WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Justice League Dark #20, by Ram V, James Tynion IV, Kyle Hotz, FCO Plascencia and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
Every Justice League has always had its share of problems, and for the mystical heroes of Justice League Dark, those problems are particularly grisly and threatening. Having just saved the world from the evil sorceress Circe and the corrupting power of Eclipso, the protectors of magic have no time to rest before the next threat rears its ugly head.
In Justice League Dark #20, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, John Constantine, Doctor Fate and their allies find themselves face-to-face with a truly grotesque nightmare: fungal zombies.
The story begins with a seemingly normal day in Los Angeles, until a weird looking man with mushroom-like protrusions explodes into a cloud of spores on top of a building, infecting the populace below. Besides altering the appearance of its victims in a bulbous, terrifying fashion, the spores also make the infected aggressively violent, a perfect storm of infectious horror.
At ground zero of the incident is none other than Animal Man, who leaps into the fray with Wonder Woman and Detective Chimp to combat an endless horde of mushroom zombies. Far from being a typical biological weapon, the origin of this particular zombie apocalypse is quickly deemed to be magical in nature. As it turns out, the entire world is being subjected to a series of magical plagues. The Parliaments, magical primal forces that govern all life have been thrown out of balance. As the great Nabu (the great sorcerer in the helmet of Doctor Fate) notes, the Green, the Red, the Grey, the Divided, and the Rot, are now battling for dominance. Earth has become a war-zone, and the mushroom zombies may only be the beginning of what awaits the heroes of Justice League Dark.
What makes this issue’s particular spin on a horror classic so interesting and terrifying is what inspired it. As scary as comics, films, and video games can be, they often pale in comparison to the horrors of the natural world. For example, the fungal infection caused by the species Cordyceps has fascinated enthusiasts of both science and science fiction for its ability to take control of host organisms. Unlike a virus, which is commonly the root of zombies in science fiction, the real-life Cordyceps can take control of the muscles in insects. Cordyceps has been known to infect ants, compel them latch onto a place advantageous for the spreading of the fungus, and await death. A similar idea is used here, as victims trying to find high places before they explode into a cloud of spores.
What Happened to DC's Justice League Dark Movie
Fungal infections causing zombie-like outbreaks have also captured the imaginations of other creators. The award-winning video game The Last of Us also has a variant of Cordyceps that causes the end of the world through The Infected, a multi-stage progression leading to mushroom monstrosities like the ones menacing Justice League Dark. In the film and book The Girl with All the Gifts, a similar fungus leads to the creation of Hungries, feral people with a craving for uninfected flesh.
The heroes of Justice League Dark find that they must reassemble the Parliaments if they want to have any hope of containing the spread of epidemics ravaging the planet. To do so, they must find representatives of each faction and conduct the proper ritual to restore the natural order. Fortunately, one such guardian is in custody already: Floronic Man. While Zatanna and Constantine interrogate their woody captive, Wonder Woman and her team fight to stem the tide of zombies attacking; but with Animal Man feeling something growing on the back of his neck, it looks like matters will certainly get worse before they get better.