Justice League Dark #20

DC Comics

Writers: Ram V, James Tynion IV

Artist: Kyle Hotz

The twentieth issue of Justice League Dark released this week and it’s interesting to see the start of a new era for this series. James Tynion IV had been the main writer for the previous nineteen issues but that’s not the case here. No, for this 3-issue arc Tynion is taking a back-seat while Ram V takes over as lead writer. I was skeptical about this since Tynion has made the JLD into my favourite ongoing but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Here Ram seems to be starting another story focusing on the Floronic Man after his imprisonment the last issue. I’m not complaining of course since he’s an interesting villain and I enjoyed him in the annual Ram had worked on. There are really two major plotlines going through this issue. The main one has Wonder woman and Detective Chimp helping Animal Man battle hordes of plant zombies. It’s fun but it’s also fairly predictable so far. The other one revolves around Zatanna and Constantine debating whether to enlist the Floronic Man for help. It’s definitely the more interesting plotline as it highlights the toxic side of the relationship between the two spellcasters. It also plants the seeds for some future conflict between Nabu and Doctor Fate. I’m curious where that goes but I’m hoping it won’t end up a repeat of the lords of order storyline from earlier in the series.

I certainly can’t knock the artwork here either. Alvaro Martinez is no longer working on the series but Kyle Hotz does a good job. His artwork isn’t quite as realistic as Martinez’ but it’s got a very similar feel to it while still being distinct enough to stand on its own. I particularly enjoyed the way he drew the plant zombies. A lot of artists would just take the opportunity to copy and paste the same design but Kyle puts the effort in to make each one as unique as possible.

Overall it’s a solid issue. There are only two  things that really bugged me about this issue. Firstly, the minor role Animal Man plays given his appearance on the cover and the lame reason for Man-Bat’s absence. Despite that Justice League Dark continues to be an enjoyable series with this new creative team. Tynion’s influence is still there though so it’ll be interesting to see how the book fares once he leaves completely. I’m confident that Ram V and Kyle Hotz will be able to keep the magic going for this series though.

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