Let there be a summit!
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Brainiac prepares to visit Earth, Alfred tries to smooth over a family conflict, and Harley makes a peace offering.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Injustice 2 turns its eye back to Earth and it is, admittedly, probably time for that. Much to my chagrin. I’ve really enjoyed the change in the outer space storyline that we had as Tom Taylor got to play with some fun stuff and wrap up a few things as well. Here, he’s working once again with Daniel Sampere and Juan Albarran on the art duties and I continue to adore just how much Sampere has grown as an artist on this book. I enjoyed his earlier work a lot for the layouts and overall design butin a book like this where there’s little in the way of action it simply looks great – especially with the facial designs and the combination of color work from Rex Lokus that gives it all such texture. There’s just that certain quality to the artwork that I can’t put into words where it leaves me utterly delighted with it.
What’s driving things initially here is Alfred’s meeting with Athanasia as he’s still not feeling right after coming back from the Lazarus Pit, much like her. He’s always been the bridge character to connect Bruce to his past and family and she is that, even though both kind of deny it in their own way. What’s welcome is that Alfred does confront Bruce over this at a time when he is a lot more mellow considering world events and how he has to keep a very low profile. Selina is being very good for that and you know Alfred hates to intrude. But that encounter with death has him wanting to change things in the here and now and he knows that Bruce can do that – with Ra’s. Having the two of them work together to solve the world’s problems? It’s an area that Taylor has touched on before in this series and one that I really want to see explored.
What they need, of course, is an intermediary to try and open up communication between the two sides. Now, I’ve been frustrated in the past with the overuse of Harley in this franchise on top of elsewhere but getting half a book of her with Sampere’s artwork bringing her to life? Perfect. She’s got a somber approach to it since it involves dealing with Ivy and her own shifting alliances over the years, which she admits to. The dialogue about her peace offering is comical but what I love is that the combination of Taylor’s dialogue with Sampere’s artwork in working so much emotion into her eyes makes it work. Yeah, we get the silly sidebar with Orca and all that doesn’t quite work for me but it works for the book. But even that doesn’t take away from just how serious this issue is overall – all while Brainiac sets his plans into motion in orbit.
In Summary:
Injustice 2 gets back to Earth and while I don’t wanna I’m glad that we get as strong an issue as we do here. Tom Taylor nails the approach just right and has Alfred kick it all off in a way that feels natural and honest. While I’d love to have just an issue of Bruce and Selina together hanging out or a really expanded look at Alfred and his conversation with Athanasia, what we do get here allows for that kind of quiet slow build to work. I’m definitely excited to see what comes next but I’m also thrilled to be able to just leaf through this a few times and soak up Daniel Sampere’s artwork. There’s just this sense of confidence about it over the last few months that’s translated beautifully and each time he’s on the book with Juan Albarran I’m even more excited to see who he gets to tackle and how they’ll be presented.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: July 17th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99
