Batman #181 Facsimile Edition

There's a new criminal queen on the Gotham City scene. Her name is Poison Ivy and she uses a mix of botanical knowledge and chemistry to put others under her command. But in order to become the most feared femme fatale of them all, Ivy must eliminate Interpol's top 3 most dangerous female criminals. In order to do that, Poison Ivy plans to use the Caped Crusader whose fallen under the villainess's spell with her bedeviled kiss!

In the second feature, the members of the Gotham City Detective's Club must protect a mystery novelist who has been marked for death when the clock strikes 10pm! While the majority of the club members seek to provide protection for writer, Batman will do the dirty work by doing what he does best: sleuthing and maybe knocking around a few heads!

I was really excited when I heard that DC was releasing this facsimile edition of the first appearance of Poison Ivy. Of most of Batman's most deadly and famed foes, Poison Ivy is perhaps the only one whose first appearance of which I am not familiar with. 

When the character appeared in Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin, I was disappointed on how much of a romantic wedge she was between the dynamic duo. I guess I must forgive Schumacher a little bit as this debut has Poison Ivy toying with Batman's heart strings while Robin struggles to detoxify Batman from Ivy's lipstick.

While I understand that 1960s comics often played the romance angle quite a bit between the heroes and their opposite sex foes, I really thought that Poison Ivy was immune to such outdated tropes. Man- was I wrong!

I really enjoyed the second story. Last year's Batman: The Brave and the Bold/Scooby-Doo movie had a version of the mystery club. It's neat to see one of that awesome film's inspirations for the first time. 

I also loved the 1966 vintage ads. I really loved those. Some were so timeless looking, especially the Bullwinkle ad. It looked more like some I would have seen in a 1980s comics not a reprint from the mid-60s. The advertising art and print quality was that prestine! There's also letters from the editor and a full run-down of other DC titles released during this time period.

DC has plans for more facsimile edition books. As much as I love seeing the vintage extras and secondary adventures, the publisher is going to have to offer books that I don't have in my collection. I've got so many reprint collections of classic DC material, the odds that I have a version of the work in question are often in my favor.  I got lucky this time around! We'll just have to see what else the House that Superman built has in store for this run of reprints!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.