Drawing: Poison Ivy Title: Poison Ivy
Poison Ivy
Eco-Defender.
Drawing: Ivy
Botany.
Pamela Isley majored in botany, the study of the growth, reproduction, metabolism, evolution, and diseases of plants, including "plant-like" like fungi, algae, bacteria and viruses. Her studies ranged from the molecular, genetic and biochemical level through to cells, tissues and the biodiversity of whole plants to populations, communities and whole ecosystems at the macroscopic level.
Having far surpassed the level of the scholar, Ivy has advanced, if not altogether voluntarily, to the status of an insider, one with an intuitive grasp of the knowledge, the heritage, the art. If it can be done, Ivy is the one who can do it.
Considering that plants generate the oxygen, food, fibres, fuel and medicine that allow humans to exist while absorbing carbon dioxide, the importance of plants becomes intuitively obvious. If Ivy could but drop her rage, she'd stand a fair chance at "feeding the world" and creating new medicine and materials, maybe biofuels. She could be the undisputed queen of a new era. Ivy could indeed create a new Eden — clothes and food for all, cheap but high quality medicine and recreational drugs, the performance to the Robinson Park rehearsal, on a bigger scale, and with a more active role for her. Biofuel, medicine, or moving into the markets for popular stimulants like coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, hashish and alcohol would easily provide the funding she might need.

Genetics.
Having been an integral part of Jason Woodrue's studies in hybridization, Poison Ivy has state of the art expertise in genetic engineering, the practice of manipulating genes in an organism. She has also released papers (e.g. Hybridization - Complex plant-animal forms by Pamela Elizabeth Isley and Philip Daniel Sylvian[LDK43]). Pamela can routinely isolate, manipulate and reintroduce DNA into organisms to introduce new characteristics to an organism. The applications of this are virtually limitless[BG52], from increasing the yield or elevating the vitamin level of a species, accelerating a species' growth, to introducing altogether new properties.
A gifted genetic engineer could produce oral vaccines naturally in fruit at very low cost. In the wrong hands however, genetic engineering can easily turn into a threat if dangerous properties are introduced into a species, particularly if the relevant genes are passed on when these strains cross-pollinate with other varieties of the plant...

Drawing: Ivy
Toxicology.
In an attempt to understand her condition better as well as a catalyst to her schemes and a logical extension of her major, Ivy has also looked into toxicology.
She particularly enjoys the irony of indirect poisons and the challenge of designer toxins specifically attuned to the target's liver enzymes. Poison a hundred, kill one — sometimes, it is fun to aim lower than LD50, especially when working with side-effects, having the harmless catalyst converted into another harmless substance in the liver, but having the very process set off another transformation which will then transform harmless substances into lethal ones, one great organic Domino Day.
Despite her obvious bias, even Ivy will had to admit that few natural substances feature an enzymatic bouquet as finely balanced as that of snake-venom. By letting the serpent into her garden, Ivy has a large repertoire of ready-made poisons, from the neurotoxic for easy access to the CNS to thrombase and hemorrhagin to demonstrate the inferiority of non sap-based lifeforms and psychological warfare, a rich smorgasbord of death.

Horticulture. "If it's imaginable to some degree, I can grow it."
Not satisfied to study plants on an abstract level or modifying their properties in the laboratory, Pamela also has studied horticulture, lending her expertise in the arguably more pedestrian "logistics" aspect of plants, gardens, and to a degree agriculture. This includes knowledge in crop production and plant breeding as well as the storage and transportation of plants and produce, pollination management, crop nutrition, entomology, plant pathology, and economics as well as landscaping and gardening — if you are to turn the city into a jungle, you'd better know how...

Markswomanship.
While Ivy rarely employs weapons these days, she acknowledges that sometimes, ranged attacks come in handy, especially in settings where her pheromones don't work and the attack comes from above. Ivy is proficient with a variety of traditional weapons, most notably a crossbow and poisoned darts to be thrown or launched with a blowpipe. Ivy may not be Wilhelm Tell, but then, her targets are larger than apples, and she rarely misses her man.

Martial arts. "If I can touch it, I can destroy it."
Armed with the deadly reflexes of the flytrap, Ivy may have the speed, but when compared to most of the vigilantes, she does not have much in the way of technique or experience, and will likely eventually lose to any fighter of name who is not susceptible to her charms — but she will look so graceful doing it!

Drawing: Ivy
Gadgetry.
When it comes to building laboratories for botanical experiments, Ivy has the skill, the knowledge, and the intuition. Coupled with the resources and her powers to tip the scales in those critical fractions of an experiment in her favour, there are few setups Ivy could not make real. (See laboratory for more information.)

Academia.
A grad student under Jason Woodrue and later offered a position at Gotham University by regent Ian Spencer[LDK42], ostensibly to give her a chance to start over, Pamela is no stranger to research, didactics, and the day to day politics of a university. For obvious reasons, she no longer holds academics or the university business in very high regard, and for reasons just as obvious, her former colleagues, while they may secretly admire her skills and knowledge, consider her a persona non grata.

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