Injustice: Gods Among Us is an upcoming ring fighter game that has all the bloody joy of Mortal Kombat and the huge catalogue…

Injustice: Gods Among Us is an upcoming ring fighter game that has all the bloody joy of Mortal Kombat and the huge catalogue of characters from the DC comics. As a comic fan, and a gaming fanatic, I feel it’s my duty to try and give a few pointers to NetherRealm Studios, who are developing it.

The gameplay loosely has two character types, those that focus on brute strength and those that use gadgets, weapons and dirty tricks. In the recent Mortal Kombat you have “X-Ray” attacks; these are kind of power moves that you have to build up. In Injustice: Gods Among Us we’ll see the same kind of thing. But they’ll boast the comic book powers that heroes have.

So far the character roster includes Bane, Batman, Catwoman, Cyborg, Deathstroke, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, Joker, Lex Luthor, Nightwing, Solomon Grundy, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman which is impressive – sure. But it could be better.

So, in no particular order here are my top 5 picks of which characters should appear in the game, I’ll look at everything from how the character works, their type and what their super move would be.

Darkseid/Dark Kahn

Darkseid has actually already appeared in a Mortal Kombat game, which was Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. He merged with Shao Kahn, the main antagonist from the Mortal Kombat games, creating Dark Kahn.

Darkseid would fall into the brute strength category of characters. Darkseid is a bit of a powerhouse: he has super strength, speed, invulnerability, telekinesis, and some other insanely overpowered abilities. So for obvious reasons, they’d have to remove some of these. He can fire lasers from his eyes and hands. This can be done really nicely in Mortal Kombat games, and could make his combos great.

His speed would be something that would have to be considered; judging from trailers, Solomon Grundy isn’t actually a slow character, though he is a brute strength character. So it would be interesting to see if they would keep Darkseid’s speed at a normal pace or even perhaps a little faster than the other characters.

If they chose the latter, then they would need to make his combos more complex and have the timescale a lot shorter. The player would only have a very small time frame to hit all the buttons in the right order, or the combo would be ruined. This would be the only real balance for Darkseid.

Darkseid’s super power move would be him firing lasers into the opponent, Darkseid can bend his lasers so they’d uppercut the opponent into the outer atmosphere, then he’d fire the lasers through space slamming the opponent back to the playing arena.

His finisher would involve his omega sanction trap, which sends people through alternate realities progressively getting worse and worse.

Mr. Bones

Mr. Bones would be a strange character to see. In short, Mr. Bones is a skeleton, but he has skin; it’s just transparent, as are his organs. His only real ability is that he sweats cyanide, which could make for a really interesting character.

The best way to play Mr. Bones would be defensively, blocking the opponent’s hits, affecting them with a little poison, this will obviously be weak poison and the character’s punches would be very weak.

This would deepen the gameplay a little; as he would not be considered much of a gadget character, which is a broad term anyway, but nor would he be a brute strength opponent.

Mr. Bones is certainly an interesting character to consider, but he could very easily not work. Have the balance off, make his defences too weak or his poison too strong and he would instantly be ruined.

He also has superhuman strength, which would make the fan boys all pissy when they see that he has weak punches. Mr. Bones is certainly one to consider, but easily the most difficult choice of my list.

His super move would perhaps be something simple. He works with the DEO, a government branch that monitors superhuman activity to protect the public. So we could see him call in a chopper maybe. Kind of like Stryker’s X-Ray, but injected with steroids.

In terms of a finisher, I think we’d have to play with the acid: perhaps he could ram his hand down someone’s throat incinerating them from the inside with acid?

Stompa

Stompa, as the name may suggest, likes to stomp. She has great durability and strength; obviously, she would be one of the brute strength characters.

She has special boots that allow her to create earthquakes, which could tie in with excellent combos; something that this game is clearly aiming at. At her core, there isn’t a great deal to Stompa but she could really play nicely in the game by using a mix of strength and flourishing combos.

She would create small tremors to knock the opponent into the air, allowing space for a string of devastating, and annoying combos.

Her super move would involve a high magnitude earthquake that opens the stage to a lower level forcing the opponent to plummet down.

