Why I don't like Injustice: Gods among us

One of the games that has been getting the most press in the past few months has been Injustice: Gods among us. As someone who has a friend that is really into comics I can say that this isn't surprising. DC is far more focused on marketing their books that making actual good stories, so it's no surprise that they would push the upcoming game this hard. But the game itself looks awful, hilariously bad in almost every way. And I wouldn't be the critic I occasionally like to pretend that I am without nitpicking the hell out of it.

Enough with the damn gritty reboots already!

I may have mentioned this before but I really am getting sick of every single AAA release being some kind of gritty, Image Comics reboot. I know that there is a place for it, and yes quite a few times it works like a damn charm. But does it have to apply to everything? Do comics especially have to return to the dark ages, is it really necessary for the cause of games being taken seriously? 

But aside from my normal disdain at this genre, there is another reason that I find this idea especially to be sub-par. That reason is as follows; a fighting game based around a story isn't a terrible idea in theory, but that doesn't mean that this is the story to make it work.

The story is stupid

This is the real terrible secret to the game, the story is awful. DC recently released a prequel comic to the game that was meant to explain what happens that leads into Injustice. Now setting aside the question of why you need a thirteen issue comic series to explain the backstory, and doesn't that just mean that you are poor storytellers? The other issue is that the story is really bad.

The story starts off with the Joker setting off a nuke in Metropolis, because he wanted "to play on Easy for a while" (I'm not even kidding, that is a quote from the damn comic). Superman kills him, no really, and demands that the world stop being mean to each other or he will force them to play nice, no really again. So Aquaman starts a war with the entire human race because of Japanese whalers, I swear I'm not making any of this up, and Superman, without even attempting diplomacy, lifts the entirety of Atlantis, I couldn't even begin to dream this up, and deposits it in the Sahara desert. This leads into the game, with the heroes divided between supporting Superman or Batman.

Now this is obviously heavily summarized, as there are thirteen issues of this damned thing, but that is the overall story. So lets just make a list of all the ways that this is stupid.

1. Superman kills: Now obviously in the hands of a talented writer, almost anyone else, this could actually be pretty good. An exploration of Superman acting in a moment of emotional anguish, haunted by his actions, forced to face the question of whether or not he can be redeemed. All of this is really interesting stuff, that the story doesn't seem to want to do anything with. Instead Superman, paragon of goodness, becomes a totalitarian nut. 
2. Wonder Woman wants to ride Superman: No. Just No. This is a storyline that basically just screams Elseworld title. Many bad writers try to incur character development and conflict through having two established heroes want to bone one another. It's an atrociously overused crutch to give the illusion of a character arc. Particularly with this pairing, enough of it, MLP:FiM shippers have more creativity than you guys.
3. Aquaman declares war, for no good reason: Yeah whaling sucks, but is it really worth declaring war against the entire world for? Because i'm not kidding here, in the comic, that is what he does! He starts by attacking a group of whalers, understandable, then expanding his attack to Japan, less-understandable, and then a whole bunch of major cities, despicable and stupid. I'm not an Aquaman fan, but I'm sure that his fans will say in the comics that he doesn't normally declare war for no good damn reason.

Conclusion

Now obviously this is all tentative speculation. Now that the game is out I'm sure that fans of the game or its characters will argue for it in the comments, so that I'm inevitably forced to buy it for the WiiU... right?

Post your opinions on my opinions in the comments below. Agree or Disagree, this blog is meant to encourage discussion. The next article will be my sort-of review of one of the most talked about games of the year...