It’s time for the gods to pay.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato
Art: Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran
What They Say:
He’s finally back-SHAZAM! Let’s see how his “Strength of Hercules” matches up against the real thing!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the series feeling like things are picking up a bit more in the last couple of issues after all the setup and back and forth that was going on, we’re seeing more of the events really coming together here. The book works its best in a way when the well known heroes and sometimes villains are slugging it out with each other with abandon as it lets us see what we usually don’t get to see. But even in this world sometimes things go too far, and we get a bit of that here with Batman and his group really not liking the way the gods, mostly with Hercules, is utterly destroying and killing Wonder Woman. Batman wants to win, but there’s a cost he won’t pay in the end it seems.
Not that he has much choice in the matter as things are out of his control, though to his credit – minor as it may be – he does try to intervene. What does help in intervening with events though is the unlocking of Billy Batson before as he’s now fully transformed, wielding the power of six gods, and on a collision course to do some real damage to those attack his friends. It’s a powerful moment when he slams into Hercules and even talks trash about him by altering his name, but there’s also fun as we get Harley rooting for him since she’s gotten attached to the kid and what he represents. The fighting really goes up a few notches here, even with Batwoman looking to take advantage by getting some revenge on Wonder Woman over Montoya, and it escalates even higher when Superman finally returns, ready to do what’s necessary to win in a way that Batman won’t now.
Other events are moving along as well in potentially interesting ways. With Zeus watching from afar, even he’s not liking what he’s seeing as it goes against what he sometimes stands for. Enough so that he questions his wife over it as to who this really benefits. With Ares pulling the strings here, having taken advantage of Batman’s ideas, Zeus knows the truth of the matter and it rankles in a huge way. Having that realization that it’s mostly a power play by Ares, one that could really do some damage to Zeus in the long run, definitely ups the ante. Particularly because the potential to change the balance of Olympus is there since we’re not constrained here by the normal integrated universe. Will the book go far enough? I truly hope so.
In Summary:
Injustice hits up a solid installment here with it’s focused strongly on the action side of things and that makes for some great impact along the way. With Batman becoming concerned about it all spiraling out of control in a bad way and getting a look at how some on his own team have gotten even darker, understandably so, it’s hitting that level where it’s just too far gone in a lot of ways. But as we see events play out, first with Shazam and then with Superman, it’s only going to get worse. And with the inclusion of Zeus this time around in subplot mode, it feels like it could go even more badly in the grand scheme of things in the long run too. Pretty fun and has me hoping for a stronger back half of the year.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: July 28th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
