Similarities between Injustice: Gods Among Us and the Justice League cartoon

Chris Hoadley May 13, 2013 12:00 PM

The latest DC fighting game shares a great deal with a classic episode arc of the Justice League cartoon series. But just how closely do the cartoon and game follow each other?

This story contains spoilers for Injustice: Gods Among Us

Professional wrestling has an unwritten law called the “Seven Year Rule,” where a company can reuse a successful gimmick or storyline once the original viewers have grown up and a new generation of fans unaware of past history sits at ringside. The narrative of Injustice: Gods Among Us, the fighting game based on DC Comics’ line of superheroes, decided to wait a decade before returning to a successful plot from the past.

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A lot of players and reviewers caught that the plot of Injustice mirrors that of the classic Justice League episode “A Better World,” a two part arc where the dream team faced a more totalitarian version of themselves called the Justice Lords, who enforced peace by restricting liberty. Many characters from the series are playable in Injustice, and even voice actors like Kevin Conroy (Batman), George Newbern (Superman), and Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman) reprise their original roles. Of course, it’s impossible to tell stories that are 100 percent different from anything else — the cartoon version itself based the idea on old comic book “multiverse” tales about The Crime Syndicate of America — and solid execution can still make it fun to go through. But just how closely do the cartoon and game follow each other?

**The Cartoon:** Both stories begin with Superman confronting a villain following an offscreen disaster, and only later do we learn it’s an alternate reality. After his archnemesis, Lex Luthor, becomes president of the United States, he hatches a scheme that brings the country to the brink of war. When Superman stops the mad genius, Luthor mocks him by saying he’ll get out of jail easily and that the Man of Steel’s refusal to kill only exists because he likes playing the hero. Realizing that he has a point, Superman finishes Luthor off for good with his heat vision.

**The Game:** The Joker hatches a scheme that ends with a mind-controlled Superman killing Lois Lane and their unborn son, which also causes an nuclear explosion that destroys Metropolis. When Superman faces him, The Joker taunts his ideals and boasts about how he’ll spend time in Arkham Asylum plotting an even bigger massacre. Our hero snaps and murders the clown with his heat vision.

**The Cartoon:** With the back of the remaining members of the “Justice Lords,” Superman creates an idyllic world in this alternate reality — one in which he and his friends have wiped out crime — and consequently, all personal freedoms. Eventually, they discover the series’ main universe, and finding it similar to their own before the Luthor incident, decide they must intervene before something tragic happens. They trick our Justice League by pretending to need its help to solve a crisis, only to imprison them on the Lords’ Earth.

**The Game:** With most of the Justice League behind him, Superman creates a perpetual police state where security supplants freedom, except that he takes decorating cues from Hitler and Stalin. Whereas the cartoon’s Batman was sympathetic to his team’s cause, in this timeline he leads a resistance to “The Regime” and transports members of our Justice League to his reality in order to overthrow High Councilor Superman.

**The Cartoon:** The alternate reality’s Flash dies at the hands of Lex Luthor before the episode begins. Without his humor and compassion to bring levity to the team, the Justice League becomes authoritarian and patronizing.

**The Game:** Green Arrow dies at the hands of Superman when he tries to comfort the Kryptonian before the game’s events. Without his concern for the common man to ground the squad, his former comrades become brutal warlords.

**The Cartoon:** Justice League Superman always came off as a middle-management type who was likable enough but also easily frustrated. His other-dimension self acts as though killing Luthor was the smartest thing he ever did, but otherwise he was similar to our Clark Kent in personality. Power-wise, many heroes and villains in the show could fight on equal terms with The Last Son of Krypton — or maybe his “World of Cardboard” mentality always holds him back.

**The Game:** The cartoon’s Superman points out in the episode that he never even got a merit badge, but the game’s version is in full Big Blue Boy Scout mode. His dark reflection dominates the narrative and is an increasingly crazy and petty despot. By the way, both of the evil Metropolis Marvels liberally use their eye lasers to kill or neutralize their opponents.

**The Cartoon:** While at times a damsel in distress, journalist Lois Lane’s own passion for truth and justice mirrors Clark Kent’s. While Lois is alive in the alternate timeline and has a dinner with Justice Lord Superman where she calls him out on his activities, she’s ultimately not allowed to leave her apartment.

**The Game:** With Lois gone, Superman turns to someone who even the game calls his “rebound girl” — Wonder Woman. Even then, however, Kal-El broods over his fallen love and wishes to show her the perfect world he made.

**The Cartoon:** Although Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Shazam (the magic-charged hero formerly known as. Captain Marvel) appear elsewhere in the series, this episode only features the show’s core members of the League: Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martain Manhunter. Other heroes in Injustice don’t appear at all: Nightwing has no major appearances in the “DC Animated Universe” after Batman: The Animated Series, while Cyborg and Raven were in the anime-flavored Teen Titans series running at the same time.

