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Where In the World Has Poison Ivy Gone, DC Comics?

You can find DC Comics character Poison Ivy everywhere right now, a planned movie, one of DC's most popular cosplay choices, all over the kids books… but there seems a notable absence from the core comics line itself. IvyGirl851 investigates for Bleeding Cool, as she asked where in the world is Poison Ivy?

The easy answer is Sanctuary. The mental health center where beloved DC Comics character go to find inner peace, support, help and get murdered. Relax. It's a joke. But it's also truth. But is she there? Is she really there? Perhaps she was in Sanctuary but has finished her high tech, robot and VR based therapy sessions and is out? Possibly. Or she could be revealed as yet another casualty in Heroes In Crisis. Or the murdered.

Heroes in Crisis showed that everything is possible and that there are no limits to what can happen in the book. But my question, "where has Poison Ivy gone, where is she", is not just about Sanctuary and Heroes In Crisis. Sooner or later we will find out about this.

DC has been using Poison Ivy as a very successful promotional tool. She appears in expensive variant covers, prints, merchandise, clothing lines, toys, costumes, school bags, pens, pencils, glasses, cosmetics, the list goes on. The list is endless. She is one of the characters with the most merchandise available. Why? Because she sells. Her image sells. And DC knows that. And they use her image to sell things and make a profit. She will also co-star in the upcoming Harley Quinn animated series. So… where is she?

I know this will annoy a lot of people but it IS a bit (or a lot) sexist to use an image of a sexy woman in order to sell things and not give the character the opportunities to grow. To be involved in the DC Universe. To get stories. But hey. Even if you disagree with my argument about sexism… wouldn't you dudes and dudettes like to see a sexy redhead kick some ass in a comic book?

She has been absent from stories and solicits for more than half a year. She has even vanished from the Harley Quinn solo book which is even weirder since… well… Harley is getting an animated series. With Ivy.

So where is she? Why one of the most popular DC characters can't get a book? Or be part of a book? Or a team? There are more questions. Recently she has been reformed and working at Batgirl's company in Birds of Prey. The book ended but what happened with this story? What happened with her daughters from her mini series (that sold a lot more than many of DC's experiments with various books and outsold even a lot of "big titles" yet it was not renewed and ended in a cliffhanger). Will we learn what happened to them? Or is this a story that as readers we are supposed to forget? In her All Star Batman, Batman promises to clear her name (yes this is not just about the little girl but also about Poison Ivy) what happened to this story? I can keep mentioning examples.

Yes comics are open ended and editors will say: use your imagination. But… Poison Ivy is a character where systematically has her stories building up to a point and then being dropped with no answers given. Is this an editorial problem? Is there a clash ast DC about how she should be portrayed? Why not try letting the character grow and evolve? Why not give her the same chances other characters have? If Clayface, Lobo, Killer Frost or Man Bat can be heroes then why not Poison Ivy? If Lobo's daughter can be in a book then why can't we learn what happened to Poison Ivy's daughters?

DC knows the character sells. Yet for some reason they don't give her stories. They give her a ton of merchandise, she's in the top six characters with most merchandise and variant appearances but she doesn't get any stories compared to her merchandise representation and popularity. So… where is she?

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