DETECTIVE CHIMP

Year Three #18

As the heroes escape, Detective Chimp refuses to follow. As he tells Harley, he was conjured by Klarion in the first place. With Klarion gone, Chimp will soon cease to exist. Harley, who has become attached to the little guy, hugs him until he vanishes.

Man, this story’s been kind of rough on Harley. Everyone she cares for dies on her.

HUNTRESS

Year Three #21

The rest of Year Three sort of spins its wheels until it gets to the final issue. Once again, Superman’s side fights Batman’s side, only with Trigon fighting Mr. Mxyzptlk in the background. Huntress and Batwoman – both powered up with super pills – team up on Superman until Wonder Woman steps in. During the fight, she wraps her lasso around Huntress’ neck and accidentally tugs on it hard enough to snap it.

Normally, this would just be an instance of killing off a random character because they aren’t in the game and, well, it’s the Injustice comic. What do you expect? Instead, this kill ends up being a bizarre editorial mystery, best explained with the next entry.

RENEE MONTOYA

Year Four #4

A few years ago, there was a pretty big news story regarding DC editorial. The creative team on Batwoman left in a huff because they planned to have Kate Kane, a lesbian character, get married, or at least engaged, and DC wouldn’t allow it. When it became a big thing, DC doubled down by claiming that they don’t hate GAY marriage. They just hate ALL marriage! Which is stupid for other reasons, but whatever.

Tom Taylor, writer of Injustice at the time, had a one-panel scene showing that in this universe, Batwoman and Renee Montoya (who at the very least were an item in main continuity) are married back as of Year Two. It was rather nice and shouldn’t have been a big enough deal to affect anything in the story.

Brian Buccellato took over during Year Three and, as mentioned, killed off Huntress. Huntress’ death has huge ramifications in regards to Montoya, who goes completely off the deep end. She starts drinking heavily. She calls up an ex to give a tearful goodbye, and goes on a suicide run to kill the ones responsible.

In other words, she’s acting distraught in a way you’d expect from someone who lost their spouse. Over Huntress. Not that they aren’t friends and teammates, but Montoya is far more hurt and broken than when Gordon and Bullock are taken out. She has zero interaction with Batwoman (her wife), and even when Montoya dies, Batwoman barely has any reaction.

In other words, one of three things happened:

1) Buccellato seriously cannot tell Batwoman and Huntress apart, and the editor didn’t catch it.

2) DC were really mad about the insinuation of two supporting characters being (gay) married and told him to switch Batwoman and Huntress’ roles as a way to sweep it under the rug.

3) DC let him know that Batwoman’s planned to be in an Injustice sequel in some form, so no-go on killing her.

Regardless, it’s suspect as hell.

Oh, right. The actual death. Renee Montoya overdoses on super pills and calls out Superman for a public fight, beating on him until her heart gives out.

HERCULES

Year Four #13

Year Four is about the Greek Gods stepping in to clown Superman and take over. This leads to a battle between the gods and Superman’s regime. The heavy hitter is Hercules, who easily defeats Hal Jordan and then fights off both Wonder Woman and Superman, batting the latter into space. Shazam shows up and finally brings the demigod down. Hercules awaits his death, but Shazam refuses to commit murder.

Instead, Superman zooms down from space and does Hercules in win one swift blow.

ARTEMIS

Year Four #23

Wow, an entire ten issues before the next death?! Damn.

In the end of this volume, both sides of the Injustice conflict join forces to fight the gods. During the battle, Hera decides she’s finally going to take out Wonder Woman’s mother, Queen Hippolyta. Artemis shoves her queen out of the way and takes the blast herself.

Hera shows no regret for the kill and promptly gets taken down by Harley, Batwoman, and others.

KILOWOG

Year Four Annual

The annual is a delightful prison break story starring Plastic Man as he tries to rescue his activist son, Offspring. Turns out the Justice League has placed all of the super criminals in an underwater prison with Metamorpho as the warden. Plas sneaks around and gets help from inmate Kilowog, who starts a riot by headbutting Bane.

