You must certainly don’t tug on this Superman’s cape.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Mike S. Miller
What They Say:
Batman and Constantine try to unite a disparate team of magical beings, super-heroes and ordinary humans. Meanwhile, an ominous threat approaches.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a chapter title of Gathering Forces, Injustice: Gods Among Us does just that. We’ve been focused in the first couple of issues on Constantine as our guide to what’s happening and that’s worked well. He continues to provide that role here, but as more people get involved, his voice is less clear and things feel less distinct, which is an interesting turn of events. Coming into this series without knowledge of the prior two years will have its bumps, and this issue is definitely one of those as there is some reflection on recent events, recent losses and captures on both sides in this war against Superman and those aligned with him.
We do get a couple of pages devoted to Superman and Sinestro here at the Hall of Justice where he’s holding court these days, and doing interrogations and threats against people in order to get information about where his people are. Seeing Sinestro in this form, working with a dark Superman, is certainly interesting to watch. But it’s even more interesting to see this kind of Superman at play where he’s intently focused but also exerting pressure through threats in the calmest of ways that makes for a lot of fun to read. It’s not his usual mode to be sure and there’s a lot to like in seeing him making these threats and being so out of the accepted narrative about him, reminding us of just what kind of opponent he can truly be.
The bulk of the issue takes place as Jason Blood’s place, after a really well done interlude with Harley Quinn and the Flash as she unburdens herself with some of her feelings on him while he’s strapped to a table. It’s not out of character, since she can be all over the map, and it’s small moments like that which really help to define a character. Most of the issue takes place at Blood’s place though where a small host of people have shown up to help, though it’s a combination of magic-powered types and those with just physical skillsets that aren’t based in superpowers. The explanation of what’s going on takes up a bit of it, but there’s also time spent with Bullock being there, along with Montoya, where he realizes this is all above him and he doesn’t belong. Seeing Detective Chimp have a heart to heart with him, tying it to Gordon, works well for both characters. But for me, Bullock didn’t have the right look during all of this and was too plain faced to really read, though you could infer enough. At least until the Spectre showed up and started obliterating people…
In Summary:
This issue wasn’t jarring, exactly, but it took a bit of figuring out what had gone on during the last series to understand some of the motivations at play here. The threat of some big evil magic got things rolling before with Constantine guiding the story well for new readers whereas this one shifts us into more ongoing events in a bigger way. I did like how it unfolded overall, even if it was a little decompressed at times, but the positives outweigh it, especially with the time Harley got with the Flash and getting some time with a Superman that’s definitely fun to read in this form. The story is moving along at the expected pace and it’s certainly an easy and fun read overall.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 15th, 2014
MSRP: $0.99
