CREDITS: Written by Scott Peterson; art by Tim Levins and Terry Beatty.
REVIEW: Though in the mold of many other Poison Ivy schemes, this one just seems silly to me. All-natural cereal that makes one susceptible to Ivy's powers? People lining up around the corner to buy it? It's called "Eden's Own"? And once the market's opened up to it, Ivy, a known psychopath and criminal, is filling auditoriums like she doesn't have a rap sheet? I dunno. I don't quite buy it, which perhaps makes me cold to the entire issue.
We do get a couple of cute cereal jokes, mind you, from the cover to Batgirl's immunity because she never graduated to grown-up cereal (neither did Robin, presumably). Nightwing, sent into Ivy's operation as a West Coast tree hugger dude - an amusing disguise - succumbs to the campaign's convincing copy, but then, he shouldn't have eaten the breakfast food. I like the transitions between him and the rest of the Batman Family, as you initially don't know if that IS Dick, but ultimately, the plot leads to an odd exchange about the cereal not being "real", and I don't know if the "feel good" properties of the product were just a result of suggestibility or what. And doesn't Dick sound a bit much like an addict just then?
He doesn't turn traitor, mind you. It's not that kind of story (though it could have been). Dick supplies the final clue that allows Batman to figure out just what Ivy is doing, with his blood, and is then whisked off stage while the Bat takes care of business. Can you, in fact, make plants pass out by filling the air with oxygen? And have we accepted that Ivy is now a plant? That climax made me arch an eyebrow.
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