A Review of Injustice 2: Why Superman Secretly Sucks (Part 2)

All right, InfiniKnights, its time to finish off the review of Injustice 2 with a splendid finish.



Even DC hates Superman

I know people love Superman. I can name more people than I have fingers that would beat me up if I expressed disdain for him in person. However, I will prove that he is awful and that DC agrees with me regardless if they want to agree or not.

Let’s start with Superman’s history. Superman is Named Kal-El, El being his family name. That’s pretty important. Know who else is named El? God, or Allah, of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths. I’m sure the writers didn’t do that intentionally (they did). They should have just named him Yahweh, instead of beating around the bush.

The implication is obvious, Superman is God. This has permeated the entire DC universe for a while now, as DC continues to write themselves into corners, and then go, “But what if he was MORE powerful?” I could critique all day about what a terrible writing technique this is, but I’m a troll, and as such, my rationale must be purely emotional.

It’s stupid. Very stupid.

Injustice: Gods Among Us saw a Superman that finally took the leap and did what vengeful gods do; murder the shit out of people. Luckily, someone decided to make a god pill, so now everyone is a god! If you're some casual Joe, you don’t get a pill that could solve all the problems on Earth. Only freaks in costumes get those.

Me, trying to get a god pill.

I hope you see where I’m going with this.

When you make a poorly written character too powerful to be beaten, you have to place an equalizer so how every superhero is completely equal. Sadly, when everyone is ridiculously over powered and no one stands a chance against each other, the only thing they can do is uselessly smack each other, and that’s boring. Who wants a comic universe where everyone can launch people into space, and everyone can survive it? It lacks consequence, and therefore has no drama, or meaning. Its all pointless violence.

Let’s pause, and look back at Superman’s origins. For reasons that change from telling to telling, Krypton is about to be a big ol’ field of debris, and Jor-El has come up with a way to save his son, Kal-El. Sounds like a tragic story where a father had to make a tough choice, right? Until you consider some facts.

Jor-El sees the tragedy coming, and his reaction is to save his son, and a cousin distant enough to still carry the family name, but how distant? Why didn’t Jor-El warn people? The Kryptonians were clearly a space-faring people, how could there only be two Kryptonians that escaped the planet, whenever Jor-El had enough warning to build or convert two ships to save members of his family?

If the answer hasn’t become obvious to you, let me make it obvious. Kara, also known as Supergirl and Superman’s cousin, wasn’t picked to be saved because she was convenient, or because she could protect Kal (Jor knew that Superman would be nigh immortal on Earth). He picked Kara because she bears their family crest, but was a distant enough cousin to be able to breed. Jor purposely hid information from his people, leading to Kryptonian extermination, so that he could ensure his family would be a dominant force abroad.

Kryptonian Romance at its finest.

Don’t believe me? Give me an explanation that makes more sense.

This means that Superman has a family history of being evil, and now that he has become boring to write because he is way too powerful, there is justification for making him a bad guy.

So, how does all of this conclude with Superman sucking? How could such an iconic hero, classic and genre defining, be terrible? The answer is quite simple: He outlasted his stay.

The days of caped crusaders is over. It’s obvious in comic culture that consumers now want gritty, down to earth drama, with heroes that reflect militant rebellion more than silver age masked heroism.

We see it in DC movies and games, where Batman is ripping apart vehicles with guns and branding people, or fighting monsters and throwing demon assassins out of towers that were only around because of Batman being Batman in the first place. We see it in Marvel as they reiterate older stories with more realistic motivations and repercussions from their actions.

Effectively, Superman outlived his lifecycle, and the only place he has to go is evil. He can’t get any more powerful, because… Seriously, he can’t. You can’t make him weaker, because then he isn’t Superman. Can’t make him anymore heroic, because he was already an altruist.

We’ll ignore him letting thousands drown to save Lois.

His only character change is to be a bad guy, and if he doesn’t get wiped somehow, I expect that’s where he will stay. Not just in the Injustice series, but in DC as a whole. We will start seeing the Justice League become darker and more evil, in varying degrees, until they all become villains.

Except Batman, he’ll just become increasingly lethal.

Anyways, to finish this off, Superman sucks because his costume is also stupid. And also, Wonder Woman joined him in being evil because she wanted to have sex with him. So, score one for Feminism.

She doesn’t shave her armpits, either.