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What Toxin is on Poison Ivy’s Lips?

Pamela Isley AKA Poison Ivy is one of the greatest Batman villains ever, and certainly one of the best femmes fatale in fiction. With a mastery over the plant world, her signature tactic is poison. Famously, she can either create or secrete toxins so potent that, when applied in a smear of red lipstick, can kill with a single kiss. But what kind of poison or toxin would have to be on her lips to do this?

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Deadly kisses are nothing new in fiction, but Poison Ivy is a unique case. To figure out what kind of toxin might be on her lips, we have to first establish the parameters. It should be a plant-based poison — Isley controls plant life and was a botanist before becoming a manifestation of nature itself — and it should be a poison that kills relatively quickly. There are many poisons that we know of that have the potency to hold a killer dose in just a thin application of red, but do any of those fill the bill?

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