By Ashley Gibbs
After nine issues of this series, I’m coming to the point where I’m getting bored. While I’ve liked every issue and this one is no different, the pacing is slow, and this is the second issue where not much happens. While I enjoy a good story, world-building and learning about character motivations when I read a superhero comic I want more action than talking. There have been a few issues like this, and for the most part, I enjoyed the story enough to look past the slow pacing, but Injustice 2 #9 made me realize how slowly everything is going, taking pages to move the chess pieces to where they need to be. Our heroes are finally on their way to confront Ra’s Al Ghul, but not in this issue and probably not for another two issues at that.
This issue has two important story notes, one which doesn’t take up too much time is Batman setting up protection for the new president at his inauguration. The other is the hero team running a covert mission into the secret base of Ra’s. The meat of the story is about the mission; the inauguration will be fully addressed later. We also get Batgirl securing a teleport location for the heroes to enter which dragged on and the backstory of Animal Man which felt like pure filler. I admit that I don’t know much about him and maybe fans of the character enjoyed this moment better but it fell flat on me. I can pretty much figure out why everyone working with Ra’s is doing so, they’re either family or insanely into the environment, so his backstory added nothing new. There are only about twenty pages for this issue, and the Animal Man stuff plus other scenes with him took up about ten pages, this another issue with not much fighting or action.
The highlight of the issue is certainly the artwork. With a new artist on this issue, readers may notice the shift but things are still top quality. I had minor issues, for some reason I didn’t like how Batman’s lips looked and Damian Wayne has also looked better, but I appreciated the aesthetic changes for the female characters. Their faces are much softer with this artist, feminine and all around lovely. They weren’t bad before, but often appeared harsh to me. Though, another minor thing, at one point when Vixen was talking her face seemed off, the same way Damian’s was off. However, overall this issue has great artwork. Smooth movements, good facial expressions and what little action there is was engaging. While the panel layouts were pretty standard, they also didn’t do anything remarkable or interesting unfortunately.
I don’t want to blame my personal indifference to Injustice 2 #9 solely on Animal Man, I’m sure he has his fair share of fans as he’s been around for a long time. However his motivations are shallow and in a universe where super heroes die often he seems like cannon fodder. However, this leads to another thing I’ve noticed, people die less in this series than in the first one. When I played the first game and read what I have of the first comic I was always shocked when someone died, and they did often. Now, if they’re not on the roster for the [i]Injustice 2[/i] game I assume they’ll probably die and so far only Ted Kord’s death has had any weight or meaning. I enjoy reading this series but I really do hope things pick up a bit, I really shouldn’t be bored if Batman is on a mission to battle Ra’s Al Ghul.
Score: 4/5
Injustice 2 #9
Writer: Tom Taylor
Penciller: Daniel Sampere
Inker: Juan Albarran
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letters: Wes Abbott
Publisher: DC Comics