A little backstory to pass the time.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato
Art: Tom Derenick
What They Say:
Learn the origins of the God of War while, in the present, he teases Superman with the road to ultimate victory-“In order to fight Gods…you need GODS.”
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Injustice series has found itself at a bit of a crossroads with what it can do and there’s a new quiet in the middle of the storm aspect to it after how Zeus finally set things in the previous installment. Ending the immediacy of the fight was an interesting tactic but having it shift so that you got the sense that Zeus was now establishing everything in favor of the gods of Olympus to take over the world in their own way was definitely something fun to see. While it’s not a better/worse thing when it comes to Superman and the others being in charge, it’s just trading problems for another set of problems and now having to cope with both of them in different ways. I liked some of what we got for setup with what’s to come, and that’s touched upon very lightly here.
While Ares is certainly a long established character in the comics, my period of reading hadn’t done much to really make him an engaging villain. There’s a kind of simplicity about him that we’ve seen before and it showed here as well as he engages in all the schisms going on which feeds his own power as the god of war. But the best villains are those that you can feel some amount of sympathy towards, especially if they were pushed into the position they’re in by others with greater power. Such is the case with Ares, at least in this interpretation, as we see him talking about what it means to be the god of war. There’s a kind of cruel beauty about the world he shows us while the narration goes on even if the actual visuals are kept kind of indistinct. The result of it is that it feels like an outer layer of hell more than anything else and that helps to play up his darker side.
What makes this engaging is getting the greater backstory to the time when the original old gods had died out and their time had passed amid a fight with a greater destructive force in the world. It’s here that we see the way that Ares, looking quite human as opposed to now, pleaded and begged with Zeus to allow the gods of Olympus to join in the battle to stop what was coming. While he has a battle lust it’s one that’s tied to a necessary battle, one he feels is critical for the safety of Olympus. But seeing how Zeus is in that he’s more interested in using his massive powers to protect Olympus rather than go to battle creates a chasm between the two men, one that has Ares turned into what he is now. This moment is one that while it doesn’t excuse anything that Ares has ever done at least makes you understand why he’s doing what he’s doing in the present. And that makes him engaging as his machinations are all about the removal of the All-Father through some creative means in hopes of Zeus not figuring it out in time.
In Summary:
While by no means a bad installment, Injustice takes a bit of a breather here in essence to provide the reasoning for the motivations of what Ares is up to in this larger battle. This provides some new context and scale that works surprisingly well in establishing things for the character in a way that works for me. It doesn’t make him someone you want to hang around with but you can at least understand it. Seeing how it all ties into what’s going on with this fight between Superman and Batman and how the manipulations are feeding Ares even more is pretty solid, all of which leads to some really big chaos about to land on the doorstep of Themyscira. It’s definitely going big with this series once again and I’m enjoying the heck out of it.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 18th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