Superman and his heavy hitters appear outside the glass bubble protecting the prison, and it looks like all is lost. Plas reveals that he’s smuggled all the Green Lantern rings and throws them all out to their users. Outside the bubble, Sinestro freaks out and, despite the warnings of Jordan, blasts through the bubble and shoots through Kilowog before he can be a threat.

That act works against Superman’s side and helps Plastic Man and Offspring free everyone, setting up the big Year Five story that a whole bunch of supervillains are on the loose.

PARASITE

Year Five #3

The Regime’s quest to round up all the escaped villains gets a bit more complicated when Doomsday shows up on Earth yet again. Superman’s too busy trading blows with him, while Yellow Lantern and Cyborg aren’t having any luck fighting Parasite.

Superman gets some unlikely help from Bane, who…puts…Doomsday…in a full-nelson…? Man, I don’t get how that works either, but let’s go with it. This frees Superman up to go bail out his buddies by grabbing Parasite and flinging him into the sun. When the others ask about why Parasite isn’t locked up with the rest, Superman just says he’s a special case and he’s been taken care of.

HEATWAVE AND WEATHER WIZARD

Year Five #10

Two subplots in the first half of Year Five are about the Flash Rogues and Bizarro Superman. Batman recruits the Rogues (specifically Golden Glider, Heatwave, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard) to help him because they’re honorable enough despite being bad guys. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor’s secretly trying to create a perfect Superman clone to combat the real deal, but the unfinished clone escapes and now believes himself to be the actual Superman.

The two plotlines clash when Bizarro goes after the Rogues, because that’s what Superman would do. During the battle, he begins to realize his own lack of limits, such as initially being afraid of Heatwave’s fire, but then realizing it doesn’t hurt him.

Things get messy when Weather Wizard offhandedly calls Bizarro “Fake Superman.” Bizarro fries Wizard and Heatwave with his vision, and the other two are only saved because Trickster (Alex Walker), who has secretly tagged along, convinces Bizarro that he’s his friend. Bizarro, not really understanding who or what he is, grabs Trickster and flies away to get answers.

JASON BARD

Year Five #16

The Gotham detective starts his own anti-Regime group called the Joker Underground to rally against Superman and maybe do some terrorist stuff. Harley and Batwoman show up to tell them not to go about it this way, especially the part where he invokes the Joker’s name as a good thing. They try to talk Bard into altering the group and maybe connecting them to Batman’s Insurgency.

As Harley and Batwoman ride off, Superman arrives, having heard about the Joker Underground. Hearing all these citizens chant the Joker’s name in defiance of Superman and his order, Superman gets downright pissed and mashes on the heat vision, taking out everyone in the building.

TRICKSTER

Year Five #18

The Trickster tries to help Bizarro figure things out and makes an attempt to teach him how to keep his powers in check. For instance, when Bizarro sneezes, he definitely needs to cover his face, as the alternative almost kills Trickster.

Bizarro takes to the Trickster as his little buddy, but his Frankenstein’s Monster mentality (the movie version and not the awesome DC Comics version) causes him to kill various civilians due to a misunderstanding. Trickster is mad at first, blaming himself for not being able to convey his thoughts better to the big lug, but is able to get over it. He and Bizarro are family. They only have each other, and they’re going to have a great future working together. As Bizarro flies with Trickster in his arms, Trickster tells him that they’ll be best friends forever.

That’s the most blatant death flag you’ll ever see, which is what makes this scene so goddamn funny. A beat later, Bizarro sneezes. This time he remembers to put his hands over his face. It just takes him a moment to realize that he dropped Trickster onto the side of a mountain. Whoops.

BIZARRO

Year Five #20

Bizarro brings the Trickster’s carcass to Lex Luthor, begging him to fix his friend. Luthor’s in a tight spot because on one hand, Bizarro will likely kill him once he realizes he can’t resurrect the dead and on the other hand, Superman will figure out that he created Bizarro. Luthor gets Bizarro to enter the Fortress of Solitude, where he has Doomsday waiting. By this point, Doomsday has been mind-controlled to do the Regime’s bidding as the ultimate weapon.

Then Superman shows up, making it a three-way battle between Superman, Bizarro, and Doomsday with Luthor in control. Luthor realizes that he can put an end to Superman right there and now, but decides that he simply can’t murder him like this.

