Originally Posted by Rev. Bob
Since several graphic novels are on sale through the end of the year, I picked up a few with Amazon credit so I could read them with the comiXology app. I just finished the first two years of DC's Injustice series, which ties in with the videogames (which I haven't played and don't even own the hardware for). The series starts five years before the first videogame, in which Superman rules Earth with an iron fist and Batman runs the resistance.
In a word: whoa.
The saga reminds me quite a bit of another publisher's Irredeemable, in which a Superman-like hero snaps and turns evil, slaughtering several of his teammates before they know what hit them. The big difference here, of course, is that the authors have the whole DC universe to play with. That mainly plays out in terms of there being a lot more supers (heroes and villains), characters we know well, who have to respond when Superman starts killing. Some side with him, others oppose him, and where those chips fall may surprise you.
The precipitating event here is brutally simple. The Joker decides to take a trip to Metropolis and mess with the Big Blue Boy Scout for a change. One whiff of Scarecrow's fear gas, laced with a touch of Kryptonite, and Superman ends up killing Lois Lane... and their unborn child. Metropolis falls instantaneously, in a nuclear blast triggered by her death. Superman kills the Joker - in police custody - without hesitation, and blames Batman's no-kill code for the death toll. If Batman had killed the Joker instead of sending him to Arkham only to get loose, Clark reasons, those millions of people would still be alive. Once Superman embraces the logic of killing a few to save the many, things get worse fast. The Justice League chooses sides, and some heroes fall early while others praise Superman's efforts... even when that means deposing dictators and defying the UN to impose "peace" on Earth.
The bulk of Year Two deals with Sinestro dropping in to lend a hand, manipulating events so that the Green Lantern Corps fights it out with both Superman's team and Sinestro's Yellow Lanterns. From descriptions of the Year 3-5 collections, it looks like those consist of Superman and his forces defeating other threats to his reign, such as magic-based forces and the actual gods. (That he keeps coming out on top is not a spoiler; the whole series is technically told in flashback, so we know from the first pages that Batman lives and Superman rules the planet.)
It's not a nice story, and parts are rough to see, but it's a good story that's well-told. I may have to pick up Years 3-5, but when I last looked, they were shorter and more expensive than the first two big collections, even on sale. (Years 1-2 are collected as one big book per year, while the rest are two or three collections per year.)
tl;dr - Shocking, gory (in parts), and depressing, but powerful. Recommended if my warnings don't scare you off.
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