Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #15 - A Review

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #15 opens with one of the finest examples of symbolic duality I've ever seen in a graphic novel.  The scene depicts Dinah Lance giving birth.  The panel placement and dialogue sync-up perfectly with Oliver Queen's death scene in an earlier issue.  Life and death as perfect mirrors of each other.  It's quite deep and moving.


Thankfully, this book isn't all art and artifice.  Oh, there's a fair bit of drama involving Sinestro and The Green Lantern Corps' plans to save the Earth.  But the script is also filled with some of the humor that is quickly becoming Tom Taylor's hallmark as Auntie Harley stops by the hospital to deliver a care package for the new baby.  Taylor understands Harley Quinn as few writers do and his take on Harley manages to be both hilarious and practical even in the midst of her insanity.

Artist Bruno Redondo seems to be channeling Kevin Maguire in this issue.  The expressions of the characters seem a bit more animated than usual in this outing.  Given the wide variety of emotion this script requires, this proves a welcome change of pace.  And as is usual for Redondo the action scenes of the issue are well-choreographed.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #13 - A Review

It's been a while since I've written a review of Injustice: Gods Among Us.  This is not because my love for this comic has diminished but because I feared becoming repetitive.  I can only say so many nice things so often.  And I figured that by this point, if you're not already reading this book, nothing I could say or show you could possibly persuade you to give this book a shot.  And yet, this time, I've decided to break my silence regarding this issue, which opens with a Black Canary/Harley Quinn catfight and quickly becomes something much deeper.


With this issue, Tom Taylor brings forth more depth and personality than either of these two heroines have seen in their respective New 52 incarnations.  And it goes far beyond the common link they share as women who've lost the men they love to an increasingly corrupt Superman.  I can't say more than that without spoiling too much, but fans of Gail Simone's Birds of Prey may find themselves checking the title page to make sure that Gail didn't write this issue.  Taylor's take on Dinah Lance is that true to form and his script is reminiscent of Simone's more comedic superhero stories while retaining much of the same heart.

The artwork by Bruno Redondo and Julien Hgonnard-Bert is as good as the script.  We do get a bit of male-gaze in the early part of the issue, but I believe this to have been a part of the twist - that what seemed to be a fairly standard comic with two scantily clad women beating each other senseless should quickly turn around into a story that seems more appropriate to the Lifetime Network than Spike TV.

Bottom Line: If you're a fan of the classic Harley Quinn or Black Canary, you should pick up this issue.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #4 - A Review

Unlike previous issues of Injustice, this fourth issue doesn't have any world-shaking moments.  There's no big splash panels of horrific deaths or shocking fight scenes.  Instead this issue collects a number of vignettes that subtly expand the world and the characters.  We learn that the Tower of Fate does get cell phone reception, that Amazons are not above talking to the gods to ask for a life to be saved when medicine fails to get the job done and that Barbara Gordon is indeed Oracle in this reality.  Small things, to be sure, but they do answer questions the readers might not realize they had about the nuts and bolts of the reality of Injustice.


This sort of thing is author Tom Taylor's bread and butter.  Yet he also manages to get in a fair bit of social commentary, as Barry Allen and Hal Jordan take it upon themselves to do the impossible - get the United States Congress to do their jobs and knock it off with the gridlock and grandstanding!  Leave it to an Australian to perfectly capture the absurdity of the American political system and to do it in a way that would make Dennis O'Neil proud. 


The art team continue to do a stellar job on the artwork.  Bruno Redondo's designs for the characters are clear and distinct.  I particularly like how his Hal Jordan resembles Nathan Fillion.  Julien Hugonnard-Bert goes surprisingly light on the inks, with much of the actual shading of the book being accomplished through highlights added into the colors by colorist Rex Lokus.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #3 - A Review

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #3 is light on action, existing primarily for two reasons.  The first is to establish that The Guardians of the Universe are aware of recent events on Earth and taking steps to investigate them.  The other is to show how these events are starting to take their toll on Green Lantern Hal Jordan.  

    Tom Taylor's command of these characters is as excellent as ever.  Fans of Geoff Johns' take on The Green Lantern Corps will find his take on Hal, Guy Gardner, The Guardians and Carol Ferris to be familiar and welcoming.  Taylor has a great gift for dialogue but also knows when to let the art tell the story, such as when the fearless Hal Jordan - who makes a point of pride of never flying a plane with his ring on - is shown holding his hand up, not saying a word when asked how his plane survived certain doom intact.


Bruno Redondo's artwork seems to improve with every passing chapter.  His designs for each character are unique and his panel layout pushes the story forward naturally and easily, with the dialogue having plenty of room to be read without obscuring the backgrounds.  The inks of Julien Hugonnard-Bert further define Redondo's figures, perfectly shading the final artwork.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two #1 - A Review

Every issue of Injustice: Gods Among Us seems determined to drag me into the realm of nostalgia.  The series' Annual some two months ago made me long for the days when Harley Quinn and Lobo were zany characters.  This first issue of the new Year Two series reminded me of every great comic with Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance written as a loving couple. 


It's clear from the first half of this issue that Tom Taylor has a great fondness for both Ollie and Dinah.  Thankfully for we readers, he has an equally great affinity for writing both characters.  If this series comes to a close, I hope that strings may be pulled in the New 52 universe so that Taylor might write a Green Arrow/Black Canary series worthy of the name.  Actually, scratch that - make it Black Canary/Green Arrow.  This is the 21st century, after all.

I shall say nothing about the second half of this issue.  There's something incredible I would rather not spoil.  Suffice it to say, Dinah Lance has not been so well written since the last time Gail Simone's Birds of Prey.



Bruno Redondo joins Tom Taylor in returning to this series and his artwork looks better than ever.  This is not to say that it looked bad before but I think new inker Julien Hugonnard-Bert has a better understanding of how to use shadows sparingly than other inkers who have handled Redondo's work in the past.  The artwork of this book is as bright and cheerful as its script in the early scenes and appropriately ominous in the second half.

Bottom Line: a great book is back and it should be on the reading list of every fan of fun, quality comics.