INJUSTICE: Gods Among Us #1-5 Analysis

Injustice is the best Justice League alternate universe story I've ever read. It's probably the best Justice League story I've ever read. To steal a turn of phrase from my best friend*, "It's so good that I'm almost mad about it." Yes, really. I have never played the game that it is supposedly a prequel for.

The issues are digital only (for now- the trade's not due out until December) and are 99 cents a piece on Comixology and on Kindle (and it is perfectly formatted for viewing on your tablet.) Join me, as I gleefully recap them and analyze them, a few issues at a time.

Also- forewarning: if you haven't read Injustice, I am going to spoiler you as I sell you on it. Don't worry, though, because this is actually good enough to sustain both my review/analysis AND a full and thorough read through. I promise.

Injustice: Gods Among Us starts with Batman, keeping vigil over an uncharacteristically silent Gotham.

It's a great opener, because it's an effective gut punch to anyone with even a passing knowledge of these two iconic characters. Batman's horror at the silence in Gotham feels at once characteristic and ironic. Much has been made in popular adaptations of the character of Batman and Gotham's codependent, chaotic relationship, so much so that it feels wrong, not only that Gotham should be crime free, but that somebody other than Batman should be the architect of that.

We don't see Superman just yet, other than his unmistakeable "S", hanging over the streets of Gotham like something out of a cold war propaganda film. That's how you know that Injustice: GAU doesn't want you to sit comfortably in your familiar constructions of the characters. You will recognize them, you will identify the real-world situations their conflicts parallel, and, if you care about either of those things at all, it is going to be exciting and it is going to hurt.

A flip of the page, and it's five years earlier, in which Clark Kent is in bed beside a pregnant Lois Lane, who has not yet begun to show. It's perhaps a little headcanon-y for me to be pointing this out, but don't you just love the idea of Superman straining to wrap his mind around the unfamiliar wonder of his wife's pregnancy? It's something the Man of Steel has no more frame of a reference for than any human man. He revels in the glory of hearing both heartbeats (Lois' and the baby's) at once, which at once humanizes him and demonstrates his power (a brilliant detail). She gets an emergency message from the Planet and leaps up to get dressed and go into work. He hears an altercation in the distance (that turns out to be Batman beating the crap out of someone) and has to rush off. He worries. Lois tells him to get over it, in so many words. It's sweet.

Too beautiful to last.

You know, already, that it's not going to end well.

Before it all goes to shit, Superman checks in on his frighteningly competent BFF Batman, who is busy beating up a bunch of thugs. Batman doesn't need help, and it doesn't appear to occur to Superman to offer it as he casually asks Batman to meet him on the roof "when [he's] done". He intends to break the news to Batman of Lois's pregnancy, and Batman somewhat creepily beats him to the punch.
 

Bromance at it's (World's) Finest.

This interaction establishes their dynamic in this universe, and demonstrates an effortless richness of characterization that maintains itself throughout the thirty-four issues of the story that have been published as of this writing. (Yes, really.) They are, in this universe, best friends who trust each other (in a way that weirdly comes across as both more intimate than I expected and more heterosexual than anything Jeph Loeb has ever written for the two of them.) This is not a universe in which they routinely have to struggle to bridge whatever gaps there are in their ideological viewpoints. It's also, quite possibly, not a universe in which they have any sort of mutual agreement about keeping each other's power in check. This Superman freaking asks Batman to be godfather to his child, a question Batman answers by smiling wordlessly as they gaze out over the majesty of Metropolis.

While the boys are busy, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen venture into what turns out to be mortal peril courtesy of Batman's most infamous enemy, the Joker (and his bombastic girlfriend Harley Quinn.)

Naturally (as we transition into the second issue,) Jimmy doesn't survive. Stepping aside from the story, it's a shame that these two pages weren't available side by side on my tablet, as they utterly gorgeous together. Andrew Elder's deft coloring draws a beautiful visual contrast between our two heroes- heated, warm reds for Superman hinting at the impending violence, and building trauma, as well as underscoring the horror of finding Jimmy's dead body. The following page is flush with rich hues of cobalt for Batman, who responds to the break in at Star Labs (in which some Kryptonite was stolen) with his trademark analytical, emotional sterility.