Which…kind of lacks any gravitas when Luthor then has Doomsday snap Bizarro’s neck as a way to cover his tracks. Superman delivers Bizarro’s corpse to Luthor and tells him to do as many tests as he needs to do to figure out just where this thing came from.

ALFRED PENNYWORTH

Year Five #23

Here’s the thing about Injustice: Gods Among Us: Alfred Pennyworth is the best. He exists to either be Bruce’s awesome paternal figure or to sass Superman. He even does both at the end of Year One, when he takes a super pill and kicks the shit out of Superman for destroying his family. By Year Five, he remains at Stately Wayne Manor, occasionally Skyping with Batman.

Superman visits Alfred to strong-arm him into admitting where Bruce is, but Alfred claims that he doesn’t know, wouldn’t tell him regardless, and proceeds to show off his supreme inability to give a single fuck in the presence of the Man of Steel by casually insulting him and telling him to see himself out.

Rather than just laser him on the spot, Superman gets prisoner Mr. Zsasz to escape and take care of Alfred. Zsasz kills Alfred in a knife fight, leaving Damian to discover the body. Superman figures that Alfred’s death will draw Batman out of hiding in the name of revenge.

Luckily, Alfred’s death is only temporary. In the Injustice 2 comic, Damian gets access to a Lazarus Pit and chooses to cross the other line Batman refuses.

KING SHARK

Year Five #28

Flash is having a hard time figuring out his place in the world, what with Superman being a total dick, but also making the world safer. He goes to find Iris, who cut ties with Barry years earlier after his refusal to stand up to Superman. Flash then discovers that she’s part of the rebellion as she and her allies are confronted by Regime soldiers Girder and King Shark. Flash has a crisis of conscience and tries to save Iris and the others, though he accidentally kills King Shark by impaling him through the mouth with a broom. Iris is disgusted by Flash’s actions and the others refuse to trust him. Iris makes her own stand by surrendering to the Regime.

HAWKMAN

Year Five #32

Hawkman visits Earth at one point because he feels Hawkgirl isn’t fulfilling her hawk alien cop duties by hanging around Superman. Hawkman is sent packing and then gets sent on a mission by Batman to pick up some kryptonite in space. Hawkman earns it by offering Mongul thirty seconds of battle. Rather than bring it to Batman so that Superman could be imprisoned, Hawkman decides to fashion a kryptonite mace, which he uses to punk out Superman until the Man of Steel is a bloody and sickly mess.

The Justice League pops in to disarm Hawkman, but the weakened Superman tells them to back off. Despite being ill from kryptonite poisoning, Superman offers to fight Hawkman one-on-one. Hawkman never stood a chance.

MR. ZSASZ

Year Five #36

Mr. Zsasz killed Alfred and much to Damian’s dismay, Batman refused to take his life out of revenge. With Zsasz incarcerated, it doesn’t take long for the prince of assassins to sneak into his cell unnoticed and torture the criminal. He demands to know which of Zsasz’s many scars represents Alfred. Damian finally finishes his work and we discover that Sinestro allowed this to transpire.

For the first time, Hal Jordan starts to have second thoughts.

METAMORPHO

Year Five #36

I’m not 100% on this one, but I’m going to call this one out as a death. The Wikipedia page for Metamorpho at least agrees with me (I know, I know…), he never shows up ever again, and he’s got two gross, red wounds sticking out the back of his head there. He’s PROBABLY dead.

Batman and Lex Luthor need some schematics on a Mother Box. Deathstroke takes the contract because he’s bored out of his mind in a Superman-ruled society. After taking out dozens of drones, he gets a real main event fight out of Metamorpho. Deathstroke fires a couple metal balls at Metamorpho’s head, but he turns gaseous and they fly through. When it looks like Metamorpho has things well in hand and he’s about to burn Deathstroke to death, the metal balls are remote controlled to bury themselves into the back of Rex’s skull.

Deathstroke is promptly taken down by Raven and Cyborg, setting up his first appearance in the game’s story mode.

