Previously on Revenge of Graphic Content, I wrote about the fun of the film Heretic (2024), but this time around I want to explore a favorite character of mine, Swamp Thing. Specifically, I want to examine how Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy are used in the recent comic featuring the two characters. So let’s talk Poison Ivy/ Swamp Thing: Feral Trees, shall we?
Most of my familiarity with Swamp Thing runs through the works of Len Wein and Alan Moore. I fell off keeping up with Swamp Thing as the title became more integrated into the DC Universe of crises and epic crossovers. I adore Swamp Thing; I appreciate his encounters with John Constantine. Who doesn’t love a good Batman team-up? Nut the nature of modern continuity requiring a checklist across multiple titles has always left me worn out.
But still, Swamp Thing persists. The horrors of the world persist. I persist. A reunification was in order, and Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees by G. Willow Wilson and Mike Perkins seems as good enough a starting point as any.
Swamp thing
Before reading the book, I was familiar with the concept of Swamp Thing having had some sort of encounter with Poison Ivy. But beyond that, all I really had were vague notions of “these characters would work well together” and “they should crossover at some point.” I believe that officially happened in the New 52 era, but I had been checked out of the main DC continuity by then.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that last month such a crossover finally happened in a one-shot starring Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy. Even more exciting was the note that it was a one-shot. A single story, maybe not as wrapped up in the various continuities at whatever era of the DC Universe we’re now in. No tracking the number of Earths for me.
While I am more of a Swamp Thing fan, I do enjoy a good Poison Ivy story. I’ve written extensively on Swamp Thing and own several volumes of the classic runs by Wein and Moore I was obsessed with the recent and short-lived television series. Of course, I love the movies too. I still very much want to keep up with the character, and I am dipping my toes into current continuity, but I think this crossover with Poison Ivy sold me on the whole thing.
Potential. That’s what I saw coming into it. The book lived up to that.
Poison Ivy
Poison Ivy has always been a Batman villain to me, but I’ve seen there is a trend in adaptations to make her portrayal more nuanced; Poison Ivy is the eco-warrior we sometimes wish we could be – an avatar of the nature-lover to reap vengeance upon the cruel world that has so mercilessly hacked its way through greenery and nature; like a terroristic Lorax, but with more sex-appeal. Or maybe I am just projecting here, but what I am getting at is that Ivy makes a lot of sense and is sympathetic.
I get Ivy; I understand what she is about, and often I feel a conflict inherent to this more grey reading of the green woman. Great villains tend to have understandable motivations, and Ivy is perfectly understood. We (at least, I) want, to some degree, to see her succeed. That’s fascinating and terrifying and the best sort of Poison Ivy stories play on that uncomfortable reality.
I love Swamp Thing as a series and as a character, but the element of the crossover that excited me most was Poison Ivy’s role in the proceedings. Swamp Thing is balanced, and Ivy is one to tip the scales. How do her metahuman powers put her into the context of the Parliament of Trees, or more significantly, the Green?
Elemental Horror of Gotham City
Is there a forest more terrifying in concept than one of the borders of Gotham City? The Gotham City I love, the tortured city would naturally have a landscape of darkness surrounding it. Just as tragedies and horrors play out daily in the concrete, glass, and steel canyons of the Earth-bound Hell of Gotham, who knows what stories lurk in the woods on the borderland?
It’s not just the residents of Arkham that lurk in the shadows, but deep magic, organized crime, and the unknowable vastness of nature itself in the DC Universe.
Well, in Feral Trees, where the plants grow and raw nature clings to existence in a rapidly industrialized world, there lives the Swamp Thing. But he is not alone, either, for the Parliament of Trees is there as trees creak, screaming and killing in frozen winter. Perhaps the only hope is the eco-terrorist (or eco-savior) Poison Ivy.
Fitting that the darkness of the woods, a primal fear of humanity, is the perfect setting to explore the nature of one of Gotham City’s more terrifying rogues and the more cosmic significance she may yet achieve.
The terrifying landscape that haunted early humans just so happens to be the place where Poison Ivy may come to terms with her nature. Fitting.
The Parliament of Trees and the Green
I’ve enjoyed the Parliament of Trees since Alan Moore first introduced the concept in Swamp Thing Vol. 2. #47. The interconnectedness of plant life on Earth was a good match for the lore and psychedelia that wove through Moore’s reenvisioning of the character. As much as I loved Wein’s first volume for being a damn fine monster book, Moore’s run made Swamp Thing a trip into esoterica and the occult that caught my interest when I was reading back issues and trades.
That all plants were connected and there was an organizational body of old growth that sought to ensure the survival of the trees spoke to me. I had always enjoyed Tolkien’s Ents – what is the character of Swamp Thing but an Ent by route of freak science, murder, and perhaps cosmic fate?
