Review: Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Four: The Complete Collection trade paperback (DC Comics)

Given a “year” now with writer Brian Buccellato — being Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Four: The Complete Collection — I can say definitively that Injustice was better under Tom Taylor. At least we’ve arrived here with the end almost in sight instead of earlier; Year Four would be last in my ranking of best Injustice years, but at least it only has Year Five to battle for that dubious distinction.

For evidence, I’d present around 100 pages and almost half of this book’s 12 main chapters, all set in the same location, in which nothing much more happens than various character pairings beating one another bloody. Perhaps, as we approach the Injustice video game’s inciting point, Buccellato has landed on what this book should have been all along, the comics equivalent of a fighting game, and that might mark success among some audiences.

But I tend to think Taylor balanced Injustice’s bent toward violence and bad taste with creative superhero team-ups and humor, and Buccellato’s story doesn’t have the same verve, particularly where it spins its wheels toward the end. And it all comes in stark relief when Taylor returns for the annual included at the end, so effortlessly better in comparison.

[Review contains spoilers]

I did think Buccellato was clever in parlaying “the Greek gods are interfering” — a tried-and-true DC Comics trope — into a conflict that pits Superman and Wonder Woman against one another. Injustice is a Big Three-ish story, though largely with Superman and Wonder Woman on one side and Batman on the other, and so the play here, for thematic interest and difference, is to swing Wonder Woman to Batman’s side and see what happens. Buccellato doesn’t capitalize on that much, but the machinations at least held a little promise.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

That auspicious premise is largely squandered in, again, about a third of the book devoted to a standoff between the Justice League and the gods on the Hall of Justice steps. There is interesting politicking and side-switching, but it’s buried in rapidly repetitive bickering and action sequences: Superman vs. Wonder Woman, Sinestro vs. Wonder Woman, Robin vs. Batman, Hermes vs. the Flash, Hermes vs. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern vs. Hercules, Shazam vs. Hercules, and so on. After all that, it’s resolved with Superman simply deciding Zeus is too powerful and flying off.

That’s all the more unfortunate because the first two chapters do show some promise, with a surprising face-off between Superman and a super-strong Renee Montoya. Renee and Superman punching it out isn’t something I thought I’d see; arguably this isn’t much different than what I didn’t like in Year Four, except indeed that it’s unexpected and innovative and with actual emotion involved — see Superman and Batman’s shared grief over Renee’s death. It’s evidence the Injustice comic can succeed as an action book, as long as that action accomplishes more than just filling pages.

But overall Year Four isn’t working at the level it should. Buccellato seems to misplace aspects of the plot — Raven is reintroduced and then promptly forgotten from the story; Sinestro arrives, is punched out of the scene, and then an odd cut-scene shows him flying back again, never to actually arrive. The dialogue seems out of touch with what audiences might consider “modern,” as when Green Lantern calls Artemis a “tall drink of water” or Damian calls Batman “Pops.” Zeus threatens to kill Billy Batson after he’s seemingly already done so, and a pivotal moment sees Poseidon shot with an arrow but the wound is gone a page later. A fight between Poseidon, god of the seas, and Aquaman, king of Atlantis, is largely decided by Poseidon hitting Aquaman in the groin.

If you’ll humor me to add one more, the story’s big reveal is that this is all a plot of Darkseid’s. This is obvious from the first hints but Buccellato holds it back as if it’s a surprise, and then the reveal is flat, with Tom Derenick drawing a grimacing Darkseid on the page with no more fanfare than if he’d been there all along. In Part Eleven, Buccellato has Superman fly from Earth to Apokolips as if it’s simply next door, and then Darkseid and Superman trade quips while Derenick renders them in awkward “about to punch you” poses. The considerable lack of menace Darkseid is afforded here is a strong argument against his overuse.

It’s immediately clear that the problem is the creative team and not Injustice itself when one turns over to the annual. By just the third page, Taylor’s resurrected his mix of the dark and the hilarious as criminals bicker over their team name, and that’s before positing Plastic Man as among the most dangerous forces in the DC Universe — and then proving it when Plas takes out the Flash.

Maybe it’s an unfair advantage that Taylor gets artist Bruno Redondo for the whole story, but the annual is crack shot — a heist, great use of the Green Lanterns and DC villains, the surprise reveal of Metamorpho (an actual surprise!), and in as short as 40 pages, Taylor had me actually worried that Plas wouldn’t make it out alive at the end. Those 40 pages are head and shoulders better than the over 200 that preceded them.

And so we come to the almost-end of Injustice. I am interested in what seemed a tease in the finale of Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Four: The Complete Collection that both Superman and Batman’s sides would be recruiting, a chance to see some other Injustice-ified DC characters before the series expires. Too, if in Year Five the story has to coincide with the start of the video game, maybe that’s enough established material that Brian Buccellato’s next round won’t need as much filler in the middle as this one seemed to.

[Includes original covers and variant, character and cover sketches]

Rating 2.0