The following contains major spoilers for Knight Terrors: Poison Ivy #1, on sale now from DC Comics.
While DC’s Knight Terrors has plunged nearly the entire world into a dreadful slumber, it has also revealed some unnerving truths about those very same heroes and villains. While this itself isn’t all that surprising, what some of these characters fear most absolutely is, and that’s no truer of anyone than it is Poison Ivy. Most shocking of all, it isn’t any sort of gory end or grim demise that Ivy is so afraid of. It’s the thought of giving up everything she is for the woman she loves.
As the villainous Insomnia’s influence washes over the globe in the pages of Knight Terrors: Poison Ivy #1 (by G. Willow Wilson, Atagun Ilhan, Mark Morales, Arif Prianto, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou), the titular DC icon slips into a deep and unexpected slumber. Before Ivy knows what has happened, she is standing not in the darkness of her swampy home just outside Gotham, but in a pastel wonderland that is unnerving in every conceivable way. Though Ivy immediately recognizes something is wrong, she can’t quite put it into words until her beloved Harley greets their neighbors, Batman and Catwoman. As the story continues, it becomes apparent that while Ivy isn’t the only one disturbed by her new surroundings. However, she isn’t all that interested in leaving them behind once she realizes the fighting can be done with if she just accepts her new life.
Why Poison Ivy’s Worst Nightmare is Happy Suburban Lifestyle
Poison Ivy’s nightmare comes with plenty of monstrous accouterments. However, the core of the horror subverts her near lifelong fight against the systems of power that hold the world back from progress. Ivy’s first appearance back in Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff’s “Beware of — Poison Ivy!” from the pages of 1966’s Batman #181 might not have showcased much beyond her place as Gotham’s then latest femme fatale, yet it wasn’t long before Pamela Isley’s story became synonymous with that of a woman as scorned as she is powerful. Early, campier outings quickly gave way to more overt acts of eco-terrorism, anti-corporatist endeavors, and an open disdain for all forms of corrupt bureaucracy and the heroes who defend them.
It’s these staunch ideological stances that have come to define Poison Ivy the most. Yet, what lines she draws and where they lie have certainly shifted over time. This is more prominent than anywhere in the form of Ivy’s romantic relationship with Harley Quinn. Though it seems like an indelible part of their wider mythos today, it was little more than fan shipping for years. Thankfully, that relationship has helped usher in new eras for and greater depth for both characters across a variety of media and numerous titles. While not every aspect of their romance made them better people, it has helped them replace destructive habits they used to lean into on their own. In fact, the near-dependence that the two have built upon each other has left them with few, if any, real outlets for their most deeply rooted struggles. This is now the precise reason Ivy is willing to remain trapped in her own worst nightmare.
Why Poison Ivy is So Willing to Give in to DC’s Knight Terrors
Giving up in her fights against systemic corruption and oppression just so she can sit back and relax might be anathema to everything that Poison Ivy stands for,. However, it’s a clear sign of how far she has come as a character and how far her desires have shifted along the way. Poison Ivy once would have been utterly incapable of even considering retirement, let alone to move to the burbs. Considering how lethal Ivy’s reputation is for all the worst reasons, seeing her simply accept that this could be her life now almost makes it seem as if this version of her is more nightmare than person. Of course, that isn’t anywhere close to the truth, although it does reframe many of Ivy’s old tropes by having her eschew them entirely.
Rather than being dead set in her quest for violent justice or gruesome revenge against the people who made her life Hell, Ivy is ready to see past whatever horrors are inherent to this dreamscape if it means she and Harley can be happy. Not only does this make the nightmare itself less absurd in every way that matters to her, it proves Ivy genuinely cares more for Harley and their future together than any of the scars left by her past. Unfortunately, it also makes it painfully obvious how easy Ivy is to manipulate at this point because of her love for Harley, which in turn might mean that her real nightmare hasn’t quite begun.
As easy as it would be to convince Ivy to come over to his side of things by preying on what she wants, that kind of cooperation doesn’t seem to be in Insomnia’s wheelhouse. That said, it’s far more likely that Insomnia will turn what comfort Ivy has found in her nightmare against her in a bid to bring back that gut-wrenching sensation she felt upon first awakening in the darkest corners of her subconscious. Poison Ivy has already proven she’s willing to give everything up for Harley. This means she could soon be prompted to give up the very same secret Insomnia has been looking to uncover to take his hold over the globe to the next level.