The next big DC event is upon us, and Gotham has one terrifying night to stop the city from being permanently terraformed into a prehistoric, Jurassic Park-esque nightmare. Batman, Nightwing, Catwoman, Jim Gordon, Harley Quinn and the rest of Gotham’s heroes are determined to stop Poison Ivy from succeeding in her plans…if they can survive.

This is “Bad Seeds,” a two-month crossover spinning out of G. Willow Wilson’s Poison Ivy and Matt Fraction’s Batman, with the two writers serving as the event’s “showrunners.” To get a sense of what awaits us, we recently caught up with Wilson, who was happy to shed some light on this particularly dark Gotham City night…

What is “Bad Seeds,” and what should people know or read beforehand?

“Bad Seeds” is the culmination of about a year of story that's come out of Poison Ivy’s somewhat disastrous tenure as Mayor of Gotham. Her very tentative alliance with [GCPD Commissioner] Vandal Savage begins to go horrifically off the rails and as that alliance disintegrates, Mayor Poison Ivy’s back is kind of against the wall. She decides to kill two birds with one stone and get rid of Savage while doubling down on her position within the city and paying off this debt that she owes to the Parliament of Trees by offering the city of Gotham to the Green as a peace offering.

What that means, if you live in Gotham, is that the city in the course of one night is being terraformed into its prehistoric original ecosystem. So, plants that have not been around since the dinosaurs and all sorts of interesting poisonous things that human beings are not adapted to sprout up and the entire grid goes out because it’s been taken out by all of these big, gnarly, prehistoric vines. In one night, Gotham is being transformed into Jurassic Park, basically!

You can jump right into this if you wanted to. All you really need to know is that Poison Ivy has been mayor for the last little bit. She came in on a wave of public approval, but she has been burning through that approval ever since. If you wanted some fun background info, you could pick up Matt Fraction’s Batman book and you could pick up Poison Ivy. But if you wanted to just start with this event, there are a lot of cool stories and books that will spin out of it that you will then be prepared for because you read “Bad Seeds.” If you want this to be your jumping on point for your entry into the world of Bat-books and Gotham City, then this is a good place to do it.

I’d love to know what research went into creating and bringing this new prehistoric environment to Gotham.

Yeah! I sent everybody this dorky document that had photo references and background about a bunch of different prehistoric plants, some of which are extinct and some of which still exist today. All kinds of flowers that sort of predate humankind like protea, which are these big, almost proto-rose looking flowers. There are also certain chemicals and toxins that no longer exist. There is a hyper-poisonous form of strychnine that would have existed back then.

I did sort of a semi-scientific write-up about how if we terraform the atmosphere to what it was like before the dinosaurs, there would be way more CO2 in the air, which would make it unbreathable to humans. It was a fun, mini-research thing for me to figure out what was different about prehistoric ecology and what are the ways it could kill us.

“Bad Seeds” starts with Poison Ivy #47, which acts as a prelude for the event. Poison Ivy has been adjusting to the public perception of her as mayor while navigating her fractured interpersonal relationships. How does that lead us to her decisions that kickstart the event?

Poison Ivy decided, kind of on a whim, to run for mayor in the hope that it will protect her and the people she loves from being hunted down by Savage’s TUCO squads and the Gotham PD. She’s like, “Well, if I'm sitting in the big chair, nobody can touch me… I’ll be able to protect the people I care about.”

It does not go as planned. Having legal power through traditional political power structures is not the same as being a vigilante. She discovers really quickly that when you are beholden to the public, it's a very different ballgame from when you are a lone wolf eco-terrorist.

Sitting in that chair really runs contrary to a lot of her instincts and personality. She does try to do some good, but it kind of goes sideways. So, in Poison Ivy #47 and #48, things are starting to really unravel and she’s not going to be able to hold power unless she does something really drastic. We are really starting to see the end of Ivy's tenure as mayor. Things are getting desperate and she has to do something really big in order to hold on to power and continue to protect herself from her enemies.

Through all of these decisions, Ivy seems to be choosing nature over humanity, which includes Harley Quinn. What can you tease about their relationship and how it will change over the course of the event?

Ivy has not been a very good girlfriend throughout this entire mayoral arc. She has decided she needs to sacrifice some of the things that are important to her to hold on to power. At this point, she is realizing what a terrible mistake that was. All of the power in the world and all of the protection from your enemies does not make up for the best thing in her life, which is love and her relationship with Harley.

She is having a real dark night of the soul and realizing that in order to protect herself, she has sacrificed the only thing she really cares about. She’s desperately trying to get Harley back to apologize and make up for things, but doesn't really know how to go about doing that in a satisfying way. We are catching her at a low point where Ivy has really messed up. She is really starting to reanalyze what is important to her and what she wants to focus on when she comes out of this—if she can make it out alive.

In the first official chapter of the event, which is Batman: Bad Seeds – Sunset #1, we see Gotham transform into this prehistoric environment and how people like Batman, Damian Wayne, Nightwing and others react to their new setting. What can you tease about the choices they are going to be forced to make?

Everybody is going to have to decide what role they are going to play in this new Gotham. Are they going to go and save people? Are they going to try to reverse what is happening in the climate? Are they going to try to get out of dodge as soon as they can? Are they going to hunker down where they are or go out into the city? The way that this plays out is going to be very different depending on what you are reading. Catwoman has one story arc, Nightwing is somewhere else, and somebody comes up with a really brilliant idea about how they could maybe try to save the city. I won't say what!

Batman has to decide what he is going to do, knowing that all of these different factions are out for his blood. He knows that Savage is after him and there is an APB out for all of the Bat-Family. Anything he does he knows is going to be under a microscope—everybody is out looking for him. He is not safe and has to make a decision about what his role in the city is going to be before sunrise with all these targets on his back.

I have to say, I have worked on several big events over the last maybe ten years, and I have never seen one where each storyline in each book fits together so beautifully. Everybody has a role to play, and those roles are different and it all works together over this one night. It’s really spectacular. It doesn't matter which of the Bat-books you are reading. It all fits together in a really unique way.

It is established that they all have until sunrise before things get really bad. Does “Bad Seeds” take place in the course of that one night, or will we see what happens beyond that twelve-hour period?

It all takes place between sunset and sunrise. It’s literally one night of absolutely frantic action. It's very compressed. By the time we get to sunrise, one of two things will have happened: the terraformation will be complete and irreversible and Gotham will be a prehistoric version of itself or somebody will figure out how to fix the problem. It is literally a race against time. It’s very fun, very compressed. One night only, it’s do or die in Gotham!

For Gotham residents reading at home, what tips and tricks can you provide for surviving the “Bad Seeds” event?

Well, the KN95 mask you would have bought for covid will come in handy when the air is full of the various spores, poisons and toxic gases that will be accumulating across the city. So bust out those masks! If you can avoid leaving the house, stay in. The streets are not safe and there are monsters about. Finally, I hope you bought batteries, because you are going to need those flashlights!
 

“Bad Seeds” kicks off this week with a special prelude in Poison Ivy #47 by G. Willow Wilson, Leandro Fernandez and Arif Prianto. Then dive into the first chapter in Batman: Bad Seeds – Sunset #1 by Matt Fraction, G. Willow Wilson, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cliff Rathburn and Tomeu Morey.