Superman flies to Batman and begs for help locating Lois (who he can no longer detect even with his super senses), rather than summoning the League himself, which is possibly a hint that not everyone in the League knows about his Clark Kent identity. Eventually, (thanks to Wonder Woman) Superman manages to detect Lois on board a submarine, where the Joker and Harley have her prone body strapped to an operating table. As Superman approaches, a green gas (that was possibly created by Scarecrow) flows through the air vents, and he begins to hallucinate that Doomsday has returned!

Sorry for the comixology buttons at the bottom, for some reason my browser wouldn't let me get rid of them.

Superman, rather heartbreakingly, does exactly what the Joker expects him to do, and launches what he believes to be Doomsday's body into space.

On the ground, Batman and the Justice League apprehend the Joker and Harley. Wonder Woman is eager to use her lasso on the Joker, but Batman warns against it, saying it won't be of any use. I should say that while I appreciate Taylor's head-on addressing of what might otherwise be a major plot hole, I am not 100% sold on the idea that Wonder Woman's lasso would be ineffective on the Joker. To quote this wonderful post by nevermore9999 on scans_daily, traditionally, "The lasso of truth uncovers the secrets of the soul. It doesn't uncover what is BELIEVED within the soul, it uncovers the truth." It's entirely possible that's not how it works in this continuity, but you would think that, since the Joker knows the truth of his intentions, the lasso would have been effective, even if it's only able to suss out whether or not he's telling his what he knows to be "the truth". As for whether or not the Joker is sane enough to understand the scope of his actions, I tend to agree with Jason Todd in Batman #649.

Batman figures out what that the Scarecrow's gas in the submarine was laced with Kryptonite to make it possible for Superman to internalize, but it's too late. And the unthinkable happens- Superman has murdered Lois Lane.

Oh, and there's a trigger switch in her heart, so when it stops beating, a bomb goes off that levels Metropolis, killing everyone in it.

I should say that I'm bothered that Lois Lane ends up getting fridged for the sake of Superman's man-pain. It's especially frustrating because I think I would really have liked this Lois if we'd gotten to know her. That's not something I say about alterna-verse Lois Lanes very often, not because she can't be written well, but because it's so depressing when she isn't. (Here's a lovely tumblr post that brilliantly addresses some of what's going on in the current mainstream DCU continuity and Lois Lane's importance as a whole.)

Here is what I hope is a convincing argument as to why I'm not unleashing hardcore feminist rage, however: The hardest part of writing Superman is that he's almost too powerful to be interesting. There aren't a lot of ways you can make a top-of-his-game Superman realistically snap. His weak points, aside from Kryptonite or the occasional brush with mind control, there's not a lot Superman is susceptible to that can be made to be dramatically satisfying, other than the possible deaths of Lois Lane, his parents, or the rest of the Justice League. I want to be enough of a hardass to insist that there's no excuse, and writers should be required to come up with more original fare, but there's so much good here that I'm not able to be upset about it.

Issue four opens with Superman grieving in the smoking crater that is Metropolis, clutching Lois' dead body to his chest.

Meanwhile, Batman interrogates the Joker.

Sometimes, Bruce, it's really not all about you.

From my perspective, this particular failure is Batman's fault. Why hasn't he killed the Joker? Not now, mind you. I mean at any time before this occurred. Are we really supposed to believe that Batman, the league's resident futurist nutjob conspiracy theorist contingency plan maker, couldn't have seen this shit coming?

Okay, to be fair, the reason the Joker survives indefinitely in any universe is that Batman is a more interesting character when he has the Joker as an opponent. These kind of editorial decisions require that we as fans have to think of an in-character, in-universe explanation as to why Batman lets the Joker live, and that reason, as far as I'm concerned, is Batman's narcissism. Batman has said in other continuities in the past that he doesn't kill the Joker because he would never recover from that experience, but it's really simpler than that: keeping the Joker alive satisfies the darkest, most twisted parts of Batman's ego. It frames the existence of the Joker as his personal problem, and justifies his existence as Batman in a way that few other villains do. This is exemplified by the way he talks to the Joker in this scene: Why did the Joker hurt Superman and not Batman? is the question Batman demands an answer to, but Batman's never been the only person in the vastness of the universe who the Joker was capable of targeting, and Batman really ought to know better than to have assumed he was. (In fact, doesn't he most probably rescue innocent civilians from the Joker's antics on a regular basis?)

