Pamela Isley did not have the best childhood. Though she was born to wealthy, affluent parents, luxury was all they ever gave her. Not love, or compassion or even the assurance that they cared if she lived or died. At school she was friendless. The other children did not share her special interests and she was shunned. She only found solace in her plants. The green was her one true companion. At times she felt trapped. Like a plant who is continuously trimmed to keep it from growing, from achieving it's true grandeur. On good days her parents would ignore her. On bad days, she wished that they would.
One of Pamela's most traumatic memories was from when she was about 8 years old. It was the night she had caught her father with a girl.
Pamela's mother wasn't home. She needed money for school supplies and hesitantly walked to her parents' bedroom. She called out to her dad, but recieved no answer. She walked a few more steps to the door and tentatively opened it. Strange sounds began assailing her ears. What she saw before her left her utterly disgusted and confused. Pamela's father stood with his pants at his ankles. Before him was a young girl on her knees. She looked about 15. She was the one heard the little girl come in first and turned to look at her with the most beautiful, brilliant green eyes Pamela had ever seen. She had just begun to register their beauty when she heard her father scream at her, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU LITTLE BITCH? How many times do you have to be told to knock before you come in?". He hurriedly pulled his pants up as he approached Pamela, who was now panicking. She knew what was next and tried to run to her room. The grown man was faster though and caught the little girl by her hair and dragged her to her room. Pamela had just enough time to get a glimpse of the teenage girl's face and saw what looked like rage, before she was pulled away.
Once in her room, Pamela's father locked the door behind him. His daughter was now sobbing uncontrollably and trying to explain that she just needed money to buy colour pencils. Her sobbing, however made the words come out in an incoherent jumble. This was followed by one of the worst beatings Pamela had ever recieved, so far. When her father's arm got tired, he walked out, probably back to his bedroom to finish his "activity" with the teenager.
Pamela just sat on the floor, her knees close to her chest, her head buried in her crossed arms. The child's arms and legs bore many scars and bruises, evidence of the hideous cruelty she had been subjected to by the man who was supposed to protect her. Her father never hit her in the face. He always took care to only target those areas of her body that would be covered by her clothing. After all, he didn't want some pesky teacher or social worker to come knocking on the door of their mansion and sticking their nose in his business. Pamela wasn't sure just how long she sat there. She was angry with herself. Why couldn't she just remember to knock? If she did, father would not have been angry. Her bodily injuries hurt, but what broke her heart was that her father had torn her favourite fern to shreds. She picked up the pieces of soft, delicate green. Her tears began to flow again as she apologized to her friend.
Pamela was just trying to figure out if her fern could be saved, when she was startled by a knock on her window. She walked to it on shaky legs and saw the same girl she had seen with her father. Those green eyes seemed to shine like emeralds. Pamela could now take in just how lovely the girl was and could not remember having seen a more beautiful face. She opened her window and the girl came in. "Are you ok?" she asked. Pamela, who couldn't remember the last time someone had asked her that just nodded. "Of course you're not ok. Does that asshole hit you a lot?" The girl's voice was laced with anger.
"I forgot to knock." Pamela stammered as a fresh stream of tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Hey, stop crying." The girl's tone was cold and firm, but her touch was tender as she wiped off Pamela's tears.
"Listen to me. No one has any right to treat you like dirt. And I don't give a damn if you didn't knock on some stupid door. NO ONE gets to treat you this way."
Little Pamela listened in awe as a complete stranger began to instill in her a hope, and a confidence that she didn't know existed. Rights. A concept she hadn't even though of till that moment.
"This world is filled with monsters. Scary, horrible monsters. And the only way to stop those scary monsters from getting you is to scare them right back. BE FIERCE! Never let them see you cry."
The green eyed girl reached into her pocket and pulled put a wad of cash. She put it in Pamela's hand and told her to buy herself something nice. She then exited through the window and climbed down with cat like grace.
Pamela quickly hid the money in her closet. The girl's words kept echoing in her mind. "Be fierce" she had said. Something about the older girl's confidence made Pamela feel that it wasn't impossible. She could survive this. And maybe someday this nightmare she lived in would be over. She dressed her own wounds as best as she could and went to bed.
The next morning, the Isley household was alive with activity. There were police officers talking to her father whose left eye was swollen.
"I was driving home from work and I see this teenage girl on the side of the street. I was concerned about her and asked if she needed a ride. She told me she was lost and so I offered to bring her home so she could call her parents. I bring her home and that little cunt knocked me out! Then she must have taken what ever she could carry and ran off. I'm telling you this is the last time I've helped one of these street insects."