Her finisher would be a simple head stomp, but a big one.

Polka -Dot Man

Polka-Dot Man is one of my favourite comic book characters, because he’s so unnecessary. His belt-activated polka-dots do different things; just what these are was never really limited in the comics. This gives NetherRealm Studios the ability to play with this character a hell of a lot.

He’d be a gadget character using all sorts of insane button inputs to cause his dots to do a multitude of different attacks. If we take Noob Saibot as an example, who can really toy with the opponent by dropping him through holes, this could carry over into Polka-Dot Man.

His special move could involve him using a polka-dot that turns into a flying saucer, nose diving into his enemy from space.

His finisher would involve him yanking a polka-dot off his costume and turning it into a black hole, sucking the opponent in.

Marcus Fenix

Issue 16 of the Gears of War comic saw DC take over. Way back in 2007, Midway Games, who at the time were working on Mortal Kombat, saw a showcase of Gears of War, which had originally inspired the grounds for Mortal Kombat 8. They wanted something serious and gritty, but the DC deal came through and we got Mortal Kombat VS. DC Universe instead: frivolous, but still a great game.

This could be a slight nod towards that, without having to leave the comfort of a DC zone.

Marcus could go either way; we could see him as a gadget character, which would focus on him using guns and grenades from the Gears of War series, and maybe a little melee. All the guns would be short range; it would be interesting to see the combo link together.

He could alternatively be a brute strength character, which would make his melee the main attack force, backed up by the weaponry from the Gears of War series. This path would mean that chainsaw and retro lancer bayonets would have more play in the combos, whereas the gadget path would use the attachments less.

His super move would involve him capping the enemy in the knee, and then bringing the Hammer of Dawn down onto the crippled opponent.

His finisher would be a classic execution from the Gears of War series, maybe just a simple chainsawing to the face.

Obviously, Marcus Fenix would be an exclusive.

BONUS: Aquaman

Okay. So those of you with your fingers on the pulse will know Aquaman is a playable character, but I wrote this before he was revealed. I thought it would be good to look at my predictions for him.

Original Aquaman segment:

Now let’s face it, if you haven’t been reading DC’s New 52, which was basically a reboot of their heroes. Then you’ll think of Aquaman as some kind of glam rock shiny twink that likes to make people wet. But since New 52, Aquaman has sky-rocketed in popularity. Why? Because he’s awesome.

DCplay on the whole ability to control water in a new way, to the extent they take consideration that people have water in their bodies, and Mera, his wife, expands the water, drowning people from the inside. Well, almost, she’s a good guy and that would be a dick thing to do.

Aquaman would be difficult to put in the game, because he would likely be very range-focused, whereas none of the other characters are. You could of course limit his range; he would play like a mash-up of Sub Zero and Rain from the Mortal Kombat games.

His attacks would have some force behind them, as he’d use the water as spikes, clubs and short range blasts. But they would have to have a limited force or he would have the abilities of a gadget character and the force of a brute character, which means one thing – overpowered.

I would imagine that his trident would play a heavy role, this weapon is medium range and gives him some force behind each blow. That little bit of extra arm reach would add into combos really well, making him powerful but still not over powered.

Injustice: Gods Among Us is following that gritty kind of feel that has become very popular lately, especially in comics and comic films: think Man of Steel and the latest Batman Trilogy. So sadly, my original idea wouldn’t work. Aquaman’s super ability would be one of two things.

Let’s take on the more comical super move first. Aquaman has the ability to talk to sea creatures. Whales are big; your opponent is not as big as a whale… you see where I’m going with this? Aquaman would use the water to hurl a whale on top your opponent.

Think of the cow scene from Alan Partridge in the episode “Watership Alan.” If you haven’t seen it, then go and watch it then pretend the cow is a whale, and that Alan is your opponent in Gods: Among Us.

However, realistically, I think that we would see Aquaman using a flourish command over the water. This would be something like a dragon made of water that rushes into your opponent.

In terms of a finisher, I’d expect that he would expand the water in the body of your opponent causing them to explode.

And there’s my top five! Who would you pick? Don’t forget to check out all of the upcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us news right here at Pixel Enemy.