Poison Ivy's Creepiest Power Confirms She's Basically a God
Warning! This article contains spoilers for Dark Knights of Steel #5
While Poison Ivy has long been established as an extraordinarily powerful DC Comics character, she recently revealed her creepiest power, one that basically makes her a god. Pamela Isley has the power to control all kinds of plant life with her mind, the ability to manipulate pheromones, and the power to turn herself into living poison, making her touch incredibly deadly. While all of her long-established abilities make her a huge threat to anyone she faces, this newly-revealed ability makes her more powerful than she ever was before.
In Dark Knights of Steel #5 by Tom Taylor and Yasmine Putri, fans are thrown into an alternate reality within DC Comics’ multiverse. In this world, Superman and his family abandoned Krypton long before Superman was sent to Earth in the main continuity. The Kryptonians landed on Earth during medieval times and used their godlike abilities to establish their own kingdom. After Jor-El was assassinated by a Kryptonite arrow, the Kryptonians find themselves at war with a group who are sick of their rule. In order to keep their kingdom safe, the House of El sends Harley Quinn to the forest in an effort to convince Poison Ivy to join them and kill anyone who opposes their house.
When Harley makes her way into the forest to recruit Poison Ivy to her cause, Ivy reveals an ability that makes her a one-person army. During their conversation, Ivy cuts off Harley mid-sentence and says, “The trees feel someone flying over them on the wind.” This sentence reveals that Ivy is alerted by the plant life surrounding her even when she is not consciously controlling their movements or actions. Ivy is tapped into "the green," meaning that every plant in the forest (and perhaps even further) is basically her very own sensory organ. This makes Poison Ivy omnipresent to the extent of her reach. While impressive, this power is definitely a little creepy as every plant in her vicinity is seemingly a piece of her that alerts Ivy whenever there is movement, making Poison Ivy pretty much everywhere at once.
Poison Ivy’s newly revealed power is similar to that of Marvel Comics’ Jean Grey as shown in New X-Men #128 by Grant Morrison and Igor Kordey. In that issue, Jean Grey reveals that her powers extended out through the objects she was lifting with her telekinesis, widening her awareness and becoming more in-tune with the world around her. While Jean Grey was only able to exhibit this power with the help of the Phoenix Force, Poison Ivy shows that her version of extended sensory awareness is a constant state of being.
Poison Ivy's powers have something in common with the Phoenix Force, an entity that is cosmically powerful even when compared to other godlike beings. Given this astounding revelation, Poison Ivy proves that she is basically a god as she is able to tap into the plant life around her and extend her powers and awareness through them to incredible lengths.