DC/WB's newest, animated endeavor, Injustice, is based on the top-selling, Gods Among Us video games and Tom (Suicide Squad) Taylor's prequel, comic-book saga, even though these sources have thus far eluded me.
I found Injustice entertaining enough, perhaps because I had no choice but to enter it cold. However, I can only go so far liking stories that turn heroes into villains for the sake of instilling some clever contrast. (Even The Boys rattles me on occasion for all its flippant self-assurance.) Anyhow, it bothers me when good guys go rogue, no matter the melodramatic spin, and seeing Superman and Wonder Woman turn Zod/Ursa-like (even per understandable, if not logical, prompts) was surreal in a nightmarish way. (Heck, The Flashpoint Paradox proves problematic in the same way for me, even though I hold it in high regard.)
I also have trouble when heroes who've been depicted as friends betray one another or slug it out due to philosophical differences. Sure, I found Batman v Superman digestible (Captain America: Civil War, too), but as a rule of thumb, ironic, "good-vs-good" clashes (whether by DC or Marvel) are plagued, or perhaps anointed depending on my mindset, by great ambivalence. Injustice contains many such tug-of-war clashes, to the point that it was hard for me to decide which side was the better (or lesser) of the conflicting coin: a disturbing sensation, and still I watched with bated breath.
To hoist to the perplexity, the story's rifts include cherished, all-American favorites riding the unorthodox edge, not only Superman and Wonder Woman, but such analogous icons as Batman, Nightwing, Robin (Damian Wayne), Catwoman, Aquaman, Hawkman, Cyborg, Supergirl, Jonathan (Pa) Kent, Starman, Shazam, (Captain Marvel), Captain Atom, Plastic Man, Mr. Terrific (Michael Holt), Green Arrow, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), et al. There's also Amazo, a mechanical menace who gives Superman IV's Nuclear Man a mega run for his destructive money, but his manifestation stews from a peculiar, protective plan, congruent with the story's character upheaval.
For what it's worth, Batman stays pretty much in sync with his somber side, but even so, he's embroiled in a kind of distrusting contention (as he presses to topple the Man of Steel) that runs against his attentive grain, making his inclusion awkward in the story's later phases (in the pacifist-cusp vein), and I don't like the Dark Knight awkward, even if Anson (The Inhumans) Mount (who was once a contender for a live-action Caped Crusader) grants him an adjuring voice.
The Joker, on the other hand, is Injustice's counterpoising rescuer for the time he lasts, mainly because he doesn't flinch from his old, sadistic self, and how he leads Kal-El to cause Lois Lane's demise is but par for his sick course. (Beforehand, the Clown Prince of Crime dispatches shocking attacks on Jimmy Olsen, the Flash and all of Metropolis.) Because of the villain's carryover craziness, I was more at ease with him than any other character (though Harley Quinn, Ra's al Ghul and Mirror Master also ride a restful road), but why should I be okay not rooting against Bruce Wayne's pinnacle arch nemesis, especially when he takes his impulses to the apex of offense? Evil is evil, right? (I suppose that's Superman and Wonder Woman's point.)
In the film's indubitable favor, Matt Peters' direction and Ernie Altbacker's script do speed the reformist procession along in such a way that its harshest parts don't sting for very long (and Nightwing's transcendental, Deadman alteration and Plastic Man's impertinent observations nearly blunt the subsequent mourning), but once the imposing ugliness is etched, it's impossible to erase, despite the plot inserting a shaky reconciliation. (Incidentally, the movie's Superman-v-Superman moment is the misadventure's staggering turn, but its attempt to set the Kryptonian's stance straight falls short of Superman III's dueling irony and inference.)
I felt obligated to add Injustice to my disc library. I'm not ashamed to place it alongside other such offbeat, DC revisions. I take it for the indignant thing that it is, and though it often rocked me to the moral core, I'm bound to revisit it: a grim confession that screams contradictory but sincere volumes.
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