BATWOMAN

Year Five #40

In the final issue of the original prequel story, Batman, Batgirl, and Batwoman are trying to open a portal into another world so that they can bring in some non-Regime versions of the Justice League to help out. While Batman is off dealing with Superman, the two bat ladies are dealing with faulty technology. It’s the usual trope where some world-saving device isn’t working the way it’s supposed to and the only way it can is for someone to sacrifice themselves. Batwoman volunteers.

By the time Superman realizes that Batman is merely distracting him, he flies over and sees the alternate reality portal working. He fires his heat vision at a screaming Batwoman and…that’s all we see. After the fact, everyone involved is teleported to a different setting. Batwoman isn’t stated to be outright dead, but there is some red coloring on the wall behind where she was. It’s not explicitly blood, but…yeah. So much like Metamorpho, she’s probably dead, but it isn’t 100% certain.

GOLDEN GLIDER

Mentioned in Injustice 2

Although Golden Glider survives the comic prequel, she’s still taken down at some point before the crumbling of the Regime. The only confirmed name, Golden Glider is one of various Flash Rogues who are publicly executed by Wonder Woman. This is never outright shown, but it’s explained to be the reason why her brother, Captain Cold, goes from retirement/bartending to joining up with Gorilla Grodd’s Secret Society.

LEX LUTHOR

Story Mode/Ground Zero #19

We move on to the actual game’s story and its comic adaptation, where Injustice Batman pulls superheroes from the mainstream DC Universe to help liberate their world. They meet up with Lex Luthor, their man on the inside. As I’ve brought up earlier, Injustice Lex is a good man who has grown horrified at Superman’s actions. At the end of Act II, Lex enacts a plan that should stop Superman once and for all.

Lex defeats Shazam in battle and blows up the Watchtower, which has Superman inside. Lex calls out Superman and aims his arm-mounted kryptonite gun. Right as Lex is about to make the shot, a hurt Shazam electrocutes him from behind, nixing the plan.

Superman tears Lex from the battle armor and is furious that his own best friend betrayed him. Lex spends his final moments telling him that his “peace” is a joke. Superman crushes Lex’s neck and hears the words of onlookers all over as they whisper about seeing Superman kill his buddy Lex Luthor in front of the Hall of Justice. Superman flies off.

SHAZAM

Story Mode/Ground Zero #20

The endless betrayals and ungratefulness of the public has finally taken its toll. Superman has snapped, falling farther than ever. He wants to raze Metropolis and Gotham to the ground to prove a point. Shazam – who just saved his life, mind you – calls him out on this and labels it insane, claiming the gesture spits on the memory of Lois.

Superman blows ice over Shazam’s mouth to keep him from using his magic lightning. He then stares at him with his heat vision until two holes burn through Shazam’s hood and he collapses. As Solomon Grundy walks off to dispose of the body, the Flash finally comes to realize that the ends don’t justify the means and defects.

HARLEY’S HORDE (GARY, TERRY, PERRY, JERRY, BARRY, AND LARRY)

Injustice: Ground Zero #18, Injustice 2 Annual #1

These guys aren’t preexisting characters, but they’re important enough that they should probably get a mention. With Ground Zero being a retelling of the first game’s events from Harley’s perspective, it shows that her Joker-based gang of freedom fighters had more going on than what the game’s story mode showed us. Harley has an inner-circle of henchmen with generic names and although she can’t tell them apart very well, she’s basically an inverse Joker by treating them with respect and friendship. After all, she knows what it’s like to be a flunky.

Gary gets killed by the mainstream universe’s Joker during Ground Zero via stabbing. The others go on to shed their Joker threads and instead base their appearances on Harley. They become Harley’s Horde in honor of their boss and help fight the Regime.

Unfortunately, Harley doesn’t keep in touch too much after the adventure. The group still trains just in case, but then get attacked by Suicide Squad members Clock King, Magpie, Killer Moth, and Polka Dot Man, who are looking for Harley. The Horde fights them off, then goes to search for Harley themselves to warn her that people are after her. Before they make it to her secret headquarters, Deadshot snipes them all dead from a nearby rooftop.

Basically, an after-the-fact explanation for why these guys aren’t involved in the Injustice 2 prequel storyline. Boo.

