With Liberty and Injustice For All
by William Ng
Every super nerd’s greatest fear has come to reality. The Man of Steel has turned over to the dark side. In the new game, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Superman has taken on a more extreme and radical persona change after a tragedy bestowed upon him.
During the prequel comics of the Injustice game, Superman was still his proud All-American, boy scout self, talking to Batman about the recent joys of his life. His wife, as many superhero fans know, Lois Lane is now pregnant with his son and he was as happy as could be. However, after a series of unfortunate events, triggered by the Joker, Superman’s dream would eventually turn into a nightmare.
Superman, alongside his longtime friend and colleague, Batman discovered Lois’s work partner, Jimmy Olsen dead and Lois nowhere to be found! As they looked for clues for Lois’s whereabouts, they discover the Scarecrow, dead and begin looking for the one who killed him, Joker.
Eventually Superman manages to find Joker and his assistant, Harley Quinn but much to his surprise, Doomsday, one of Superman’s most powerful enemies appears. Superman quickly dispatches Doomsday by flying him past the atmosphere into space. Little did he know, not everything was as it appeared to be.
Meanwhile, Batman, along with some members of the Justice League came and stopped the Joker and Harley Quinn from escaping. Batman confronts Joker about his plan which Joker gleefully explained. While Superman confronted Joker, he was surrounded by Kryptonite that was laced with Scarecrow’s fear gas and the Doomsday Superman saw was just a hallucination caused by said fear gas.
Batman, realizing the situation, immediately calls out to Superman… but it was too late. The fear gases effect finally wore off and Superman could only hear as Doomsday’s heartbeat getting weaker and weaker, until it finally stopped. It was then Superman realized what he did as the person he saw in front of him wasn’t Doomsday, but it was Lois.
The tragedy didn’t end there though, as Joker explained what he did to Lois while she was his captive. He placed a dead man’s switch inside Lois’s heart that who activate a nuclear bomb that would destroy Metropolis. So when Superman inadvertently killed Lois, he also killed everybody that lived in Metropolis.
In an interrogation room, Batman demanded to know why Joker would target Superman since he is Batman’s arch-nemesis, not Superman’s. Joker explained that a catastrophe like losing everybody precious to you would turn a normal human, like Bruce Wayne into a crime fighting hero, the Batman, what would happen if the same thing happened to a God-like being like Superman.
It was then that Superman came into the room. Batman pondered to himself that Superman is one of the purest and greatest people he has ever known and that Superman would never embrace the hate and murder the Joker in revenge. He was wrong. Superman kills the Joker after piercing through the Joker’s stomach with his entire arm, much to Batman’s horror.
When it was all over, Superman began to put himself in isolation for a few days to think about everything that has happened over the last week or so. The rest of the Justice League scrambled around, not knowing what to do as their commander in chief just broke their most sacred rule. Over the radio, Superman listened to how a war criminal began to attack a small village full of innocent people and he had finally had enough.
He attacked the warlord and his soldiers and carried him to the United States where he had a press conference for the whole world to see. After losing everything that was dearest to him, he had enough and will now hold absolute zero tolerance to all crimes and criminals. In Superman’s words “This ends now!”
Having a world dictatorship run by Superman was not to everybody’s liking, however. People rebelled against Superman’s reign but he would show no mercy against protesters. Even Batman tried to be the voice of reason but in Superman’s other ear was Wonder Woman, the voice of drive. She wanted to bring “peace” to the world no matter how screwed up it is and Batman wanted freedom.
In the end, Batman began to convince other members of the Justice League, who are torn between doing what will bring peace or what is right, to join his cause against the new Superman regime. This already sounds like an exciting game and I would recommend it if you did not purchase it already.
I think it was Theodore Roosevelt who said it best when he said “If given the choice between Righteousness and Peace, I choose Righteousness.”
