Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Hell descends upon a defenseless Arizona town as Ra’s al Ghul and Solovar test their secret weapon. But out of the ashes, a new hero is born.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With some fun somewhat side events playing out in the last couple of issues that will cycle around soon enough, Injustice 2 returns to some of the larger things in motion with this issue. The fun of what we get here shines through with Tom Taylor putting things together right with just enough gallows humor that when combined with some stark material from Redondo and Albarran finds a good balance. A lot of what I get from this series when it’s firing on all cylinders is something that reminds me of my “golden age” of comics where it’s fun, there are good stakes, and the characters have a sense of urgency and danger to deal with while also mixing in some fun character material.
That character material is almost adorable at the start here in seeing Bruce and Selina together, at least until he gets to head out to deal with a new problem Brother Eye has found. Selina’s willing to stay behind to watch Alfred is a nice touch as Bruce makes it clear it’s not about trying to protect her since they’ve always had issues in that realm. The problem that they’re facing is not an easy one, however, as a small town of 3000 in Arizona has been wiped away. Or,. more specifically, all the people have as the town itself and the animals are all fine. It’s a grisly sight when Batman, Batgirl, and Plastic Man arrive there to check things out but with no real clues it’s hard to figure out. They know it must be related to Ra’s since it fits with his plans but the lack of anything residual has Batman keeping it open to being something else.
It is, of course, part Ra’s plan and seeing him talking about it with Solavar in Gorilla City is fun because it’s made clear this was a trial run just to see how well it would work before going wider with it. Both Ra’s and the gorillas are on board with it because of their longstanding issues with humanity but this is the moment where we see Faux Batman showing at least a little bit of humanity as he’s uncomfortable with it. The idea of just some small out of the way town that doesn’t make sense as a real tactical target bothers him but the reality is that Ra’s intends to wipe out the majority of humanity and that’s just a given. I’m curious to see more of Ra’s plans unfold and in a way you kind of want him to really make some headway here just to shake up the world even more in this standalone property.
In Summary:
This is my “core team” on Injustice and they’ve put in another very solid issue. It’s light on action per se but they get to work some really good terror at the start and show the fallout well while also keeping plenty to the humanity of the characters elsewhere. I love the jungle design that we get for the gorilla’s location and how they live right now and I definitely liked what we got from Faux Batman between dialogue and very small facial expressions that shows him as a potential weak link here. The series is doing a lot of fun things and I’m excited to see what’s next for it.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 28th, 2017
MSRP: $0.99
