It only gets more complicated for Harley.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato, Christopher Sebela
Art: Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Sinestro battles the alternate earth Wonder Woman and Green Arrow. Harley considers jumping in, but has her hands full in the middle of a riot.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Injustice: Ground Zero is doing its best to get me to like its Harley-centric view and while I don’t have any distaste toward her in the slightest, I am feeling just a touch weary of all the books she dominates. That said, using her as the voice for this is pretty spot on since she brings a skewed view to things as she goes through her own transformations after five years of fighting in this mess and seeing how it’s all going in weird directions thanks to the arrivals from the other side. This installment retains the creative team from the previous issue and that makes for some very solid continuity, particularly as I definitely like Sampere’s style and the way his panel layouts work for this digital-first book that plays more “sideways” than traditional books.
With the Sidekicks arc moving right along in this second installment of it now that the main series thrust got underway, Buccellato and Sebela work further to make it clear that Harley in this world has certainly grown beyond what she was at the start. It’s a continued important point to make for fans that she removed herself from the toxic situation she was in with the Joker and her growth beyond that has been fun. Here, in this particular world, she’s become a boss now and her group of henchmen have been amusing to watch as she names them and just hangs out to get to know them for a bit. But when things went bad in the fight the last time around, it pushes her in new directions and she’s pretty intense about Gary getting killed – even though he didn’t. The caring side of Harley has always been there but I’m enjoying how this team is drawing it out and how Sampere and Albarran draw it out in their own way with her expressive nature in dealing with her current gang.
There’s a good bit of action in this as Harley gets her fight on to get revenge at first but I actually found her more appealing when she retreats to check on Gary and then does what she can to try and disperse and protect the crowd because she knows the big picture in how the heroes operate. Part of the narrative here, and the narration, is that the heroes have long lost their connection to those that they protect, though that’s a very simplistic view of events. We get to see some of that with Hal and Sinestro fighting, at least before the Yellow Hal arrives and makes it all the more complicated. The heroes are facing some real problems when it comes to those that have been here for an age and I’m really curious to see how the Positive Heroes from the other world will really react as they get to know more of it. Sadly, that’s still to the side as the focus is on Harley and the reveal that the other world Joker has now stepped out of the shadows and into this world.
In Summary:
Ground Zero is setting up plenty of things that it can work from here and it’s definitely got a lot of potential. I think it needs to loosen the Harley side up a bit and take more of a broad view with different focuses as Gods Among Us Did, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. What we get here works pretty well though and I like how Harley is being presented, script and dialogue-wise as well as the artwork, but everything needs a big moment to really set the stage and get things moving forward. There’s only so much setup that you want from a book that’s adapting a story from a game that’s all about fighting.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 25th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
