The Batman Strikes # 18

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Batman cartoon series had several seasons back in 2004, and while the first season had the Caped Crusader go solo, later seasons would bring in Batgirl and Robin. Due to Robin being popular in the Teen Titans cartoon show, and to avoid confusion, this time around Batgirl becomes Batman's sidekick in the second season. 

In the TV show, Barbara was friends with Pamela and due to a series of circumstances, Pamela would become Poison Ivy and Barbara would become Batgirl. As you can tell from the title, issue 18 brings Batgirl into the comic book series, so let's take a look at the comic debut of this version of the character. 

"The Greenhouse Effect" opens with Commissioner Gordon calling his daughter Barbara and trying to find out where she is that late at night. Barbara said she needed a break from studying and went out for a walk. Actually, Barbara is dressed as Batgirl and staking out some trouble-makers that are breaking into washing machines to steal the coins. Suddenly a mop flies out, hitting one of the guys. They turn to see Batgirl and aren't afraid to go after her. 

Batgirl rides one of the laundry carts and makes it smash into another of the thugs. A woman pulls out a lead pipe and says that they sent the last person that tried to play hero to the hospital for six months. She swings her pipe towards Batgirl, but the costumed crimefighter leaps over her and lands behind her. Batgirl beats up the thugs and tells them that the last bad guy she fought is spending six years in jail. One of them suddenly pulls a gun behind her. Suddenly one of the laundry bins hits the guy and knocks him out.

Batman has arrived and tells Batgirl that she dropped her guard. She says she was just giving him a chance to join in on the action. She says it wouldn't kill him to compliment her partner once in a while. Batman says he doesn't have a partner. As Batgirl notices that the police has arrived, Batman has already left the scene. 

As the police park around the Laundromat, Batman is staring from the rooftops. Batgirl lands alongside him say he could also wave goodbye once in a while. Batman tells 'Miss Gordn' that this isn't a game. Batgirl says she knows that and says father is the police commissioner, and this runs in her blood. She tells him she respects what Batman and her dad do, and is about to mention her mother. She cuts herself off and says he wouldn't understand. Batman thinks about his own parents and says he does understand.

Later on at Arkham Asylum, Commissioner Gordon and Barbara visit Pamela Isley. Pamela ignores her and is jogging around in her cell. James says she's been like this for a week, 20 hours of exercise a day and no talking. Barbara wonders if she lost it since she's not allowed to have plants. Her father says plants are lethal weapons in her hands, her room was specifically built to her keep away from greenery. Barbara sadly says she's also isolated from the outside world and her friends. James apologizes and says it has to be this way and leaves. Pamela overhears this and starts using her powers. Plants start bursting through the floor around her. 

Elsewhere, sometime later, James and Barbara are enjoying and outdoors atrium, which was built thanks to the donations of Bruce Wayne. Bruce and Alfred are there as well, as Bruce says he wants to help make Gotham the cleanest and greenest city in the world. Alfred does mention the excess pollen and Barbara offers him a napkin. Bruce says he hasn't seen Barbara in a while and she's grown like a weed. This upsets her a bit and Brice wonders if he said something wrong. James mentioned they went to visit Pamela earlier that day and it's tough for her to see a friend be locked up in Arkham.

Meanwhile Arkham is now covered in vines. Back to the atrium, Alfred is at a flower shop and considers buying some cat-themed balloons for Bruce. Just then plant vines overrun the flower shop and scare the people inside.

Barbara is in her room looking at a rose given to her by Pamela that has a card saying 'We can change the world, Red'. As she hopes her friend gets better, the plant suddenly becomes a killer plant that tries to bite her. Barbara kicks it in the closet and figures that Ivy is on the move again.

Wayne Enterprise is also covered by vines as Batman swings outside. Batgirl finds Batman who tells her the city is overrun with plants and the city is incapacitated except for them. Batgirl understands why her dad comes home from work frustrated. 

Elsewhere, Poison Ivy is resting alongside her giant garden saying she'll clean up Gotham from all the traffic, smog and litter. She says soon everyone will get used to living among the plant life, as she now has people trapped in pods. Suddenly a Batarang chops the vine that Ivy is resting on, making her fall to the ground. She looks up to see that Batman and Batgirl have arrived to stop her. Batman says she can't win and Ivy says they are in her garden so she calls the shots now. She has her vines fire off their thorns at the due as they avoid the attack. 