Pamela learned that the girl had taken thousands of dollars in cash and nearly all of her mom's jewellery. Seeing her father's temper tantrum, she couldn't help but smile.
As Pamela grew, she made it a point to follow the advice she was given that night. "Be fierce". She did get beaten up quite a lot but she learned to neither blame, nor pity herself.
As a teenager, she became much harder for her parents to control. At school, she was known for her fiery temper and even the most ruthless bullies left her alone. Her father's "hobby" involving under age girls continued. Pamela knew all about it and used that information to blackmail him into paying for her higher education. She also made her love for plants into a mission. She studied botany and by the age of 25, she had earned her PhD.
Pamela's childhood had taught her that human beings were nothing but a disease that infected the Earth. A disease that she swore to eradicate. She perfected her skills and carried on her research, while being employed at the Botanical Research Institute at Gotham University. She had formulated a toxin that would paralyze people for a few hours and when they came to, they would have no recollection of being paralyzed or of what they saw or heard during that time. It was the result of over a year of painstaking and clandestine labour. Pamela could not let the University find out that she was working on something like this. She had told her superiors that she was trying to discover a natural cure for acne. The fools believed her. The night her baby was ready, Pamela was happy for the first time in years. Now she just needed to find a way to mass produce it and make it more potent, and the first step in taking over Gotham would be complete.
Just as she was about to go home, she decided to open the freezer and take one more look at her baby. But her baby was gone. Someone had stole it. To say that she was infuriated would be an understatement. She thought about calling the police, but it was likely that they would discover the very obvious effect it had on people. And Pamela's work would be discovered. All she could to was seethe in silence and try to discover the thief. She did some digging but could find no shortcomings in the security systems. Whoever had done this was very good. They came and went like a ghost, leaving no trace of their existence. But all was not lost. The toxin had a way of binding itself to the keratin in people's hair. Even if they did not inhale it, traces of the toxin would remain in the person's hair for at least a few days. And luckily Pamela had simultaneously been working on a chemical compound that could detect the toxin, so as to help her keep track of how much of it had been used and where. A light green hue was produced when the two came into contact. Pamela had poured the compound on a tissue paper and stealthily brushed it against her colleagues' hair, but as it turned out, none of them had taken her toxin.
The next evening, an event was organised at GU to raise funds for botanical and zoological research, Pamela dragged herself over and tried to look mildly interested. She was introduced to entrepreneur and philanthropist Selina Kyle. Miss Kyle had made a hefty donation and seemed very interested in the research on endangered species of animals. She was speaking to the Dean of the Zoological department when Pamela's colleague introduced her. Selina Kyle turned around and for a moment, Pamela Isley's heart stopped. Those same brilliant green eyes she had seen all those years ago stared back at her. The face had changed a bit as its beauty seemed to have grown tenfold.
The two women shook hands. Pamela was in awe of Selina's style and sophistication. "I'm very impressed with your work Dr Isley. I'm told that you're working on a cure for skin diseases", she said in a deep, husky voice. Pamela began explaining her work, the one that the University knew about. It appeared that Selina had some knowledge about plant life and phytochemistry. At first Pamela was relieved to not be talking to a complete novice, but then a strange thought entered her mind. She excused herself to go to the ladies room. There, she took out the small vial of her toxin testing chemical and poured a little bit on a tissue paper. When Selina was speaking to someone else, Pamela snuck up behind her and gently ran the paper against her lush black mane. Selina turned around immediately and said with a knowing smirk, "Darling if you like my hair you could have told me. I would have let you touch it."
Pamela smiled nervously and tried to offer an explanation but Selina grabbed her hand and opened up the folded tissue paper. "Will you look at that?" She said in an amused tone. Pamela looked down to see the green hue appearing on the white paper. When she looked up again, Selina Kyle was gone.
Pamela's hard work was stolen from her and her pride wounded. When she saw the news about a gang of poachers being rendered temporarily catatonic and the animals they had caught being rescued, she felt slightly better but not much. One of those men told the cops that the last thing he remembered was seeing the notorious criminals Catwoman. Pamela was torn between admiration and anger.
"Be fierce" she had said.
Years later Pamela, now known as Poison Ivy was in the rainforest of Brazil. She was about to have her vines dip a group of loggers into a vat of acid, when a whip hit them out of nowhere, causing her precious vines to recoil.
