How long can they keep trusting Constantine?
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato
Art: Pete Woods
What They Say:
Swamp Thing enters the battle on Superman’s side, while the Man of Steel has his hands full battling his greatest adversary… Batman.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The heavy use of Mister Mxyzptlk made the book a little less enjoyable to read, I admit, as the character frustrates me. So it was certainly welcome that events here, as they pick up even more, shifted to showing more of what others are going through and dealing with now that Swamp Thing has arrived and has chosen a side, largely out of his distrust for Constantine. With the battlefield having shifted from the Tower of Fate to the House of Mystery as well, there’s a more open feeling to things that helps it expand a bit in a good way. But there’s also, lurking in the background, the fight against Trigon as you know one way or another things are going to finish up there and everyone else is going to have to deal with the fallout from all of it.
This issue comes across more as a bit of place setting in the nd for some of the characters as the fights go on and several are knocked down and out ahead of the final four installments of this “year” of the series. Some of the fights are fun, such as Harley and Shazam, others are a bit more talkative that has something interesting to say such as Catwoman going on about her lack of respect for the invulnerable set like Wonder Woman and Superman. Others are pretty much just straightforward fights without much to say at all, like Hal and Montoya or Batwoman and Sinestro. The pages and panels work well, but it essentially thins down the ranks a bit, though I disliked Batwoman being able to take out Ares with one solid punch. That just felt like all kinds of wrong.
But as is the case, Constantine always has a plan. While Batman and Superman struggle against each other and Bruce goes on about retaining his humanity and not killing Clark over all of this, Constantine is working his angles to keep Swamp Thing occupied as The Green is a real game changer if he gets fully invested in things. It doesn’t progress much here, but Constantine’s promises are usually interesting to watch play out, so seeing him bide his time leaves you wondering. And you get some of that from Nightswing and Dr. Fate as the two of them are assessing the situation and its complications, only to have to trust Constantine again. Considering the way the fight has gone, it’s not entirely unwarranted, especially since the scale of the fight has gone to all sorts of weird levels now that the truth of the Spectre is out there.
In Summary:
Injustice doesn’t actually do a whole lot here overall, but it sets the stage for the next couple of installments to bring it all to a conclusion. And it does that by knocking several of the characters out so we can focus on fewer of them overall. It moves quickly enough and it has some amusing bits of dialogue and interactions along the way and Pete Woods’ artwork here certainly fits well enough within the overall design of the series. But in the end, it’s just a throwdown between sides with some fun dialogue and a sense of wait and see with what’s to come from Constantine and his plan.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: February 10th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99