Harley’s Crew | Book Club: Wks 15 & 16, Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death 4-6

Are you ready to find out who stole Ivy’s research, whats going on w/ those ‘sporelings’, and (of course) happily commit larceny with our favorite Cat lady? Me too! Grab your baseball bats and bull whips, and let’s do this. :muscle: :poisonivy_hqas:

Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death 4-6

As always, we’ll take the first week (11/23 to 11/29) to read, then discuss during the second week (11/30 to 12/6).

We’ve also got a DC fan Art Club crossover planned for next week, so be sure to vote on the poll and share any ideas that pop into your head. See ya soon!

:diamonds:You can join or learn more about Harley’s Crew right HERE.

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Music to loot by, anyone? :wink: See ya soon.

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Some songs that scream Selina Kyle to me:

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This is one of my favorite rarely discussed series. Definitely a sleeper.

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This was my first time reading this, finally! I absolutely loved it. Can’t wait to talk about it! I just blazed through all six issues so I’ll save my thoughts for later, but spoiler alert, I loved the sporelings!

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I :heart: this word. I wanna use it all the time.

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Figured it would make most sense to post it here. I knew this was coming since the writer Amy Chu talked about it during the class I took, but it looks like it’s safe to talk about now. Ivy and the Sporelings are coming back!

They’re going to be in a story for the YA anthology “Flash Facts.” Curated by Doctor Mavim Bialik, it’s about Barry Allen, with the help of a bunch of different DC characters showing readers a lot of science, biology, technology…it’s basically giving kids a taste of STEM.

It comes out on February 2nd. While I’m a little older than the target demographic, I may end up picking this one up. :smiley:

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JESS!!!

I loved the sporelings and I actually want them to come back for reals! Come on, DC!

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Target demographic, shmarget gemodraphic! I’ll read it, 'cuz I’m a big boy that has liked Mayam Bialik since Blossom was on NBC. :grin:

Seriously, thanks for that share. I’m looking forward to that book. :+1:t2:

I finished my re-read of PI: L&D. I have to say, it’s now one of my favorite non-Rebirth titles of 2016 (along with Wein and Jones’ badass Swamp Thing mini). At the time, I enjoyed it up to…#3 or #4, but I dropped it from my pull list once Rebirth started, and then a year or so later, finally finished it.

The thing I like most about this mini is that it shows how Ivy can absolutely hold down her own book. If Harley has had three ongoings, then Ivy should get, at minimum, one or two depending on what publishing plans of a given time would ask for from such a title. Plus, having an Ivy ongoing that could occassionally crossover with Harley’s ongoing would be something most of us H&I fans would happily dive into (to say nothing of how it’d bring new fans into the H&I fold).

Overall, a great re-read. Thanks for a solid pick, @Razzzcat!

SN: While all of the single issues of this book are obviously on DCU, the trade is currently on sale at Comixology as part of DC’s Black Friday sale. Its $5.99, but Comixology Unlimited members get it at a cheaper price.

Might be worth it for variants, sketchbook section and/or anything else not included with the singles.

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I loved the surprise guest at the end. I’m almost due for a reread of this. It was one of the earliest comics on here. I read it than & not since so…yeah…definitely due for a reread.

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Time to discuss! I’ve decided to begin my book club reactions this week with Ivy as I have reached her boss battle in Arkham Asylum and (just like in my first playthrough) she’s been beating me up. I’m hoping my post will allow me to shrug off the whammy and move on to collecting my Riddler trophies.

I thought this was a really good end to the series! I enjoyed getting to know Rose, Hazel, and Thorn. It was a nice touch that their names reflected both their personalities and their powers. My favorite of the three was probably Thorn. Her experiences in the lab drove her dark, defensive personality. There was a lot that could have been unpacked there. I only wish we had been able to spend more time with the fully grown Sporelings, so I’m glad to hear they’ll be making a comeback!

Next, I will give a shout-out to Darshan. I didn’t mention him in my first post because I honestly didn’t think he was very interesting. However, he ended up being a really good guy and a really good sport. Especially since Ivy did this to him:
Darshan
You’re a good dude, Darshan!

This was a good character story for Ivy. She becomes a mother and goes through (what I can only assume) a common journey for many parents. In trying to protect her Sporelings from the evil world around them she pushes away her own friends and shelters the Sporelings to the point of smothering them. And, as we saw in the series, Ivy isn’t exactly wrong. Yeah, the world is evil. Yet, the answer isn’t hiding from it or building walls to shut yourself and your family in. Only by opening up and accepting the help of others can you become strong enough to stand against the evil the world throws your way. So, yeah Ivy, give Harley a call…

Last word: Always great to see Swamp Thing, but I wish they still drew him like Rick Veitch.

