Injustice: Gods Among Us #1
DC Comics, $3.99, color, 40 pages
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artists: Jeremy Raapack, Mike S. Miller, Axel Gimenez, Marc Deering
From Dark Knight Returns to Kingdom Come, we've all read a lot of possible dystopic futures for the DC Universe. Which is why it's surprising to find a good one that treads new ground.
Injustice: Gods Among Us tells the events leading up to the videogame Injustice, which -- quoting Taylor here from a press release -- "sees a new world order where heroes are pitted against heroes in a world gone dark." This comic-book miniseries, which first saw life online, begins five years before the videogame and will demonstrate the events leading to the set-up the players experience.
That's a lot of strikes again Injustice. Three artists, three inkers (Raapack and Miller ink their own work, Deering inks Gimenez). A comic book based on a videogame. A comic book that started as a webcomic.
And yet it's good. Tom Taylor -- can that really be his name? -- writes some of the best Lois-Superman badinage I've read. The Joker is more effective -- and therefore more frightening -- than in the Batman comics he usually inhabits. The twist that sets up a dystopic future happens right here in the first issue, and it's appalling.
I doubt anyone's likely to pick up a non-continuity book because of a good review, but if you get a chance, Byrne steal it. If the rest of the series is as good as the first issue, it might convince you.
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