Story Mode: Injustice 2

WARNING: SPOILERS follow

I am not a gamer.

My hand-eye coordination is crap, I have the reflexes of a drunk house cat, and my only strategy for beating a game is to mash every button on that controller at once and hope something good happens.

However, I do love a good story. That’s what draws me to video games – the few that I do play. Games like Bioshock and Kingdom Hearts, Life is Strange and the TellTale games. I don’t usually care about a new gameplay mechanic or what spot I can score on the leaderboard. Just give me an engaging story with good characters and maybe I won’t suck at the game enough to actually make it to the plot.

Welcome to Story Mode, where we celebrate video games for the stories they deliver, the characters that stick with us, and how an interactive medium can sometimes make a story more impactful.

So, with that introduction over with, let’s talk about Injustice 2.

Taking place in the alternate universe from Injustice: Gods Among Us, Superman is still imprisoned after the fall of his Regime, and Batman is trying to pick up the pieces of the world with the help of his Insurgency. But Gorilla Grodd has amassed an army of supervillains dubbed the Society, and with the arrival of the alien Brainiac, the Insurgency and Regime may have to work together in order to save the world.

Injustice 2 has the story mode that I wish the first Injustice had. That game was promised to me as taking place in an alternate universe where Superman snapped and became a dictator, and the tie-in prequel comic only helped to fuel this speculation. When the actual game came around, however, it featured characters a more standard DC Universe visiting this dystopian universe, with several “prime” characters fighting their less-than-moral counterparts. While not necessarily a bad story, I did think it would have been more interesting to simply follow the exploits of the “Regime” universe, considering how good the comics featuring this universe were. Then again, I suppose it makes sense to give us an incarnation of the Justice League that’s a little more mainstream so that we as an audience can more easily connect with them as they encounter an unfamiliar universe. They serve as our eyes and ears to this messed-up mirror world.

"Have the lambs stop screaming?"

The story itself is the kind of big story that I love to see in superhero crossovers. Everyone gets in on the action, with tons of heroes and villains either working together or against each other while a giant threat looms. It reminds me a lot of past DC stories like Kingdom Come or Alex Ross’s Justice (which appropriately enough, also featured a supervillain tea-up and Brainiac as the main antagonist).

Although, within the story, it does bother me how inconsistent it is with the canon status of the Injustice prequel comic. The very first scene of Injustice 2 directly contradicts the comic by showing Superman acting more brutal during his early days after killing the Joker, with him wanting to execute the prisoners of Arkham Asylum instead of just relocating them like in the comic. Also, Scarecrow is shown alive and well in the game, despite the fact that he was one of the first casualties in the comic. Granted, him comic back from the dead is a likely possibility, but the game doesn’t even make reference to the Scarecrow ever being dead in the first place, making it entirely possible that this is another retcon to the comic’s storyline.

But paradoxically, the game also makes reference to important events directly from the comic’s storyline, including Superman’s destruction of the Green Lantern Corps and Doctor Fate sending Black Canary to live with an alternate universe Green Arrow after hers was killed. So is the Injustice comic canon or not, guys? Considering how well received the comic was, it doesn’t really make sense why they would choose to retcon or ignore so much. I mean, they basically have the five years between Superman killing the Joker and the beginning of the first game already written out, so why not just directly draw from that for your backstory? It feels like more work to overwrite this stuff.

Following the debacle of the Regime’s reign, there are a lot of characters who switched sides and need atoned for. Fortunately, the game gives enough time for these redemption arcs. Green Lantern and the Flash – both portrayed as Dictator Superman’s cronies in the first game – showcase themselves as heroes once more, and Harley Quinn and Catwoman both show how more valuable they are on the side of good. This game introduces Supergirl, who was raised by Wonder Woman and Black Adam to believe Superman’s side was just, so she starts off as an uknowing antagonistic figure. But over the course of the game, she breaks out of this brainwashing to remind everyone the kind of hope that the symbol of the House of El should inspire, proving herself to be a worthy foil to her fallen cousin. But despite all he goes through – including teaming up with Batman again to stop a more powerful enemy – Superman does not redeem himself, and in the end, he is still the same superpowered tyrant who thinks he’s protecting the world.

