Polite Dissent

Batman: Gotham Knights #61 “Human Nature, Book One”
A.J. Lieberman, writer
Al Barrionuevo, penciler

While there’s a little bit of medicine in this issue, mostly there’s a need for better fact checking (and there’s no Batman — he doesn’t appear in the issue at all). If this storyline is going the way I think it is, a really big mistake is brewing.

Several children have died mysteriously, and it turns out that they all share some past connection to Poison Ivy. She is determined to figure out why these children are dying. Along the way, she encounters Hush, who is not happy that Ivy helped Batman last issue. Poison Ivy tries her poison kiss on Hush, but it doesn’t work. Walking away, he tells her:

“And by the way, .002% of all people aren’t allergic to poison ivy. Learned that playing dress up in medical school.”

Hush needs go back to medical school. He may the “World’s Greatest Neurosurgeon” but his knowledge of dermatology stinks. According to him only 1 in 50,000 people are not allergic to poison ivy. That’s a ridiculously small number. On the other hand, if you believe the American Academy of Dermatology, fully 15% of people are resistant to poison ivy. That’s a big difference and I, for one, believe the dermatologists.

Later in the issue, the mayor is meeting with his advisors. They discover that the children are dying from the toxic effects of “a plant-based organic herbicide compound” that has been identified as hydramethylnon. One of the aides goes on to say:

“Think of it as a military-grade form of…well, weed-killer, like DDT.”

There a big problem with this. DDT is not a weed killer, it’s an insecticide and is used for killing bugs, not plants. Speaking of insecticides, hydramethylnon is also one. It’s used to kill ants, termites and cockroaches. It is considered to have a low toxicity for humans (although opinions vary on this) and I can find no evidence of it being plant-based or derived from plants at all. I think the mayor needs a new set of advisors, ones that can tell the difference between herbicides and insecticides.

I sure hope this story arc isn’t based on the fact that these kids are somehow plant-based and being killed by an herbicide, because the chemical they’ve picked is really a pesticide and that pretty much shoots the whole concept down.