Injustice Gods Among Us Omnibus 1

I saw raving reviews for this and always wanted to read it when it was originally released. But reading this omnibus was phenomenal. Want to know what happens when Superman goes bad, this book has it all... Well written and the artwork is beautiful. Can't wait for the next.

This volume collects the first three “Years” of this epic series.The opening year of this story is superbly scripted and illustrated, and I found myself swept along despite normally having an aversion to ‘imaginary stories’, as they used to call them when I was a child back in the 1960s.However, one too many Indefinite Crises means that there is no longer a baseline world to hold on to – just look at the ending of the New 52’s Legion of Super Heroes current series – and the fact that the best Batman comic book series was the Batman Animated tie-in (see  Batman Mad Love And Other Stories TP  for an example), and suddenly this volume and the unrelated but related Arkham City/Unhinged series become as ‘real’ as the mainstream titles DC are publishing, and is many cases, are much more interesting.This particular Pocket Universe, which appears to be a bit of a mix-up of Old and New 52 characters, old Green Arrow, new Captain Marvel, new Superman costume, old Kent/Lane marriage (and Superman looks like Curt Swan drew him in many panels!), goes off the rails when the Joker and Harley kidnap Lois Lane and plant a nuclear bomb in Metropolis. Superman is not happy at the outcome of this (and neither is Harley), and a slow descent begins into a world where the heroes are drawn into two camps, those who support Superman and Wonder Woman and their crusade to stop war, and those who follow Batman and the rule of law. We’ve seen it all before, but the writer manages to make it all so plausible, subtle, and even humorous at times. This really is a superb comic book.The second half of the first year sees the split between the two factions turning into outright war, beginning with the rescue of Lex Luthor from his underground bunker in Metropolis. He soon joins Superman’s team (“Elseworlds”, remember) and is quickly planning to build an army of super-soldiers to help with the cause. Even Lobo is drafted in, though Harley Quinn manages to defeat him… Finally, Batman and his team break into the Fortress of Solitude looking for a Kryptonian weapon, but find something that finally sends Superman over the edge…The second year sees the fightback beginning in Gotham, as the Bat-Family have developed a means of enhancing humans with, err, enhanced abilities, while the Green Lantern Corps (the old one, with the Guardians still in control) begin to get concerned with events on Earth. Sinestro also takes an interest, seeing Superman moving down the same path that he took, and brings the Sinestro Corps to join in. The initial Green Lantern Corps expedition finds itself confronted by the Sinestro Corps and Superman’s group, and it is obvious that Sinestro is up to something on his own account…Superman’s faction are not villains, per se, and even Superman has not gone over to the dark side, refusing to let Sinestro kill any Green Lanterns, but we expect something to go wrong in due course (for it always does). This is not a continuous big battle story, as there is character development aplenty - more than in some of these characters’ own series, and certainly more than in the regular Justice League title.The third year sees the introduction of the mass of the magical and mystical characters who take centre stage, beginning with John Constantine, who we meet digging through the wreckage of his daughter’s house after a Green Lantern fell on it during the big battle in the previous volume.The story then moves along at break-neck pace, as John teams up with Batman, various plots and schemes are concocted, and we see what the magic-based characters have been up to during the opening seasons. A mysterious mystic power is protecting Superman’s faction, and uncovering its source is one of the opening plot threads, and during the course of it, Madame Xanadu makes a rather less-than cryptic prophecy involving Swamp Thing, Deadman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Joker…I can’t say more about the story as that will reveal spoilers, and it deserves to be read unspoiled. This really is a superb storyline, with John Constantine back on top of his game after his rather erratic New 52 series - even if it is on a parallel-Earth (but one seen in the recent  Convergence HC  event with its own Earth-number).This entire series (and its successor) have been far more interesting than the ‘real’ Justice League title, and both the writers have gone on to further success with the mainstream titles for both the big companies..