NULL-MYTHS: INJUSTICE, GODS AMONG US YEAR FOUR (2018)

I don't know if I'll ever get around to reviewing the animated movie INJUSTICE, based on an alternate-world scenario for DC superheroes as propounded by both a licensed video game of that title and an extensive series of comics-prequels to the video-narrative. But having randomly sampled one such prequel, I think it's pretty unlikely I'll revisit the comics-franchise.

I won't spend a lot of time on YEAR FOUR. Like IDENTITY CRISIS and FLASHPOINT PARADOX, the series as a whole predicates one inciting incident that changes the status quo of the superhero setup. In this case, the incident is that the Joker kills a pregnant Lois Lane as well as all of Metropolis, and this tragedy causes Superman to end his never-ending struggle against evil by taking control of Planet Earth. In this endeavor he's aided by several of his fellow heroes-- some of whom are radically changed for whatever reasons, like "Yellow Lantern." However, other heroic types, notably a certain Cowled Crusader, don't like the Man of Steel becoming the Man In Charge. So it's Civil War All Over Again. But a few segments of Marvel's near-interminable hero-fracas touched on relevant moral issues, and here the writers are just pitting various characters against each other in a series of clumsy melodramatic conflicts.

The whole series is subtitled "Gods Among Us." I don't know how often the gods of the DC Mount Olympus figure into the grand scheme, but Part Four focuses on Batman involving the Olympians in the struggle for Earth's fate. The deities' motives for so doing are confused at best, though one cited motive is envy over being displaced in the eyes of mortals by costumed heroes, a premise that was much more concisely expressed in the 1967 Superman tale "Battle of the Gods." A lot of DC raconteurs portray the Greek deities as a bunch of pig-headed, quarrelsome oafs with super-powers, and the writers of INJUSTICE stick close to that superficial depiction.

While none of the melodramatic encounters of Part Four are insightful, I can damn the project with faint praise by saying that at least it wasn't as egregiously stupid as FLASHPOINT. And while the action set-pieces are undistinguished, I did notice that the artists produced some of the "punchiest" art I've seen in a DC multi-crossover. Superman and Wonder Woman punch each other several times, and they both punch Hercules. Shazam punches both Hercules and Apollo. Mera punches Poseidon. Damian Wayne punches Batman but Batman changes things up by hitting his son in the balls. At least no one could accuse the story of sanctimoniously avoiding the violence crucial to the superhero genre.