Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow

[The Laughing Fish]

I checked out this book by Denny O'Neil over a month ago, where Batman and Green Arrow team up to stop Poison Ivy from unleashing a plague, which has already poisoned Dinah Laurel Lance.

It's a little bit pedestrian at first, but it picks up towards two-thirds of the story. Poison Ivy's motive here reminds me a little bit of Ra's al Ghul; wanting the plague to wipe out most of humanity to preserve the world's natural resources and spare it from man-made wars and disasters. The only difference she aspires herself to oversee all life immune from the poison she plans to inflict. Admittedly, I haven't read too much of comics with Poison Ivy as the main villain, but her love of nature typically influences her hatred of human beings for abusing and polluting the eco-system. Nonetheless, here she aims herself to become the "new Eve" and to nurture children of the future. Whatever injustices towards nature she perceives, this definitely ranks among Poison Ivy's most depraved moments to date.

The greatest tragedy of this comic would have to be that Ivy and Fenn - the greedy corrupt investor she gets involved with to spread the plague through baby food - both double cross each other. Fenn tries to cover his tracks by bombing up the hideout which kills Ivy, but Ivy gets the last laugh as it reveals an affair the two had together earlier on had infected him with the lethal plague; which he had thought he had been protected from but Ivy had tricked with a dud vaccine injection. Batman, with a combination of outrage and pity for Fenn, reveals to the corrupt man in the end that he had not only ruined his life, but also exposed his own young children with the plague. The irony is by killing off Ivy, he had destroyed any hopes of a cure to save himself and his kids from imminent death. It might have served Fenn right for getting involved with the conspiracy in the first place as he thought he'd profit from it financially with a cure to the infection Ivy had lied about making, but sadly, his sins have doomed his innocent children.

As for Batman and Green Arrow's relationship, there's not much depth to it compared to teaming up with Superman or Wonder Woman, other than the moment where they argue whether to follow the truck carrying the infected baby food to prevent the deaths of infant lives, or go after Ivy in the hopes of getting an antidote in time to save Dinah's life.

While Michael Netzer's drawing of Batman isn't quite my cup of tea, I must admit that I like how he draws his cape spreading apart as if he's a vampire. It makes him look intimidating.