"Dont waste your time bullying a bunch of little guys Ivy" Catwoman said as she sauntered over "you wanna stop the mindless destruction of the rainforest, target the big corporations."
"YOU...YOU STOLE MY TOXINS!!" Ivy screamed at her. Selina looked bored "Boo freaking hoo! Now listen carefully. Lex Corp is the one behind this. Together you and I can have the company's operations here shut down. What do say? I'll even give you 25% of the loot" Pamela considered the proposal. Though she could not trust the feline thief completely, she did want to stop the mass murder of trees that was going on. The idea of making millions to fund her mission didn't hurt either. She agreed.
Ivy used her vines to get Catwoman into the building of the Lex Corp owned logging company and to immobilise the security. Catwoman used her special talents to drain the company of its funds, she also destroyed their equipment and pretty much any piece of tech that would aid their work.
Ivy wanted to punish the loggers who cut down her friends too but Catwoman disagreed.
"They're just a bunch of poor workers, trying to feed their families, Ivy. Killing them isn't going to do anything." She said.
Ivy wouldn't listen however and was about to have her vines shoot poisonous thorns into those men, when suddenly there was an explosion. Next thing she knew her vines were catching fire and writhing on the ground.
"I thought you might get homicidal, so I had a contingency plan. I'll be taking the loot and these guys out of here"
"WHY YOU DOUBLE CROSSING LITTLE BITCH!! I'll KILL YOU!" Ivy screamed as she lunged at Catwoman who dogged the attack and in seconds had Poison Ivy in a painful submission hold. Her green eyes looked straight into Ivy's and she said in an acidic whisper "Some of the most powerful people in the world have threatened to kill me and they've all walked away with burned fingers. Remember that the next time you decide to cross me."
With these words she left Ivy on the ground, defeated and humiliated.
Catwoman and Poison Ivy's paths would cross many times. On some occasions they were able to set aside their differences and work together. On others, Catwoman helped the Batman bring Ivy down. As a result, Ivy's feelings for her only grew more and more complex. On one hand Ivy admired the powerful and intelligent woman who dominated a world of men. While on the other she assisted men, men like Batman, into taking down another powerful woman. It felt like betrayal. Catwoman's relationship and resultant loyalty to Batman hurt Ivy more than she cared to admit. It wasn't that she wanted a romantic relationship with Selina, though she had often pictured that gorgeous body naked. She simply wanted Catwoman on her side. Together they would bring the world to it's knees. But the Queen of The Night would not stand for, what she called "innocent people", being harmed. It was this ridiculous need to respect and preserve human life that Ivy hated the most about her.
"What have people ever done for you anyway, Selina?" Ivy had once asked her. "That night I saw you with my dad, it wasn't anything new for you was it? Men took advantage of you on a regular basis until you learned to fight back, isn't that right? Hell! You told me I needed to fight for myself. So why not continue doing that? Work with me to destroy this world of men and together we'll return this planet to Mother Nature."
Selina's cool, contemplative gaze settled on Ivy as she gave a brief reply, "Yes people are scum. But if it wasn't for a few good people, the scum would have consumed me a long time ago."
Ivy's feelings were mixed when Hush took out Selina's heart. She didn't know whether to applaud Hush on the feat he had accomplished, or find him and punish him, even as she consoled Harley who was clearly distraught over what was done to her idol. It was ultimately Catwoman's offer that made up Ivy's mind - Help her steal all of Thomas Eliot's money for a payment of $30 million each. When she finally saw Selina in person months later, she experienced a surprising sense of relief at seeing that she was OK. Catwoman had survived and was stronger than ever.
As the years sped by, Ivy found happiness and what seemed to resemble stability with Harley. As had been the case throughout their history together, Catwoman would sometimes team up with her, and sometimes she was Ivy's nightmare. Harley, as a common factor between them, had often played a mediator.
Catwoman and Poidon Ivy couldn't be mortal enemies because of their common goal of preserving nature. They couldn't be friends because of their differing views on the human race's right to exist. The only thing Pamela could say for sure about their relationship was that anytime Mother Nature was under attack the Catwoman and Poison Ivy would cross paths. They may work with or against each other, but that depended entirely on whether they agreed on the kind of treatment that should be meted out to the humans involved. Ivy would always hate people, especially men. But she could not deny the pride she felt every time she saw Catwoman save young girls from the scum of the planet, and told them to be fierce.