**The Game:** Everyone mentioned above except for Martain Manhunter is in the game, though different heroes wear the Green Lantern ring and Flash costume. In case you couldn’t tell by things like Hal Jordan being part of his archenemy Sinestro’s army, Raven succumbing to the demonic will of her father, Trigon, and Shazam wearing a black cape — they’re evil.

**The Cartoon:** Aside from Lex Luthor, most of the bad guys who appear in “A Better World” don’t have a huge role in the plot. Once our Justice League escape their captors and explore the world their counterparts created, they discover that Arkham Asylum is now a medical facility where its inhabitants are lobotomized drones. Back in their own world, Doomsday, the monster who killed Superman, makes his first-ever animated appearance. In a classic scene, Justice Lord Superman stops him by roasting his brain with heat vision, and the gathered press approve of it.

**The Game:** Injustice’s assembled Legion of Doom play a bigger role in the story. Most of the villains have joined The Regime’s side either out of fear or through “reeducation,” and Doomsday is now a mere puppet. Sinestro and Black Adam, who thanks to popular comic storylines have become more prominent than they were when the series aired, just seem to like Kal-El’s sinister methods.

**The Cartoon:** Escaping prison plays a part in both storylines. Justice Lord Batman imprisons the League in special cells that restrict their powers, and The Flash has to use his wits to help his teammates escape. Later, the two teams finally confront each other at Stryker’s Island, Metropolis’s maximum security prison.

**The Game:** The Regime captures the normal universe’s Batman and announces a public execution at Stryker’s Island to draw out the insurgents. The rebels hatch a plan that involves attacking The Hall of Justice and The Watchtower satellite in what is basically an excuse for people to fight each other, which culminates with Aquaman leading the League and a horde of giant crustaceans to distract their counterparts while the insurgent leader Batman rescues himself.

**The Cartoon:** To get access to the transporter and return to his world, Batman confronts himself in a match that’s equal parts stealth and philosophical debate. Despite being the bad guy, the Justice Lord version makes two good points: Batman’s tech can do more than put hoodlums in jail, and in this reality “… no 8-year-old boy would ever lose his parents because of some punk with a gun.”

**The Game:** Players use both versions of the Caped Crusader over the course of the game, but eventually they differ about whether our League should use the transporter to return to their world or end The Regime once and for all. This is a fighting game, so of course the battle is physical.

**The Cartoon:** Justice Lord Batman made Gotham City squeaky clean, but he realizes what he has created after witnessing soldiers take away a man for merely complaining about a restaurant.

**The Game:** Angered by his failure to stop the resistance, High Councilor Superman decides that the best thing to do would be to kill everyone and then go to the other dimension and destroy that, too. When Shazam objects, Superman burns two holes into his skull. Oh yeah: Shazam is really a 10-year-old boy in a grown-man’s body. Only The Flash finds the idea of his leader casually killing his underage teammate troubling enough to break ranks.

**The Cartoon:** Both stories end with someone else stepping in to save the day. Knowing that his teammates can’t beat a squad that matches them in strength but don’t have their inhibitions, our Superman forces himself to turn to Lex Luthor to stop their doppelgangers in exchange for a pardon.

**The Game:** As previously stated, Injustice treats Superman as someone who is just that much better than anyone else, and the only way to fight a crazy Kryptonian is with a well-adjusted one. Regular Batman convinces his other self to bring in Mr. Smallville himself to shut down his evil twin’s rule.

**The Cartoon:** “A Better World” was a major moment for the series as it tapped into the freedom vs. security arguments that rose up after the 9/11 attacks and had consequences that led into later story arcs. The Justice Lords are interesting villains in that they still behave like the main cast and are only correcting what they see as naive and reckless behavior. Since the arc takes place over just two episodes, however, the show only visits a few locations and characters. Also, if you don’t like politics mixing with your capes, some of the dialogue can come of as speechifying.

**The Game:** The scope of Injustice: Gods Among Us is bigger than the show. We get to see more places like Atlantis and Themyscira, and heroes like Wonder Woman and Aquaman show aspects of their personalities that rarely get attention in non-comic book media. This is also a story where the characters are leaders of people and movements instead of an insular team. The game fails, however, to make us sympathize with the villain’s side since everything about The Regime is as subtle as … well … an evil organization in a fighting game.

High Councilor Superman acts way too out of character to be believable, while Batman’s rebellion rarely does anything questionable despite the fact that most of his fellow insurgents are villains. The game’s marketing doesn’t bring up the multiverse angle much, and in some ways the story might have been better as a self-contained “what-if” tale instead of having another Justice League solve everything.

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