Batman throws bombs that blow up the vines and Ivy jumps out of the way. She says Batman has come to stop her with trinkets while she has the whole world in her hands. She sets her hand on the ground and a root shoots up from the ground, socking Batman in the face and knocking him down. Batgirl swings in and Ivy says if the man can't stop her, the tagalong has no chance at all. A tree branch swings over and swats Batgirl out of the air. Batman knocks Ivy down with a flying headbutt. Ivy says she draws her powers from the Earth itself and commands a giant mass of roots to swing down at Batman. The Caped Crusader dives out of the way.

Batman presses a button on his utility belt, and a bat-themes jetpack flies out of the Batcave and heads for his general direction. Batman gets tangles in Ivy's vines who says he probably has the TV remote in his belt too. With Batman restrained, Ivy blows her plant pheromones in his face. Now with Batman being under her control, Ivy commands him to let her take his cowl off and find out who he is. 

Batgirl recovers from being hit by the branch earlier and sees the Bat-Jetpack headed towards them. She takes control of it and grabs Ivy, pulling her away from Batman. Ivy says she needs to be on the ground for her powers to work and demands that Batgirl lets her go. Batgirls socks her in the face, telling her to keep her hands off her cape.

Batman wraps a grappling hook around Ivy's leg and leaves her handing over a tree branch. The plants get back to normal and Batman says the people are escaping from the pods. He tells Batgirl that she is a fast study. Batgirl is happy he called her by her hero name and asks if she's his official partner now. Batman says not to press her luck. As they both swing off, Batman does advise her to keep her legs slightly bent as it adds arc to the swing. She asks if he can help her with geometry next. 

My thoughts- 

Pretty fun story, though the limited comic format really hurts it since everything has to be condensed to fit. Like you know there would have been some action scene with Alfred trying to escape the planets at the flower shop if there was more time. The most jarring thing is, I didn't even know Ivy had people trapped in her plant pods until they were set free at the end. I guess that's what Batman meant when he told Batgirl that everyone's been incapacitated. 

I guess the panel with Ivy and pods does have some human-like shadows shown within the pods, but I kinda would have liked a panel of some people being trapped in pods during the flower shop scene. That brings me back to the flower shop scene most likely getting more time if it was in a cartoon format, since we can assume Alfred was also caught. 

The story serves as a good sequel of sorts to the Batgirl origin two-parter, which also saw Pamela become Poison Ivy. This one further shows that the friend Barbara once knew is gone for good as she's now full-on Arkham villain. Poison Ivy is the second villain to have this 'tragic friend turn villain' in this series, the first being Clayface as both Bruce and Ellen lost their friend Bennett to his super villain side. Unlike Ivy though, Bennett does eventually get better so it's tragic that Barbara did permanently lose her friend.

This version of Poison Ivy also follows the more modern versions of the character, where rather than controlling plants through scientific means, now she has full-on super powers and can control plant life at will. Ivy has become so plant-like in recent years, it's easy to forget she was more of a normal human at first. Even her plant pheromones were things she had to apply to herself to use against others. Nowadays it's just a natural part of her she can also summon at will.

Oh right, another thing worth mentioning is that in the second season James Gordon replaced Rojas as the police commissioner, so naturally the comic follows suit. 

Other than the story, the one thing that stood out was the letter column. A fan asked if the comic would feature The Riddler, Clayface, Batgirl and Killer Croc. Since it usually takes time for the letters to show up, the editor answered that all of them, except for Croc have appeared in the comic at the time of the column, so they just have Croc to work on. 

The next letter mentioned that Scarecrow was one of that fan's favorites and asks when he would make an appearance. The editor had to say that wouldn't be happening but without a reason. Mostly because for whatever reason, the cartoon wasn't allowed to use Rahs 'Al Ghul, Scarecrow and Two-Face since they were in the Nolan movies... even though somehow Joker and Bane still made the cut. Without Scarecrow being in the cartoon, naturally he wouldn't appear in the comic based on the cartoon.

Now I'm curious how a 'The Batman' version of the Scarecrow would have looked like.