. It was just a ploy to keep him under her sway, and lasted almost no time at all.
  • More sincerely and stably in the New 52 and Rebirth era with Harley Quinn — her genuine love for Harley is one of the most positive things about her.
• The Vamp: The current trope image. Started out like this, but eventually became an eco-terrorist. She still has shades of it though.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Ivy considers Batman "the perfect man" and wants him for herself. She also has a twisted interpretation of their relationship as Batman being her Knight in Shining Armor while she's locked up in Arkham, and at times has been frustrated and confused by why he would ever reject an offer to be with her forever. Going so far in a story to cause havoc on Gotham from her cell in Arkham, and relenting only when Batman visits and kisses her.
• Villainous BSoD:
  • When she accidentally poisoned one of the children under her care in No Man's Land. It ultimately causes her to surrender Robinson Park and let the city reclaim it.
  • A later arc had a Evil corporation abducting and experimenting on her former charges to turn them into controllable versions of herself. This combined with the manipulations of Hush caused her to seek a cure for her condition from Bruce Wayne of all people.
• Villainous Crush: Depending on the Writer, she could have an attraction to Batman that ranges from either a minor attraction to either lust or genuine affection. While not at the same level as his relationship with Catwoman Batman could return her affection in some way, also depending on the writer. Perhaps best seen in anything written by John Francis Moore.
  • In the 1997 Batman:Poison Ivy one-shot, she mistook his saving her from death as proof he loves her, though he responds that she doesn't know the meaning of love.
• Villainous Friendship: Her friendship with Harley is genuine on both sides. She also has shown to be on friendly terms with Catwoman, though not nearly to the extent she is with Harley.
• Villains Out Shopping: She is often depicted just going out shopping or having fun with her girlfriend, Harley.
• Vine Tentacles: A common enough use of her powers since roughly the nineties, whenever she's really leaning into her powers over the Green. Sometimes it will be an individual plant she's spot modifying and other times it will be one she specifically engineered for it.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She may be best friends with Harley, but she sometimes shows a very low opinion of her intelligence and common sense. This is played more seriously as this is one of the factors that keep Ivy and Harley from having a long-lasting relationship.
• We Can Rule Together: More with Batman than Harley. Ivy really wants Batman to stay with her forever in her garden paradise of pleasure, and has actually suggested at least once that she'd give up crime forever if he did it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She wants to protect plants from the humans that abuse and massacre them. She'll go to any extremes to do this, and sees human life as meaningless by comparison.
• Western Terrorists: Of the "Fanatical Eco-Terrorist" sub-variety. Her fixation on the health of plants often leads to her committing atrocities to protect nature at the expense of human life.
• What Does She See in Him?: This is Poison Ivy's attitude towards Harley going back to the Joker, on account of him being an abusive Jerkass towards her.
• When Trees Attack: She can summon or grow entire trees to attack her enemies, and she can even get them to walk around.
• Wicked Cultured: As part of her Femme Fatale allure, she can behave like a sophisticated and charming lady when she wants.
• Woman Scorned: Her original motivation was that only Batman had resisted her seductions, and that she hated him for it.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: Played With. Ivy has definitely shown interest in, say, Batman or Nightwing, whom she considers attractive and not that bad compared to most men. Further, she tends to go for the biggest, strongest man around when looking for a new Slave Mook, such as the times she immediately planted a kiss on the lips of Superman and then over in WF3: World's Finest Three Superboy when she faces off against him and Robin. How actually interested she is in them sexually is debatable, however.
• Would Not Hurt A Child: It largely depends on the writer, but on some occasions, Ivy has been shown to have a soft spot for children, and won’t target them in her plans. In Batman: No Man's Land, she even makes a sanctuary for orphans in the middle of Gotham Park.
• Yandere: Countless cheesy analogies towards flowers (especially roses) have been made about this aspect of her personality.

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