Poison Ivy #33 // Review
She wonders sometimes if we all have the same dreams. Like...when we fall asleep, do we all fall into the same place? On common landscape? So maybe that jolt of confusion in the land between dream and waking life is just the confusion of being separated from the one thing that is truly real. She’s about to discover some of the complexity behind this curiosity in Poison Ivy #33. Writer G. Willow Wilson continues a deeply enjoyable and sweetly engaging run with Pam and company that is brought to page and panel by artist Marcio Takara and colorist Arif Prianto.
She’s also kind of wondering whether or not it might be capable to make that sort of dreamscape on Earth. Of course...thoughts of that sort are very well-intentioned thoughts, but such thoughts ARE the thoughts of dictators and lunatics and megalomaniacs. She knows a little bit about that herself. She’s certain spent enough time with THEM over the years. Still...there IS beauty in rewilding a space that had been left to die due to neglect.
The series continues to sparkle with wit and drama. WIlson is a gifted storyteller who can find thee deepest meaning in the shallowest cliche and do so in the midst of a sweeping action horror. It’s sunning stuff and she’s been doing it for years now with this same creative team...so they all know each other well enough to have developed a really interesting sort of a rapport that does wonders for the overall fluidity and unity of the story. Pam comes across with great complexity that seems to have delicately evolved over the years since her first issue. The delicate dynamics between her and Pam and this new Peter guy turn out to be remarkably engrossing on a few different levels.
Wilson allows Pam to be actually...actually kind of happy for much of the run of this particular issue, which is actually really, really cool. This allows Takara and Prianto an opportunity to show the title character in a rare moment of satisfaction. Under the pen of Takara and the resonance of Prianto’s colors, Pam is pretty and radiant when she’s actually happy. There’s a strong sense of remarkably clever bits of energy around the edges of everything that work quite well throughout an issue that also features some petty dramatic action and tension once things really get going.
There’s a really cool sense of progression that continues to develop as the series continues. What opened with a restless road trip and continued through a big crossover and various other episodes has finally settled-down into a moment where Pam has finally created a home for herself...which has not been compromised. And now she’s decided to stand her ground on the ground that she has nurtured into being beautiful. And she’ll be damned if she lets anything happen to it. It’s a fun progression for someone who had started the series in a quasi-genocidal sort of a mood.
