Finish Him: Injustice: Gods Among Us #2 Review

Editor’s Note: These spoilers take place before the start of the video game.

Years and years of reading comics have taught me that, with almost no exceptions whatsoever, comic adaptations of other mediums are normally not very good. Sure, there’s Alien: The Illustrated Story, and there’s the original Star Wars adaptation by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, but let’s face reality: in those heady, pre-VCR days of 1977, they could have had Amanda’s cousin Little Billy draw the damn thing and we’d have bought it.

Even worse are the comic book adaptations, which are generally even worse than the TV and movie ones, dating all the way back to Atari Force which, despite the obvious nostalgia for the book by Ernest Cline, might have been an awesome read for video game fans, but wasn’t all that great a shake for actual comic readers. Hell, in 1984 I was a 13-year-old comic book fan who owned the first Atari on our block (back when it was the Atari Video Computer System, before they renamed it the 2600) and I still thought that comic sucked. And the reason video game adaptations almost never work is for a very simple reason: in a comic book, you are a spectator, but it an video game, it is you. And no matter how good the story in the video game is, no comic book ever really captures that feeling of you being in the driver’s seat.

And while I’ll readily admit that I generally don’t seek out video game based comics because, well, I don’t usually like them, there has been one in the past couple of years that was pretty damn good, and that was an issue of DC Universe Online, written by Tom Taylor, that took the conceit of a Green Lantern expansion pack in the video game and used it to examine some of DC’s Lantern characters, and some real questions of moral ambiguity. It was successful because it while it was ostensibly about the video game, it instead used the game as an excuse to make it really about the characters, who just happened to be in this situation. By completely ignoring the first person element of video games, Taylor succeeded in making a pretty good comic book.And this continues in his second issue of the comic adaptation of the upcoming fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us. As a Mortal Kombat-style fighting game, most comic books about it would be wall-to-wall dudes in spandex smacking on each other. But instead, Taylor makes this book about the characters leading up to whatever causes the dudes in spandex to smack on each other in the game… and even though you will see more than a little of Mark Millar’s The Authority in this issue, it is still vastly better than a simple comic book adaptation has any right to be.

This issue picks up where the mundane and everyday events of the first left off: Joker has blown up Metropolis with some kind of nuclear weapon, killing Lois Lane and damn near everyone else, all while Superman was unable to stop it. You know: must be Tuesday. Anyway, Superman is crippled by guilt and rage, while Batman makes Joker admit that he blew up Metropolis because he was sick of losing to Batman and wanted to, “try this on easy mode for a bit.” Superman decides it’s time to take some measured action, and starts by flying to Gotham and punching Joker through his chest. This makes Harley a little upset, which leads to Green Arrow taking her into protective custody, all while Superman decides that it’s time to stop allowing madmen to blow shit up… no matter what their motivation.

I’m gonna start with the most negative thing about this book, which is that it has a conclusion that looks very much like it is leading into an Authority or Kingdom Come style, superheroes-decide-to-take-on-bad-governments storyline. And there’s nothing particularly wrong with that – God knows those two stories aren’t considered classics of the genre because they suck or anything – but there is a derivative feeling here. Granted, there is a certain charge in seeing a modern-day version of Superman unilaterally telling the world that he won’t tolerate any more war (as opposed to, say, Jenny Sparks), but it’s not like it’s anything we haven’t seen before. And frankly, I’m going to forgive Taylor that fact; there has to be some reason in the game for these superheroes to be tuning each other up, so I’m guessing Taylor inherited that little plot point.

What really works in this issue is the characterizations, as extreme as some of them are given the circumstances. In just a couple of pages, Taylor establishes this version of Joker as being totally crazy and disturbing enough to drop a nuke on a couple million people. He establishes Green Arrow’s – at least the pre-New 52 version of Green Arrow’s – basic humanity and left-leaning nature. But his greatest accomplishment is with Harley Quinn, who rather than acting as the single-minded crazy person of, say, Batman: Arkham City, is legitimately grieving over the death of Joker. Sure, she’s still nuts, and you probably wouldn’t want to turn her back on her, but there’s a depth of feeling and loss there that was more moving than it should be.

In addition, Taylor effectively sets up the true potential threat that Superman poses if he ever decides to start acting unilaterally. Superman is able to waltz past Batman to get to Joker, and is able to immobilize Green Lantern in about a panel, despite acknowledging that Lantern has the most powerful weapon in the universe. And by showing Wonder Woman as not only the only other person in the world to be able to survive the radioactive hellhole of Metropolis, but also as implicitly on Superman’s side when he decides to lay down the law, well, Taylor demonstrates that he – they – represent a threat that is well-nigh unstoppable. We see a minimum of large-scale violence on Superman’s part, and yet we understand just how dangerous he really is. It’s well-written and as effective as seeing Superman blast out a city block would have been.

Mike Miller’s and Bruno Redondo’s art (Miller does the fist half, Redondo the second) are perfectly serviceable for this kind of story, albeit nothing that anyone will probably go apeshit over on Artists’ Alley. Miller’s stuff is extremely fine-lined and detailed without dropping into hugely crosshatched detail lines. His depiction of Batman’s cowl is extremely detailed and mechanical-looking – probably due to the design from the video game – and his Joker is a somewhat unique mix of the old comic version and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Redondo works in a more medium line, and his facial expressions are excellent, and somewhat reminiscent of Kevin Maguire’s work in the 80s Justice League, in that they tend to be slightly exaggerated, which works with the Harley Quinn sequence in particular. The styles aren’t so widely divergent that it becomes a distraction while reading the book, but Redondo’s backgrounds are better – Miller tends more toward simple colors and minimal details. Look, this is a video game adaptation; you’re not getting Jim Lee here. But what you do got is good-looking and simple to follow, and does what it needs to do.

Look: this is a comic book adaptation of a fighting video game, where the plot should be up-down-left-right-A-B-A-B-Trigger-FINISH HIM! But as he did with that issue of DC Universe Online a year and a half ago, Taylor takes what should be a low-stakes “just send me my paycheck” assignment and transcends it to create a pretty good comic book. Sure, it’ll remind you of other comics, but the good news is that it at least reminds you of good comics. It is vastly better than this kind of comic should be… and between this and last year’s book, it should be enough for DC Editorial to maybe give Taylor something a little meatier than a video game book. It’s worth a look.