Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
Pamela Isley A.K.A.
Poison Ivy is one of Batman’s most iconic foes and her love of plants is second to none,
but because she loves plants this much… what does she eat?
Does she eat plant life of any kind?
Does she strictly stick to meat or does she have a different kind of diet entirely?
Well, Let’s find out.
The subject of Poison Ivy’s diet is seldom talked about in comics which has led to a
lot of confusion over the years.
Many claim that as a plant/human hybrid, she nourishes herself through photosynthesis,
simply requiring carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight.
This can be backed up by the fact that Ivy drinks an abnormal amount of water, but outside
of that I haven’t seen any evidence to back that claim up.
In fact, we’ve seen that Pamela is also known to consume beer, wine, and coffee.
So what gives?
Well, this might mean that Ivy is a fruitarian.
This is an extreme offshoot of veganism that consists of a diet of fruit, nuts, seeds,
or any food that can be harvested without harming the plant.
Since fruit and nuts tend to naturally fall off and can be harvested with no problems
whatsoever, it makes a lot of since for the character to go this route.
...Or in this case root since that would make a pretty good plant pun.
This would also certainly explain her being okay with drinking wine and coffee with them
being fermented grapes and roasted fruit seeds respectively.
The beer we see Pamela drink could also be explained away because most beers use fermented
barley grain or it could even be an alcoholic cider which is becoming very popular in recent
years.
This fruitarian diet can also be backed up by this scene in Gotham City Sirens where
Pamela comments that her food, clothing, and shelter can all be provided by plantlife and
more blatantly in this scene where she rapidly grows a plethora of fruit for breakfast!
It turns out however that this theory does not hold up though when we look at the Harley
Quinn solo series.
Not gonna lie, I was super disappointed when I was flipping through this series for research
and I saw Ivy with this big old plate of nothing.
I pretty much lost it however when on the very next page, she took one of Harley’s
fries.
That is… until I realized that we don’t actually see her eat it.
Yeah, Ivy just looking at food in front of her is nothing new for this series.
However, this scene of Ivy eating some sort of mystery soup has to be evidence of...something,
right?
It’s most likely that this isn’t a fruit based soup well unless it’s tomato, but
it’s not red.
So does that mean that Ivy eat vegetables?
Well if we look to Batman the Animated series then she can plainly be seen eating a salad.
While we tend to exclusively focus on comics here, this is one of the most definitive eating
moments in all of Poison Ivy history.
Wouldn’t this be akin to cannibalism?
Well at this point in the animated series, Pamela wasn’t a plant hybrid yet.
It could very well be possible that her connection to plant life just wasn’t as strong when
this scene went down.
Even then, there are some instances where this could still make sense.
In some plants, pruning is actually beneficial to maintaining their health.
By clearing out dead and/or overgrown branches and stems, it helps promote healthy growth
by eliminating easy entry points for insects and helps prevent diseases from spreading
to the rest of the plant’s body.
In other cases, pruning can actually lead to better quality fruits and flowers since
the plant doesn’t need to nourish a larger body.
There’s also a chance that Ivy sees herself as a weed.
No, not that kind of weed.
Well...
I mean Ivy is no stranger to marijuana, but then again, the book that this is from was
written by Kevin Smith so yeah…
Weeds aren’t any particular type of plant, just ones that are unwanted.
If roses started to grow in an arrangement when a gardener only wanted lilies, then the
roses would be actually be considered weeds in this particular instance.
However, most plants that are typically regarded as weeds are so because they rapidly grow
and take nutrients that would normally go to the plants that are actually desired.
By this logic then Ivy could certainly eat other plants by seeing herself as a superior.
So what about meat?
After all, carnivorous plants do exist, even if their depiction in comics are… unrealistic
to say the least.
In that instance, I’ve actually been hard pressed to find any moment of Ivy eating meat
outside of the TV show, Gotham, but that versions’ metahumans are unlike pretty much any other
Batman continuity.
Literally the best I could find… is an official personality quiz from the DC Super Hero Girls
spin-off series to find out which character you’re the most like.
Fun fact, this quiz isn’t even available any more so I was only able to access it through
some internet archives.
Even then, it has several missing images.
One of the questions on this quiz is “What’s your fave thing to have for lunch?”
Salad is an option, but apparently that’s for Harley Quinn.
Poison Ivy’s answer is bacon and eggs.
Oh and in case you were wondering, yes I did take the quiz.
Apparently I’m Harley Quinn which bothers me because I am CLEARLY Katana…
Anyway, if we hop back to the main comic book continuity then we recently had a definitive
answer to Pamela’s diet, she’s vegan.
Apparently she thanks the plants for the nutrition and lets it pass back to the Earth.
Outside of that, we’re not really given much of a reason.
However, it’s probably because being a vegan is great for the environment as it takes more
land to ranch than to grow crops.
So why go through all of this if the quick in-continuity reason is that she’s vegan?
Well that’s because… it might not be true!
You see, the scene that depicts Ivy as a vegan is from Batgirl and the Birds of Prey in 2017.
Just a few months later, Ivy goes on a full on rampage in the Damage series.
Why?
Because she thinks that farming is murder.
It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense during that time that Ivy took over the entire
planet where she left Batburger open and still served up meat oddly enough.
We know for a fact that this restaurant has veggie patties and vegan cheese so if she
REALLY was vegan then why would she allow Bruce and Selina to eat anything else if it
really is better for the environment?
It’s going to be super disappointing, but the legitimate answer is that nobody really
knows what Poison Ivy eats, not even the writers.
Now I might be a loser obsessed with continuity that has way too much time on his hands, but
by not falling into the stereotype that vegans will definitely let you know, it’s left
things pretty ambiguous and easily forgotten by future writers.
With hundreds of writers handling these beloved characters over the years then small details
are just bound to slip through the cracks, but I guess with all of these inconsistencies,
that makes Ivy a bit of a... loose canon!
*YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!*
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Anyway, I hope you learned at least a little something new and maybe I’ll see you next
time!