Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Xermanico
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
The Titans and Booster Gold encounter Lobo. The Green Lantern Corps, under great duress, consider an unlikely recruit.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I’ve been a bit wary of the earthbound side of this current arc as I just wanted more of what’s going on in space, Tom Taylor has nailed the tone of it well while separating out the two pieces. That gets brought together here with Beetle reconnecting with the Titans but we also get more than just that. It also helps that, like the last couple of issues, we get Xermanico on full art duties that continues to delight with what it does. I really like his take on the characters and getting to work with some space scenes with lots of emptiness in the backgrounds means we get some even better character designs. Combined with Nanjan again delivering the color work that looks great digitally and there’s a whole lot to like here.
The material with Oa is lighter than I’d care for but it’s definitely fun as we see events getting worse there with the attack. The Guardian that’s there, Sayd, isn’t able to get a larger call out since he gets a starfish to the face and is full of rage now, which is incredibly dangerous. The pile of bodies is definitely stacking up but we also get the problem of not using resources well. I totally understand why Soranik isn’t interested in giving Hal a ring but at the same time the ranks of the corps are getting decimated fairly quickly and they’ve got a Guardian now. You really need all the help you can get, though I’ll admit that I’d draw the line at Sinestro since there’s such a constant through line of evil about him.
When it comes to the rest of the book we get a lot of things going on. Booster and the gang, going at high speed with the klaxon going off constantly, end up having the Main Man himself push back against them which makes for some amusement with how Booster labels him. What we do thankfully get is zero fighting and some dialogue instead about why Jaime was taken and his role in all of this – and everyone else signing up to fight alongside him. It thankfully avoids the usual drama and goes for something more realistic. What makes it work even better is that all this ramping up of importance has Jaime starting to spiral in a bad way over it and it’s up to Booster to give him the pep talk. It’s another area of Booster being more of a good guy than he usually is and really getting into the root of things and helping to put him on the right path – with help from Ted, which always delights.
In Summary:
Injustice 2 is moving quickly to the big fight and the bodies are piling up already. I’m really enjoying this arc as Tom Taylor always has a way with words in how the characters talk in addition to the fun story plot points that he hits regularly. I’m also continuing to enjoy watching the overall progression of artwork that Xermanico brings to the series as there’s a lot of great evolution to it over the last few years. This issue does a lot of fun things in getting us closer to the bigger match and what the fallout from it could be and I’m excited to see what craziness is in store.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 29th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99
