Some of the great comic book villains have proven that though they do harm, their motivation can be sympathetic – even realistic. Poison Ivy is one such villain who uses her immense power to protect the earth, even if it means violence against humans.

Poison Ivy can exude venomous floral toxins and pheromones to enthrall or poison men, and she can rapidly grow plants to extreme sizes. Once characterized as a villainess, since the New 52 she has been mostly depicted as an antiheroine.

Ivy debuted 60 years ago in Batman #181 (June 1966), created by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, when she plans to prove that she’s the best female criminal in Gotham. Though she gets the better of three other villainesses, Batman blocks her charms and arrests her. Ivy becomes romantically interested in Batman after he exhibits the ability to resist her pheromones in their early encounters.

Ivy’s origin story was told in World’s Finest #252 (September 1978), introducing Pamela Isley, a botany student in love with a teacher. She stole special herbs to help him with experiments, which he used to poison her. Instead of dying, she developed invulnerability to all poisons and turned to a life of crime.

Her origin was revised in Secret Origins #36 (January 1989), introducing Pamela as a timid scientist working for Dr. Jason Woodrue, who was turning into the supervillain Floronic Man. Hoping to create a human/plant hybrid, he experimented on her and Pamela went from awkward and shy to a powerful femme fatale. Since then, her primary goal is to protect the world’s fauna from extinction at all costs – even human life.

In search of a place undisturbed by people, Ivy left Gotham and settled on a deserted Caribbean island, in Batman: Poison Ivy (May 1997). But when it’s firebombed, Ivy returns to Gotham planning to stay in the city to purify it and protect plant life.

During the villain-heavy No Man’s Land (1999), Ivy turns Robinson Park into a tropical paradise sanctuary. She becomes a caretaker for several orphaned children and teams with Batman to defeat Clayface after he imprisons her. She also finds Harley Quinn, who Joker had tried to murder, and nurses her back to health, which begins their longtime friendship.

The Gotham City Sirens series (June 2009-August 2011) saw Ivy, Harley, and Catwoman forming a partnership to protect each other from the increasingly dangerous city. When Harley breaks Joker out of Arkham, Ivy tries unsuccessfully to convince her to leave him. Catwoman dissolves their team after Ivy drugs her to learn Batman’s identity and Ivy ends up in Arkham. After breaking out, Ivy and Harley reconcile and seek Catwoman, who betrayed them for Batman. In her wrath, Ivy entangles the city with giant vines and when Batman is about to arrest her, Catwoman helps her and Harley escape.

Ivy and Harley are regularly shown to be friends and partners in crime, but with the New 52 reboot of Harley Quinn comics, it is revealed that the two have had a romantic relationship. The relationship is initially presented as casual, but at one point they considered living together.

In the Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death (2016) miniseries by Amy Chu and Clay Mann, Pamela returned to her life as a botanist. Using science and her abilities, she creates plant-human hybrid babies who grow quickly and develop superpowers. After they stop a fellow doctor from trying to use her abilities to gain immortality, the sporelings leave Gotham.

She helped Batman stop a deadly form of bacteria that Mr. Freeze had released by synthesizing a cure to the spores. Then she crossed paths with the Birds of Prey when she planned to take down Terracare, a company that made a fertilizer that was destructive to bees. The Birds were saving the Calculator’s family who had been taken hostage by Terracare. In the end, they stopped the people responsible for Terracare’s unsavory deeds and Ivy became the chemist on the fertilizer project.

When Ivy and Harley Quinn became a couple in the Harley Quinn animated series, their relationship also transferred into comics. The Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy miniseries followed Harley as she sought to revive Ivy after she had died and been reborn in Heroes in Crisis. The two starred in a few miniseries and one-shots based on the animated show like the Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour.

Poison Ivy is currently starring in an ongoing series that started in August 2022. The series began when Ivy had lost her powers and was dying, so she set out to save the world by destroying the human race.

Poison Ivy has gone through several metamorphoses throughout her career as an ambitious villain and powerful antiheroine. Regardless of her stage in development, one thing holds true – the denizens of Gotham should not mess with mother nature.