Dear Jonathan

by Rob Morris

To : Doctor Jonathan Crane (Retired)

From : Doctor Pamela Isley (Really Retired)

Dear Jonathan :

That was really quite a blowout, wasn't it? Heaven knows I'll never be the same again. I don't bear a grudge against you for all that Arkham Knight business-not specifically, anyway. It wasn't that you dragged our city and all its residents, green or not, into an all-or-nothing scheme. I mean, who hasn't? He certainly did, with that Gang War business.

It wasn't so much your plan as how you carried it out. Did you show any courtesy? Did you simply say, Pamela, stay out of this and just let me be? If you had, I would have moved to protect my plants and nothing else. But you decided that I was a loose end, to be controlled or trimmed.

I trim myself, Jonathan. I never even let Harley do that, and she has asked. Oh, can you believe her and Eddie? But for her, it has to be a small step up from, ya know.

The Bat barked, but he asked for my help, and provided his own, in that filtered-voder rough way of his. You might have gotten him, Doctor Crane, if you hadn't gunned for me and mine. Seriously, is it just the way of master planners to spit betrayal all over the place? Evil Overlord List, Doctor. Good reading-if you can still read.

Jokes aside, let's be real. The Bat won't stay dead, and you won't stay insane. You've been undone by whiffing your own gas more times than Mark Hamill's been asked to say 'I have a bad feeling about this'. Say, did he do anything after those films folded?

So, Jonathan? I'm pursuing my revenge by reinforcing his. I'm staying in Gotham. My essence has people finally seeing what value and joy there is in green life. Though they're doing a lot of that on their own. Gordon, bless him, even ordered no trees cut down for Christmas, since they're still cleaning the air after you passed gas. Some of the older trees are disappointed. They see it as one last chance to get all gussied up.

Again, keeping to Gotham. Alec stopped by, offering tips on body regeneration, but bodies are a bother and a burden. Plus, if I had a body, they would see me coming for you.

So as you lie in your own juices, Jonathan, take note of the wind flow into your cell windows. Plants can be made to produce all kinds of spores. Special spores. Spores that can make a recovering man suddenly have a tragic relapse, falling back into insanity. Don' t wait for rescue or relief, though.

The others are all broke or dead from your schemes, Jonathan. The Bat's children are doing quite the job. They seem less reluctant to cross some of his lines, while still being goody-goodies to the end. His eldest has much better people skills than him, though how hard could that be? Then of course, there's that occasional red-blue blur in the sky. He almost never stops here. Just passing by. Just to remind the ambitious. He has a lot of free time, since the Feds finding your files on old Baldie's involvement in all this made his city a yawner. There's fear for you, Jonathan. You killed the bestie and bro of a living god. Then there's the goddess who likely dated both of them. Would not wish to be you.

I wouldn't waste precious paper on you, Jonathan (even if I could write), so I'm sending this through every blade of grass, every weed that pops up through Arkham's walls.

Jonathan, as you slip back into the abyss each time you start to form coherent sentences again and again, take time out from seeing the big bad Bat and think instead of me. Like the Coasters said, late at night, while you're sleeping...yadda.

Yours Truly,

Poison Ivy