“This is starting to feel like a Scooby Doo” episode is not a good thing.
Creative Staff:
Story: Amy Chu
Art: Al Barrionouevo, Cliff Richards, Sandu Florea, Scott Hanna
Colors: Ulises Arreola
Letterer: Janice Chiang
What They Say:
Poison Ivy and her Sporelings battle for survival in the epic final chapter of “Cycle of Life and Death”! The monster Grim makes his final move, the murderer is revealed, and Pamela Isley’s life will be forever changed! Plus, someone, or someTHING, joins the fray!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Poison Ivy miniseries draws to a close with this installment and it’s certainly left me with mixed feelings. As much as I like the character and all her potential, everything here simply felt like a drawn out mystery story without enough payoff and a sendoff that indicates we’ll see more of this in the future, but I’m hard pressed to believe it’ll ever get explored. While the book could have been tighter in a couple of less issues, it also could have used some consistency in the art. This one brings in All Barrionouevo and Cliff Richards to pencil it and I’ve lost track of how many artists there have been on here. Frankly, Ivy deserves better considering her career overall and the way the book lacked a strong consistent look to it. The rotating artist schedule simply didn’t help the perception of the solidity of the book.
With this being the final issue the whole thing pretty much revolves around action and then exposition. With the reveal that Grimley is alive and has transformed into the obvious Scooby Doo villain but without a mask, well, it’s just oversized action material here as he and Ivy fight it out while revealing his terminal illness lead him to the specialized stem cell research which he piggybacked on Ivy’s own research. That it worked briefly to heal and rejuvenate him before transforming him into this monster is no surprise. We get a decent blending of action in the present and exposition of how it all came together and how he killed those that he did, but it’s all by the numbers and just feels like last minute clearing of the decks so that everything is wrapped up neatly.
The action does put Ivy in a bad spot, enough so that Swamp Thing has to surface to help out before Rose and the gang show up with Darshan to pitch in as well. It’s an all out rumble that’s fun enough to watch but it’s hitting all the expected points, including Grimley coming back one last time and most of his remains being chucked in the river. This all works as setup for a second round down the line, as does the way Rose and her sisters head off secretly at the end for their own plans that they don’t want Ivy to know. Part of me just hopes it’s true and that they don’t live long so that this plot thread can simply die. It’s a rough piece for Ivy in that she’s lost so much already and now her sporelings, and you really hope Darshan doesn’t go back to her place since she’s not going to be pleased in the slightest.
In Summary:
I love Poison Ivy as a character and there’s so much potential with her that this just feels like a misfire overall. It had some interesting ideas at the beginning but it’s drawn out too much and it ended up feeling too by the numbers at the end here as everything is resolved neatly enough and likely never to be mentioned or referenced in the mainline books at all. Amy Chu set up some good ideas but just wasn’t able to capitalize on them and the book suffered a good bit from the rotating cast of artists that really chipped away at a consistent look and tone, though they tried. Stories like this are ones that make me wish more for an Elseworlds style book or a Vertigo level book as a way to tell them so it can just get done in a stronger and more appealing way, but that’s just not how it works. So, instead, we’ll have a largely forgettable miniseries. Unfortunately.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 15th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
