Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three Annual #1

Fall of the Titans

Writer: Brian Buccellato

Pencils: Sergio Davila

Inks: Juan Albarran

Colors: Rex Lokus

Letters: Wes Abbott

Cover: Neil Googe with Rex Lokus

Senior Editor: Jim Chadwick

Based on the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us

Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.

Superboy created by Jerry Siegel.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

One year after the most prominent alternate Bart Allen (Bar Torr) was imprisoned on a different planet in the future, we were introduced to a new alternate version of Bart — the one that exists in the video game world of Injustice. Well, sort of ... as you'll soon see. It's also worth noting that a Kid Flash that easily could have been Bart did appear in an earlier issue of Injustice, but he didn't talk and that was just a dream sequence, so I skipped it.

Anyway, this annual issue tells two separate untold tales, but the cover unfortunately only focuses on one of those tales, and that's the one we don't care about. As such, I'll only say the cover is fine, but nothing special. In fact, it's rather boring.

Our story opens in Metropolis, three years ago; i.e., the very beginning of the Injustice storyline. Superboy, Beast Boy and Kid Flash are cheerfully racing toward a meatball sandwich shop, when suddenly a nuclear bomb detonates, killing Bart instantly.

Superboy tried to shield Beast Boy with his body, but Gar died, as well. Starfire, Wonder Girl and Red Robin rush over from Titans Tower in New York as fast as they can, but there's nothing they can do. Later, Nightwing arrives to explain that the Joker tricked Superman into killing Lois, which set off the nuclear bomb. Lois was pregnant, making her death doubly painful for Superman, who murdered the Joker in retaliation.

During the funeral for Gar and Bart (which was attended by the Titans we saw plus Nightwing, Cyborg and Arsenal), Superman publicly announces an ominous worldwide ceasefire, essentially declaring personal war against anything he opposes. Superboy tried reaching out to Superman and the Kents, but wasn't able to make any progress. So he heads to the Fortress of Solitude to grab the Phantom Zone Projector to stop Superman.

But Superman was prepared for this. Starfire, Red Robin and Wonder Girl help Superboy in the fight, but they're no match for Superman, who eventually deals a fatal blow to Kon. He explains that they'll never get him to a hospital in time, so the only way to keep him alive is to place Kon in the Phantom Zone. But this devious Superman says he'll only do this if the other Titans agree to join Superboy in the Phantom Zone, since he can't risk letting them find another way to stop him. Our heroes reluctantly agree, and that's the end of the Teen Titans.

Injustice was a fighting game, so it needed a massive, over-the-top story to explain why everybody would be fighting each other. And they certainly accomplished this. The game also had a relatively small roster that excluded the Teen Titans. Oddly, it took three years for DC to find a way to explain the Teen Titans' absence from this video game and comic book series. And was this story worth the wait? Not really. It was nice to see the pre-Flashpoint Teen Titans again (for all intents and purposes), but I think a team as popular as the Titans deserved a whole issue to itself. This abbreviated tale didn't give us any time to process what was happening. We needed a couple of more pages before the bomb went off, more time at the funeral, and more time on their final decision to enter the Phantom Zone.

The DC All Access page talks about Batman: Earth One – Volume Two by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.

Next time: Bar Torr returns to the 21st century.