AMANDA WALLER AND RICK FLAG

Injustice 2 #2

With things calming down in a post-Superman landscape, Amanda Waller tries to take advantage by creating the Suicide Squad. Her crew hunts down and captures Harley Quinn before putting a bomb in her skull. Harley laughs the whole thing off because she’s friends with Batman now and solving missing person mysteries is Batman’s deal. When Waller points out that they’re very thorough about cleaning up their clues, Harley just laughs harder because, again, Batman.

As predicted, Batman shows up. Well, not THE Batman. A Batman. A red-eyed Batman imposter shows up to announce that he’s taking over the Suicide Squad operation and opens fire on both Waller and her right-hand man Rick Flag. The silhouettes show two headshots.

Fake Batman turns out to be Jason Todd because Jason Todd is the freaking king of obvious Batman identity mysteries. It’s Arkham Knight all over again.

CLOCK KING, MAGPIE, KILLER MOTH, AND POLKA DOT MAN

Injustice 2 #3

Fake Batman is interested in taking over the Suicide Squad and all, but unlike Waller, there are some members that he doesn’t feel jibe with his unseen master’s vision. Despite Calendar Man (who is treated as a pathetic running gag through the Injustice comics) pleading for his life, Fake Batman taps the detonators on his bomb as well as the bombs for Clock King, Magpie, Killer Moth, and Polka Dot Man. Those four all suffer from immediate head explosions. To Fake Batman’s disgust, Calendar Man’s bomb is faulty and he survives.

DAN TURPIN

Injustice 2 #6

With Superman imprisoned, Bruce Wayne handpicked Dan Turpin as the warden in the world’s most critical supervillain prison. Said prison also has Damian pinned down, until his mother Talia comes to save him. Talia also brings along Damian’s never-before-mentioned sister Athanasia al Ghul, an original character that Talia chose to raise herself.

Turpin shows up during the family reunion and Damian tells him to just walk away. Instead, Turpin tries to call for Batman. Without remorse, Athanasia shoots him dead and they move on.

BLUE BEETLE (TED KORD)

Injustice 2 #10

After a day of training with the new Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes), Ted Kord is slightly confused when Skeets, the robot from the future, tells him how much he enjoyed their time together. That night, Batman stops by Ted’s office to offer him a spot on his team of world-helping billionaires to clean up Superman’s mess.

Once Batman is gone, Booster Gold appears, albeit slightly drunk and nervous. He makes it clear that Ted’s time is up and there is nothing either can do about it. Booster tried to stop it himself and spent several years imprisoned in some kind of time jail. Ted puts on his old tights and attempts to fight off the invading Suicide Squad, but it’s no use. Katana chops his hand off and he’s captured.

Ra’s Al Ghul makes an example out of Ted, as well as some other wealthy victims, by having Orca and Killer Croc tear them apart. As promised, Booster appears before Ted in his final moments to comfort him, accept his new role as Jaime’s mentor, and share one last laugh.

DIABLO

Injustice 2 #23

Ra’s Al Ghul has quite the army of soldiers to help him save the world by destroying chunks of it. Not only the League of Assassins and the blackmailed Suicide Squad, but also nature-based characters like Poison Ivy, Vixen, and Animal Man…and a couple surprises yet to be revealed. Their secret lair is also a sanctuary for certain endangered species.

Batman puts together a team to infiltrate the sanctuary to rescue some kidnapped children of heroes. Blue Beetle is supposed to hang back, but he just has to play cowboy and burst into the stronghold during a critical moment where Batman and Ra’s could have presumably talked out their issues. The act kills one endangered animal with a falling shard of glass, which sets off Vixen. Then a big brawl kicks into gear with Ra’s helpless to stop it.

Blue Beetle takes on Diablo and blasts him a little too hard. Diablo can’t control his flames and explodes to the point of wiping out all the animals. Everyone else survives, but it leads to escalation as Ra’s commands the assassination of nearly every politician in Washington DC, including all living Presidents.

Batman is NOT happy with Beetle, to say the least.

RED ROBIN

Injustice 2 #37

During the prequel run for the first game, it was explained that while some Teen Titans were killed, the others were written off in a different way. Superboy, Wonder Girl, Red Robin, and Starfire attacked Superman early on in his madness. Superman won by puncturing Superboy’s heart in such a way that it was fatal, but not immediately. His ultimatum was to send Superboy and the others to the Phantom Zone, where Superboy wouldn’t succumb to his injuries.

