Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Five #2 Review

Taking it to...You Know the Rest

Written by: Brian Buccellato
Art by: Iban Coello, J. Nanjan and Wes Abbott
Cover Price: $0.99
Release Date: December 29, 2015

A week has passed since the beginning of Injustice Year Five and I am almost over the fact that last week's number one spoiled the crap out of the Injustice Year Four Annual which still hasn't come out yet.  As I'm writing this, it's less than twenty four hours away and I have to admit, kind of knowing what's going to happen has me pretty stoked for the issue. It also has me pumped up for this issue. Year Five looks to be the "Year of the Villains" and if that doesn't sound awesome than maybe you should stop right now.  I'm going to continue because I love villains and the "anything can happen" nature of this book makes it even more exciting when bad guys are involved.  Brian Buccellato didn't pull any punches last issue, ending with Doomsday showing up in town with a few days to kill.  Is this issue as good or better than last week's or is it a disappointing follow-up like the movie sequel I referenced earlier?  Let's find out...  (Bonus points if you know the movie)





Going in, I thought that Buccellato would start off with Doomsday kicking the crap out of everything in his path.  Instead, he puts the brakes on everything and starts off with a quiet moment in France. In what feels like a shoutout to the Nolan movies, Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are sipping coffee at a Paris cafe while discussing the future of the world.  Bruce always has a plan, but this once involving releasing the most dangerous villains from prison just seems plain crazy.  Desperate times...  As he talks to Selina, the plan comes more into focus, but so does Selina's thoughts on the future.  It's a little scene, but Buccellato does a lot of character work in limited space here.

We then head to Metropolis for the main event...Doomsday versus Superman.  The under card featuring Flash may have been a bust (because Barry got busted), but "SuperDoom" got off to a great start when Supes crumpled Doomsday's face with a huge left.  Now this is the action that Year Four was lacking.

If you thought that was the only fight in town, you would be very wrong.  While all this is going on, Hal Jordan (still a Yellow Lantern) is battling Parasite.  While Superman would be the best tag-team partner for Hal, he is a little busy (see above if you forgot already) so he has to settle for Cyborg. The two of them come together like Edge and Christian, but we have to wait until next week to see if they can force Parasite to tap out.  Booyah!

The issue ends with Superman and Doomsday taking their world destruction tour to Gotham and while Superman tries to figure out just who brought Doomsday to Earth in the first place, another huge villain is about to enter the fray.  We have just started this "Year of the Villains" and the book is already chock for of awesomeness.

In just two issues, Year Five feels more like Injustice than anything we got in Year Four.  Buccellato is giving us the action and mayhem that fans got used to during Tom Taylor's run and if we get a death or two in the next couple of issues I will be a very happy man.  These first two issues were a great combination of setup and action and were just plain fun to read.

Iban Coello's art was also really fun.  He does a great job giving us exciting yet easy to follow action and his character models are really good.  The standout to me was Parasite, who looks great.  While that might not seem like a huge thing, Parasite is one of those characters that changes drastically between artists, but Coello's version is great.

Bits and Pieces:

Year Five continues being action packed fun and the setup we get promises even more fun in the near future.  Buccellato shows us a very desperate Bruce Wayne and a Superman up to his eyeballs in Doomsday.  The art and story are really good and I can easily recommend the "Year of the Villains" to any fan who was disappointed in what we got in Year Four.  In fact, I can recommend the first two issues of Year Five to everyone.

8.5/10