Trouble is brewing as Poison Ivy's sporelings discover their powers and spread their wings, causing mayhem across Gotham City! Plus, a murderer-mastermind is revealed in this penultimate chapter of Life and Death!
Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death #5 like its previous issues is full of amazing artwork whilekeepingGotham's darker undertone and theme. Clay Mann really brings every he can out of each panel and page, they are simply beautiful. Amy Chu keeps the storyfast pace and easy to followup with. The lighter tone of thisissue is a nice break from following Poison Ivy to following her three daughters she calls sporelings. In this issue, the Chudoes a great job portraying Ivy as a caring, mom with three rambunctious teenage daughters. Lastly on a personal note I appreciate that Chuend the issu by foreshadow who is behind this all but it doesn't feel like a cliffhanger, I don't like cliffhangers, so thank you! Read Full Review
On top of a compelling and classic mystery about a scientist's experiment results being stolen to create something monstrous, there's another very important narrative: a story about an ex-con trying to assimilate herself back into the world, as not just a scientist, but a plant-humanoid outsider, and a mother. In a lot of ways Poison Ivy represents the difficulty and frustration of all women trying to make their mark on the world without becoming demonized or deified. Her sporelings/children soon prove to have the same problem in the ruthless darkness of Gotham in this scintillating issue that touches upon the pervasive idea of showing Eve"and all women"as the root of evil and subjugation. Read Full Review
I am completely taken by this mini. Ivy has emerged to be a very interesting character and now that the sporelings are coming into their own I just want to see more of them all. I'm worried about what will happen to the girls in the final issue. I would love a monthly book about Ivy and her children and I hope they aren't killed off to wrap up the continuity. I can't help but think about stories with Aunties Harley and Selina visiting periodically. As I find myself thinking about these things I realize how effective this mini has been. I'm giving this issue a 4.5 rather than a full 5 Batarangs but if the final issue is this good I'd be inclined to give a perfect score. I highly recommend this miniseries. Read Full Review
Cycle of Life and Death is showing us some new things for Ivy to handle and she's really not handling them well at all, resulting in some bad situations for her babies to end up in. It's understandable that she's not good with this considering her own distaste of people in general. While she certainly cares for her babies, her lack of background with people and kids makes this a very difficult situation. As a girls night out/rebellious youth story it works pretty well and there's some fun stuff to be had with how it unfolds, but it's just setting us up with a bit more before the finale next time and I'm still struggling to really find the point with the series with what the goal of it all is. Read Full Review
We're going to find the real answer to our questions in the first issue, so I'm just waiting to see why they murdered Luisa and Victor to begin with. Not only this, but how long are the sporelings going to live? They are developing pretty quickly and have aged so fast, that it's similarly connected to a plant's life expectancy. I am already expecting to see Poison Ivy go into a deep depression when her sporelings are no longer with us (just saying.) Read Full Review
Poison Ivy's hybrid leaf babies and newly-adopted lab experiment have matured into teenagers, and you know what that means! GIRLS NIGHT! Which, in modern terms, would actually mean three ladies ignoring each other and staring into their smart phones all evening, but for these cloistered chickadees means they are gonna step out and be fierce! Poison Ivy does go all "mom" on them, then consults with a formless power that I didn't even know she was friendly with. In all, this story has developed like something tumbling down a flight of stairs, and I find myself less and less invested in the characters as it continues. One more issue to wrap it all up, and from the loose threads still dangling I expect it will be text-only. Read Full Review