Poison Ivy’s Stepford Wife inspired nightmare began with an impressive first half in her standalone tie-in and G. Willow Wilson continued the strong narrative in KNIGHT TERRORS: POISON IVY #2 to conclude the story…or is it really over?!?

This issue opens with what seems to be a slight time jump we see Ivy has fully embraced the faux-perfect life that she found herself trapped in during the previous issue. I appreciated that Wilson didn’t drag this scenario out for long as it was probably one of the weaker aspects of this issue. We quickly pivot to an argument between Ivy and Harley that causes Ivy to snap out of her altered mindset and come face to face with the same cast of neighborhood from the first issue as she tries to escape. In this scene, and a later scene where Ivy defends Janet from HR from the same group of neighborhood crazies, we see Ivy come to grips with her real-world relationships with different individuals and come away thinking this will actually have an impact on her moving forward.

As I worried in my review of the first issue, there was too much Janet in this issue and I was disappointed to see her become a pivotal part to the stories conclusion — we’re left wondering if this was Ivy or Janet’s nightmare? For me, Janet’s fun in small doses and I wish this would have been a more dedicated Ivy story given the work Wilson has done with the character in her monthly.

Atagun Ilhan took a much more aggressive approach to the art in this issue compared to the last one. Faces were more dramatic, bodies were more exaggerated, eyes were more buggy. It was definitely jarring visually, which is what I think was intended to represent Ivy falling completely into the nightmare, but it verged on distracting for several pages.

Overall, I thought this was still an entertaining enough story that kept with a nightmare theme, even if it had nothing to do with the plot of the main Knight Terrors arc. It offered a look at a character’s fears that seem obvious from afar, but fleshed it out in an interesting and unique way that felt new and hopefully left the character changed beyond this individual story.

Rating: 7/10 more

I was already skeptical of this event — "hero has nightmare that they can't wake from" is a musty old plot that should probably be laid to rest unless someone comes up with something novel to do with it — and if even GWW's Poison Ivy can't convince me, I think this is apt to be a two month break from DC for me.

This was not helped by Ilhan's awkward, inconsistent art, but the writing didn't offer much either. Lots of protagonists have woken up in a suburban fantasy life that's secretly terrible (Deadpool literally just did this, and had more fun with it) and this one just goes through the motions. There's a little promise in the chafe of pesticide-drenched suburbia not actually being Pam's fantasy, but she learns to accept the false life so quickly that they don't get much mileage out of it and poor Janet From HR is left trying to carry all the drama by herself. more

This was the weakest of Wilson's Poison Ivy issues so far. Luckily, it's not technically part of the main run. That's not to say it's BAD or anything, because I've read worse books. One thing that brings this down for me is the art. As another user stated in their review, the art is a bit inconsistent throughout. At times, it's solid and actually good. However, at other times, it just makes some of the characters look off when I don't think they're supposed to. As for the story, I do think it's solid, but not up to the standards set by the main series. One thing that was a little weird was the fact that, despite actually realizing something is up here, Ivy decides to just go with the flow rather than try to figure out what's really going on. This wasn't bad, but the main reasons I'll read the next issue are the fact that it's just two issues total and I'm not getting any regular Poison Ivy content from Wilson until September. more

G. Willow Wilson continues her impressive work with Poison Ivy in this Knight Terrors story. After falling into her slumber, Ivy finds herself coming home to a housewife version of Harley Quinn in the middle of a Stepford Wife suburbia where villains and heroes alike are best friends with unsettling grins from ear to ear. After initially being horrified at her surroundings, Ivy begins to transform into a similar mindless state after a romantic romp with Harley and loses her sense of reality. This may be one of the most heart-wrenching entries into the Knights Terror event as we watch the titular character succumb to the alternate reality around her without any ability to control her own destiny.

My only complaint with this story is that it was the only one to depict the title character losing a sense of free will. By the end of the issue, it felt as though Janet from HR was the main character, rather than Ivy herself. Hopefully that’s not the case in the story’s conclusion because it was near perfect for the first two-thirds of the book. more