Six years later, Catwoman tells Batman about the incident, so Batman and his crew go to the Fortress of Solitude to release them. Plastic Man ventures in and brings out Red Robin, Wonder Girl, and Starfire, but has to leave Superboy. As Batman and Red Robin are reunited and discuss the need for a new Batman and Robin team, something keeps Plastic Man from leaving the Phantom Zone.

It turns out to be General Zod, who makes himself known by eye-lasering a hole through Red Robin’s chest. Tim dies in Batman’s arms.

ZOD

Injustice 2 #39

So. Batman is PISSED. Dressed in special mech armor, Batman hunts down Zod and sprays him with the same kryptonite fear gas that started this whole mess.

“I could never use it on Clark. Not after…what it made him do. But you… You killed one of my boys. You should be afraid of me. BECAUSE I’M GOING TO **** YOU UP.”

Batman lays into him for a bit while Zod imagines being beaten up by a judgmental Superman. When he starts to clear his head, the android Amazo appears, under the control of Ra’s Al Ghul. Ra’s knows the threat of a loose Zod and takes care of it by having Amazo catch his fist and then snap his neck so hard that Zod’s head tears off. Amazo flies off with Zod’s head in hand while Batman is left in wonder.

It isn’t all death and dread, at least. Using Zod’s headless body, Batman gets Dr. Midnight to perform heart surgery and give Superboy a replacement.

PROFESSOR IVO

Injustice 2 #48

Ra’s uses Amazo as a way to wipe out towns and cities worth of people while leaving the animals and plants mostly untouched. Amazo is unleashed on Delhi, which leads to a big team-up where Batman and his allies are joined by Wonder Woman and Black Adam (with Flash secretly running around saving people, going against his probation). Of Ra’s Al Ghul’s faction, the group of Damian, Jason Todd, Vixen, and Animal Man decide that Amazo’s rampage was going too far. They find Professor Ivo and demand he stop his unbeatable robot.

Ivo desperately tells them to leave him be, as Ra’s has his family captive and will kill them if he steps out of line. Jason explains the rough truth that his family had already been killed in a failed escape attempt. Horrified, Ivo agrees to help exploit a bug in Amazo’s system that will slow him down.

Athanasia gets wind of what is going on and threatens to shoot Ivo if he complies with the rebels. Ivo remarks that he has nothing left to live for and presses enter to finish his hacking. Athanasia shoots him dead in response.

AMAZO

Injustice 2 #48

During the great battle, Damian calls in Supergirl for help, even though her existence is only known to few. Supergirl grabs Amazo and brings him to the moon. Amazo overpowers her at first, but between Ivo’s tampering, a surprise assist from Blue Beetle, and Damian broadcasting directions, Supergirl is able to turn the tide. She pours on intense heat-vision followed by intense ice-breath to weaken him before punching his head into scrap.

She asks Blue Beetle to keep her actions a secret and allows him to take credit.

ANIMAL MAN

Injustice 2 #49

Anthanasia is not very happy about the betrayal, so she calls upon the Suicide Squad to catch the traitors before they can escape. Jason and Vixen get out of there and Damian gets captured. As for Animal Man, his eagle form struggles against Man-Bat, gets tangled in a Poison Ivy vine, and then a Deadshot bullet to the head finishes him off.

Tom Taylor really should have personally told him that that was going to happen.

TOMAR-RE

Injustice 2 #53

Ah, Tomar-Re. The most plug-and-play throwaway Lantern there ever was. I’m sure he’s done something important at some point in his existence, but all I’ve ever seen is him being used as a stock Green Lantern when you want to use an alien but you don’t want it to be someone too major.

Anyway, he’s investigating some kind of disturbance on the Green Lanterns’ prison planet and comes across Red Lantern kitty cat Dex-Star, who quickly slices his throat open.

VANDOR AND B’DG

Injustice 2 #61

Not only do the Red Lanterns wreck shit, but Atrocitus adds Starro the Conqueror to their ranks. The cosmic starfish then goes on to infect various Green Lanterns with rage starfish that puts them under its spell. This includes the Guardian Sayd, making a bad situation much worse.

