Injustice 2 #28 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Daniel Sampere, Penciller; Juan Albarran, Inker; Rex Lokus, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 8.5/10
One of the best things about Tom Taylor’s take on the world of Injustice, especially in Injustice 2, is the way he can seamlessly jump genres and themes across the DCU. This current arc is essentially a full-on Green Lantern story, in many ways more in line with the Geoff Johns style than the main Green Lantern books have been in a while. The last issue saw Hal Jordan sentenced to a prison planet for his crimes as part of Superman’s regime, where he was doing hard labor alongside Sinestro with Soranik Natu as their supervisor. Making it more complicated, he was still hallucinating Guy Gardner’s ghost – and the Red Lanterns were arriving on the planet for revenge against Sinestro. There’s some amusing commentary about the arrival of Dex-Starr, who is drawn pretty much exactly like an angry blue cat. But the Reds make clear from the opening pages that they’re here for blood, and the Lanterns feel the need to answer in kind.
The fact that the Lanterns have this fail-safe override to use lethal force is used pretty rarely in the comics, but it makes sense that they would call it in here. I did think it felt a little anticlimactic that they just immediately start sniping Red Lanterns, but the big twist of the issue is that there’s a new Red Lantern by the end – Hal, driven by his hate and rage towards himself for his actions. He’s sort of undercover, much the way Guy was with the Reds in the past, but as always the question is if he’s going to become the mask eventually. The visuals are great, with classic Green Lantern action and some interesting subplots involving Soranik and Sinestro. It was a bit jarring when the action veers to Earth immediately, but the segment involving Conner and Cassie reuniting after so long in the Phantom Zone and deciding what comes next was really strong as well. Also love the use of Martha Kent here. The reveal of the big bad is certainly dramatic, but that character’s been used so well lately that I just know this won’t live up. I doubt this Starro will be nearly as talkative!
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
