We go with the second volume that we have read from Future State, after giving a review of Wonder Woman some days ago. This time it is the turn of the supernatural corner of the DC Universe, in a volume that collects the part of the Dark Justice League of the limited series Future State: Justice League and the complete limited series of the Swamp Thing, both written by a name that we have been hearing for not too long but that sounds more every day, Ram V, stage name of Indian screenwriter Ram Venkatesan.
Ram V he was also the writer of the last issues of the previous volume of the Justice League Dark, in her incarnation led by Wonder Woman, so it’s not exactly a newcomer to this team. In this story, he presents us with an interesting environment with the potential to be developed more in depth in the future: after a magical war, Merlin has defeated and controls all the magic in the world, and the Dark Justice League has disbanded, but they have not thrown in the towel completely. A new group of heroes are uniting to fight, this time without Wonder Woman. We keep Zatanna, Detective Chimp, Doctor Fate, and John Constantine from the latest series, but we also add Madame Xanadu, Etrigan (with a surprising new host), and Ragman.
This story set in an indefinite future described as “not so remote” leaves the feeling of being an important future milestone for the LJO. It is not ruled out that in the coming years we will see a war between the League and Merlin and the heroes are defeated, and after it we will be told about the resistance that arises here. It is, in short, a midpoint in a possible – only possible, for now – story to come, a story that they begin to tell us in media but that has managed to pique our curiosity enough so that if at some point it appears a new Justice League Dark series written by Ram V let’s get on it.
To the drawing we have Marcio Takara, which gives the show an appropriate dark tone with a Vertigo aftertaste, and does a much better job than the show. Armors War of the Secret Wars from 2015 where we met him.
We fans of the elemental of green have had a long dry season. Since editing the character’s last miniseries five years ago, we’ve only had a couple of volumes to ease our need for the character: Saints with feet of clay and Tales from the swamp. Last 2020 brought the edition of New Roots, a series from DC’s Digital First label, but which remains -for now- unpublished in Spanish. So this Future State dedicated to the character serves two purposes. On the one hand, giving us our regular dose that we already missed. And on the other, to serve as a sample of the work of Ram V and Mike Perkins, those responsible for the most recent limited series from What of the Pantano, which we hope to see soon in Spanish.
This story departs from the two best-known stages of the Swamp Thing, that of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson and that of Alan Moore, and seeks a voice of its own. Here we go to a distant future in which humanity has practically disappeared and a new race of anthropomorphic plant beings populates the Earth. We have an introspective story, with philosophical touches, but we also have moments to explore the interior of the character, among which we could highlight the subjective account of how the Swamp Thing recreates their bodies.
To the drawing we have Mike Perkins, an author whom we have been able to see in recent years in series such as Slaughter O Lois Lane and that he does a brilliant job, giving personality, even humanity, to the new creatures of the Green that we meet in this story, in which it is necessary to express emotions and Perkins comes out of the commission more than gracefully.
This tome of Future State is one of the best we have been able to read from this look at what is to come -or not- in the DC Universe. The Dark League part leaves us wanting to know what the screenwriter has to tell this group, and the Swamp Thing part shows us that you can tell Elemental stories without trying to imitate Alan Moore or Len Wein. Although we had not read anything particularly remarkable about Ram V, which debuted in the Spanish market just a couple of years ago in the series of Catwoman, with this title it has made us raise our eyebrows and think that perhaps we have to pay attention to it from now on.
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