Alright… time to let Ivy whoop me again… I hope she doesn’t shoot burrs at me again… I hate burrs…

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In case anyone missed it…or wants to know why I’m an Ivy :wilted_flower: fan!! :stuck_out_tongue:

Ps. @TheCosmicMoth :eyes: You ever try to play w/ Ivy in Injustice? I insist on playing w/ her and Diana, but they’re squirrelly as hell so I’m not particularly good w/ either—OR Swampy! :laughing: How’d you do against her?

Also, agree. Was thrilled to see Swamp Thing. Wasn’t a big fan of how he was drawn considering how strong the other art is. I’ll be back w/ the rest!

Also tagging @Hiraeth in.:green_heart::diamonds::wink:

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The second half of this book is interesting. I think it does definitely pick up a bit with the Sporelings, but on the art side…while it’s not BAD, it’s not quite on the same level as Clay Mann either. It’s funny, when Amy Chu talked about the series in the script writing class I did, she mentioned how with Clay, he was notoriously rather slow. What he tended to do was draw the big splashy pin-up stuff first, and was super slow on the rest, which required a fair amount of back-up artists to finish up (including Ethan Van Sciver, surprisingly, I think this is one of the last books he did before basically getting kicked out of the mainstream comics for being too toxic).

I agree the Swamp Thing cameo was great. Probably my favorite part of this is when Darshan threw some shade at him by saying he sounds like a professional wrestler. :smiley:

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Loving everyone’s comments so far :hugs: This was on my to-read list for so long, I love Ivy and I don’t know why it took me this long but I finally read this and I absolutely loved it. I’ll be brief because I think I could just ramble on and nobody needs that.

I loved Ivy as a mom. I just love these amazing characters in domestic settings, which is why I hope that the Harley Quinn animated series indeed goes on for 30 seasons, so that we can have Harley and Ivy get married, move in together, and later have some sporelings of their own. I know it’s cheesy and heteronormative, but dammit mushy wholesome stuff like that makes my heart sing! :purple_heart:

True, Ivy was smothering them, out of an abundance of caution and worry, but she had reasons to. This is Gotham and she’s Ivy, this isn’t the suburbs and they’re not the Smith family.

And of course, most of all, I absolutely ADORED the sporelings! I love love love them! So much, and I’m happy they’re coming back. Even though it’s a small anthology, maybe that means DC could eventually have them back for real. They are fun and innocent, and I want to hug and squish them! If they were my kids I’m sure I would do the same as Ivy…

One scary scene was when they snuck out and ended up in that strip club. The juxtaposition of their innocence and the seedy nature of the place was kinda overwhelming for me. The gross dude hitting on a literal child was :nauseated_face: He had no way of knowing, sure, but we knew and it was gross regardless. The whole situation with the sporelings made me care so much about them and made me want to protect them or see them protected :hugs:

Anyway, I’m starting to ramble. I hope Amy Chu does a sequel to this, or just an ongoing Ivy series. PLEASE DC!

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How is it heteronormative? Just the idea of them potentially wanting kids in general?

Anyway, I’m with you, I’d love to see a continuation of this. Maybe a Gotham City Sirens story where Ivy finds out where her Sporelings have went, that they’re in trouble, and she enlists Harley and Catwoman to help pull off a major heist to get them back. :smiley:

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Yeah the whole white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a family dog. A little old fashioned, I guess.

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@Razzzcat Oh, I beat Ivy the first try AFTER I submitted my book club post, so I guess she was just salty that I hadn’t done my reactions yet. Still, she is the ONLY difficult “boss fight” in Arkham Asylum, and it’s well deserved. I read that article when you first posted it, and: hard agree. Ivy is the most dangerous person in Gotham. It has been a looooooooong time since I played Injustice, and I’m sure I played as Ivy but I can’t particularly remember. I probably played as Supes a lot. But… it’s in my PS4 library, so maybe worth a revisit.

@Mae I’m actually pretty shocked that Ivy hasn’t really had many of her own solo series’ outside of this. It was easy to search for this series in DCU because she hasn’t had many. That should change.

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Say no more. You had me at Gotham City Sirens. :green_heart::black_heart::heart:

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So… I had my response (psychoanalysis of Ivy) almost completely typed out several days ago (on my laptop). But then it crashed while I stepped away to run errands and it didn’t save… :tired_face: So I’m going to try again later today. I have the best luck. :laughing:

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