From One Universe to Another
I am not as familiar with the Post-Flashpoint reworking of the Parliament of Trees as an aspect of The Green, but I do appreciate it and I think it’s a perfectly fine inclusion to the worldbuilding around Swamp Thing. The Green represents a cosmic elemental manifestation of plant life, a universal constant. That makes sense. Plants are beautiful and strange. The Parliament of Trees is like the local manifestation of this cosmic constant works too. It clicks, I appreciate that and want to know more.
It helps that we see both the local and cosmic within Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees. The Parliament is on the case of the screaming, violent trees. But what so goes for Earth in the DC Universe, affects all of the universe; something that disrupts the wintry cycle of Gotham’s trees is dangerous indeed. It’s no wonder Swamp Thing is investigating, as are The Hill, The Kettle Hole Devil, and Jack In The Green – relatively deep cuts.
And, tellingly, the Green is calling to Poison Ivy, as her metahuman powers can control plants. All hands on deck. The Old Growth needs the Young Blood.
A Conversation; Seeds of Growth
G. Willow Wilson, writer of Feral Trees, does an excellent job uniting the two plant-centric characters. We get a revelation they know of one another (from a comic I have yet to read, I’m sure) but that matters only in the context that it gets Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy to converse as they move through a mystery that isn’t all that mysterious. Ivy figures things out pretty quickly and is the one leading the charge.
This is Ivy’s show, and Swamp Thing is just a featured player. It’s a smart move. Swamp Thing is something beyond mortal reasoning, Ivy slightly less so. She is at least still grounded by human concerns – and those concerns are what the Parliament discusses. Fitting as the comic is mostly a dialogue about Ivy’s impulsive nature and Swamp Thing (and other members of the Green) offering her some guidance and pointed observations about her nature and eventual call to the Green itself.
Hybrid Bodies and Separate Perspectives
The note of hybridity explored regarding Ivy is fascinating. We first see her in the book cuddled with Harley Quinn, her most tangible connection to humanity that keeps her somewhat measured. It keeps part of her human and grounds the possible goddess. However, the side that connects her to the Green (is she partially a plant or just in tune?) picks up on the howl of Gotham’s forest. She is compelled to investigate. Her hybridity sets her on the path.
Swamp Thing is a hybrid too, to a degree; he has the mind of Alec Holland, though he is more of an after-image of what was once Alec Holland, imprinted on plant cells and given a crude human shape. It’s all very tragic. At least, if that is still the continuity of the character. I will be investigating further.
Over the decades of publishing history, we see that Swamp Thing is not so much tethered to the human world. I don’t even know if he is with Abby Arcane in this current continuity. He appears subsumed wholly into his role as an Avatar of the Green. He ascended to the Godhead and can do incredible things, things that Poison Ivy has the potential to do as well if she gives up her humanity.
But can she? Will she? Therein lies the central conflict of Feral Trees, I feel.
Can She Transcend?
In the story, Ivy grapples with her positionality. The revelation of a plant-controlling metahuman dying alone in the woods, lashing out through the trees she loves, reflects Ivy and her imbalance. The Parliament speaks to her, directly referencing this, telling her to wait, to feel, to be the plant, not the person. Ivy rejects this; she is angry and impulsive. She is human. She expresses frustration at being unable to be there for someone like her.
Swamp Thing says it all:
“Revenge? No. I do not want… revenge. But the fact that you do… says much about what you love most in the world. My brethren and I chose the forest. You… chose the girl.”
The girl in question is Paula, who dies in front of Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing, but it is also Harley Quinn. One of Ivy’s few roots is still stuck in the world of the human. Were she to sever that connection, who knows what power she could wield on behalf of the Green?
It is the central question I arrived at when I read Feral Trees. Are there cosmic plans for Poison Ivy? By now, she has transcended the role of villain to antihero alongside her lover Harley Quinn.
Are we seeing signs of the training of a new Avatar of the Green?
No review?
No, there is no review here, sorry. This is an opportunity to write about larger themes. If you want a critical assessment of the one-shot, I’ll leave you with this: it’s great. It digs into the horrific elements that reflect peak Swamp Thing themes while raising interesting questions about Poison Ivy, all wrapped around a relatively simple mystery that is more about the characters than the mystery itself.
Give it a read; hit up your local comic shop.
DC Comics: Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees
5/5 Ghost Emoji: 👻👻👻👻👻
Written by G. Willow Wilson
Illustrated by Mike Perkins
Colored By Mike Spicer
Also, if you have a comic you would like to review, please contact me. I would be happy to consider it for the column. You can always help fund my writing online through a donation.