Despite the pleas of Green Lantern B’dg, Sayd does not give in to the “remember who you are” trope and straight up vaporizes B’dg and Vandor.

SINESTRO

Injustice 2 #64

After the events of the first Injustice game, Sinestro isn’t doing so great. Hal Jordan hates his guts and not only are they in space prison, but his warden is his own daughter Soranik. At one point, Soranik wants to discuss her mother’s death, but Sinestro chooses not to delve into it other than expressing that he didn’t kill her. Soranik figures that her mother chose suicide over a life with Sinestro and Sinestro responds with silence.

When the Red Lanterns attack, Soranik is taken over by Starro. Sinestro insists on getting a green ring and is granted one due to how desperate the situation is. He shows his worth by saving Hal’s life and inspiring him to unite the Corps against their foes. He also tears the starfish off Soranik’s face…at the cost of taking an impaling through the torso.

Dying in front of his daughter, Sinestro admits that he was the reason her mother killed herself and wished he could have been a better man. As he dies, his ring goes to go find a replacement, finds its way into Soranik’s hand, and repeatedly announces that the replacement is already active.

VEON

Injustice 2 #64

Don’t know who Veon is? Don’t worry about it. Throwaway Red Lantern, basically. Here, he blasts Starfire, which leads to Superboy and Wonder Girl giving chase. Before the fight can happen, Brainiac and his gross muscular system skull borg goons show up out of nowhere. Veon ignores his Teen Titan foes and instead picks a fight with Brainiac’s crew. He immediately pays for it with a fist through the side of the head.

BOOSTER GOLD

Injustice 2 #66

Metron has Blue Beetle kidnapped to recruit him into destroying Starro, as a previous Scarab host succeeded years before. As Beetle, Booster Gold, and Skeets make their way to facing Starro, Booster has a stray memory of seeing himself floating in space with someone holding his hand. He ignores it and presses on.

Jaime asks his Scarab how it defeated Starro the first time around and finds out that it means separating from the Scarab, having the Scarab attach itself to Starro, and zapping it with energy to the point of exploding. Jaime is set to sacrifice himself, but Booster won’t allow it. He gives Jaime his oxygen mask and has Skeets send him away.

Booster floats in the cold void of space with no air and a giant starfish creature about to blow up next to him. Suddenly, a portal opens to reveal a younger Booster Gold along with Ted Kord, dressed in his Blue Beetle tights. As Ted tries to explain, at some point earlier on in Booster’s life, he figured out how to manipulate time travel so that even if the two of them were fated to die at certain points, they could still get a couple years of extra time together before that. Presumably, they would somehow forget about all this.

Either way, Ted gets to return the favor by being there for Booster in his final moments.

GORILLA GRODD

Injustice 2 Story Mode

Getting into the actual game’s storyline, Grodd leads the Secret Society of Supervillains, though he is secretly working under Brainiac. Late into the story, he takes on fellow kings Aquaman and Black Adam. While the player gets to choose which one beats him down, the aftermath is always the same. Aquaman jams his trident right into Grodd’s gut. Grodd weakly warns them about Brainiac’s power and merely receives another trident stab for his troubles.

DOCTOR FATE

Injustice 2 Story Mode

Dr. Fate doesn’t have much to do with story mode for Injustice 2. He warns Black Canary and Green Arrow that shit is going to go down, but then he vanishes until Act III. There, with Superman and Batman teaming up and searching through Brainiac’s ship, Dr. Fate appeares before them and warns them that their war has brought chaos across the universe. The Lords of Order are in support of Brainiac, as he’ll bring order across reality.

After losing a fight to Superman or Batman, Fate’s helmet falls off. Superman crushes it, cutting off Kent Nelson’s connection to the Lords of Order. He starts rambling about how the reunited World’s Finest could bring order to the world, but then Brainiac has him impaled with a giant metal wire. The wire retracts into the wall and Fate’s body melts into it.

So with all that carnage going on, what can we take away from this? Simply, put: there’s nothing stopping NetherRealm Studios from bringing in Larfleeze.

High-five!