Also? Not for nothing, but if I were Bruce Wayne rich and had all kinds of social connections to the world's most powerful people? I would be able to start a dummy corporation to send funds through an offshore bank account so I could anonymously wire Lady Shiva sixteen million dollars to sneak into Arkham in the middle of the night and twist the Joker's head all the way off his spinal column and make it look like an accident somehow. After the untold thousands of people Joker has killed, and the number of times the Joker's power has gone totally unchecked, that would really be the responsible thing to do- to get it over with and live with the guilt. It's very ironic that in a story about the social responsibility that comes with power and whether or not the ends justify the means, Batman could have unequivocally justified his own vigilantism and saved the entire world a whole lot of heartache with one financial transaction and still kept the blood mostly off his own hands.

Batman doesn't do things like that, so here we are.

Green Lantern and the Flash try to rescue survivors out of the wreckage of Metropolis. Wonder Woman goes to Superman's side, and accepts Lois Lane's body from him as he flies off to take matters into his own hands. Green Lantern tries to stop him, insisting that Superman can't possible be in his right mind and isn't equipped to make important decisions. It doesn't go very well.

Superman pulls the ring off of Hal's finger (I'm assuming it's Hal's? Even though he has black hair like Kyle?), and lets him nearly fall to his death, and catches him at the last possible second just before he hits the ground.

Weirdly enough, the person who still doesn't get the gravity of the situation is Superman's BFF Batman. "Someone took it all away from you once too, didn't they Bats?" says the Joker, who should not have that information and somehow still totally does. (My personal head canon for that, by the way, is not that the Joker knows about Bruce Wayne. Rather, Harley in one of her more lucid moments put that hard earned psychology degree to use and figured out that there was no other possibly motivation for her boyfriend's greatest foe.) Batman doesn't believe that Superman is capable of turning into the kind of fascist who would use this scenario as an excuse to take over the world.

Batman finds out he's wrong when Superman puts his entire arm through the Joker's heart. Is it plausible that this universe's Joker didn't see his own death coming? Or was there some reason he just didn't care? (Does he secretly have liver cancer or something?)

For a little levity, issue 5 focuses on Harley getting apprehended and captured by Green Arrow, who takes her back to his Arrow Cave. They banter about fake moustaches and why Ollie calls his lair the Arrow Cave (seriously Ollie, you can do better) and then Harley busts out with this tidbit that completely surprised me:

To be frank: one of the reasons that comics fandom is sometimes a difficult place for female readers is that there are so many people who will bend over backwards to justify every scrap of misogyny mainstream comics has to throw at them. Harley and the Joker's relationship is a perfect example: like most abuse victims, Harley tends to blame herself for the horribly abusive way that the Joker treats her, and many, many of her fans tend to defend their  relationship as being non-abusive. (I am not going to link to those people, because I do not want to give voice to their plainly wrong and harmful views. If you want to find that shit, do your own google search.)

It irks me to have to be grateful for the fact that this version of Harley seems to know that her relationship with Mistuh J is seventeen kinds of fucked up, but I am. It's refreshing,  particularly because it acknowledges Harley's awareness and agency as a character in a way that current mainstream DC is not really seeming to be capable of to say the least. (Trigger warning for suicide and discussions of sexual objectification.) Ollie admits he's had similar struggles in "3 out of the last 4" relationships he's been in, which is...honest, if not totally the same thing. I don't think Ollie knows enough about power dynamics to understand the power imbalances that make it statistically much more likely for Harley's relationship to end in a murder-suicide than any of his ever would.

Harley then puts on a fake moustache, and asks Ollie to laugh maniacally for her, which he does. Because why not?

That's all for issues 1-5!! Let me know what you guys think of them, (and of this analysis) in the comments!