And that’s one of the big problems I had with the plot: By the end of it all, nothing really changes. There are two endings to the game’s story mode, depending on whether you choose to play as Batman or Superman in the final fight. In Batman’s ending – the supposed “canon” ending – the Regime is defeated once more, Superman is permanently depowered and sent to the Phantom Zone, and Batman decides to reform the Justice League, including Supergirl into the roster. It’s basically the same ending as Gods Among Us, and we’ve just come full circle to where this game started. At least with the first game, the ending changed things and important characters died. Here, everything just goes back to pretty much normalcy with minor casualties.

The Superman ending is a bit different. Superman defeats Batman and his Insurgency, and then proceeds to kill Brainiac, merge with his tech, and plans to rule the Earth once again with his more powerful resources. Oh, and Batman has been turned into a brainwashed puppet. This is drastically different than the status quo Batman ending, but in this ending, we’ve just come back to where the first Injustice game started, with an unstoppable Superman overlord ruling Earth. Only this time, everything is bleaker because Batman and the other heroes have no hope of stopping them. Plus, with this ending, there’s not really a whole lot of places where a potential sequel can jump off of. Had they added in a Superman redemption arc, maybe an ending where Superman and Batman reconcile to rebuild the Justice League would have been more impactful.

"Barry, stop! You can't go back in time to fix the season 3 finale of The Flash!"

The plot throws in so much into one story that there are a few big things that feel like they should have a follow-up, but don’t. The Reverse-Flash mentions how Superman’s takeover of the Earth has caused his existence to become a paradox, and with him being from the future, he knows this was not supposed to happen. Never brought up again. Wonder Woman’s fight with Scarecrow reveals that her worst fear is that she manipulated Superman into becoming a monster. Never brought up again. Batman secretly builds Brother Eye, a satellite surveillance system that allows him and his allies to keep an eye on crime around the world. Does anyone bring up how morally grey this could be on Batman’s part? Does anyone call him out on this when Brainiac used Brother Eye to increase his power? Nope. Granted, Brainiac’s invasion probably takes precedence over this other stuff given how big it is, and if there’s an Injustice 3 they could probably cover some of this. But don’t dangle strings in front of a cat’s face if you don’t want him to swat at them.

The emotional moments in the story are some of its best parts, owing a lot to the skilled voice actors and realistic facial animation. Most of the actors included have voiced these characters before – sometimes for years in the case of Kevin Conroy, George Newbern, and Susan Eisenberg – and they do a great job at conveying their emotional range. The best part in the story, in my opinion: When Batman and Superman are about to have their final duel, and they stop to reminisce about the old days, like when Clark first told Bruce about Lois’s pregnancy. Says Batman, “I miss the people we were then.” Superman agrees. Then he sucker punches Batman across the room.

Speaking of characters, Brainiac is a very intimidating presence in the game. Superman’s rogues gallery is not one that I normally think too much about, aside from powerhouses like Lex Luthor and Darkseid. They’re not overly engaging like Batman’s villains, and not a whole lot of them are all that well known, so they don’t get a ton of spotlight. But this game kind of made me appreciate Brainiac a little bit more, as Injustice 2 shows just how terrifying of a villain he can be when done right. All he cares about is increasing his mind, and if that means he has to destroy planets in order to make the knowledge he learned from them rarer, then so be it. He’s not your typical “take over/destroy the world” kind of alien invader. He’s more interested in becoming the smartest being in existence, and he’ll do whatever it takes. Helping his gravitas is a creepy design (those black eyes, man) and a memorable performance by Jeffrey Combs (whom you might remember as the Question from Justice League Unlimited).

So for a fighting game, Injustice 2 delivers a pretty satisfying story mode. They didn’t need to put a lot of thought in their plot. After all, the game’s about superheroes beating the snot out of each other. People don’t buy it for the story; they buy it so they can settle a debate of who would win in a fight between Swamp Thing and Captain Cold. But NetherRealm put in the time and effort to craft an epic, emotional story with themes of morality and redemption, and actually gives justification for all the super-fighting.

"It's over, Bruce! I have the high ground!"

In short, Injustice 2 is a better Batman vs. Superman story than the actual Batman V Superman.

Final verdict: 8/10.

Now, back to leveling up my characters so that Joker can be strong enough to wear this stupid jester hat that somehow increases his health. This game is weird.