Now that our Squad has officially killed the Flash, Brainiac isn't to thrilled with team, and a piece of his super powered foothold has loosened. The team is seemingly transported to the ship only to find themselves on Earth 2. In this ravaged version of Metroplolis, Brainiac's invasion succeeded -- as there doesn't seem to be any trance of The Earth 2 Justice League Anywhere. Harley and Company eventually finds an unlikely ally, an unbald Lex Luthor, clearly based on the "Cloned" Lex from the late 90s. After another classic protect the truck mission the team is back on Earth Prime, with new target in its sights; Green Lantern.
After some missions for Toyman, the boy genius is able to to conjure up some anti-Lantern tech, after analyzing the battery of the polor opposite of his ring, creating some yellow energy cells for the team to break through his formally indestructible green contracts. Shortly before the fight begins, the team also has a run in with a still-frustrated Wonder Woman who is send attaching chucks of Kryptonite to her shield.
The Green Lantern Boss Fight
The path to attacking Green Lantern seems to take much less time than the build up to the Flash. The fight makes much better use of your psyched up character you will be using, Deadshot. His vertically gave this fight a much better variety than the other fights in the game -- and is one of my favorite boss battles in the game. Deadshot's miltiary-like background makes him an interesting foil for John Stewart's Green Lantern and their confrontation is much more satisfying than the uninspired back and fourth between Captain Boomerang and The Flash.
There is a powerful moment here where after Green Lantern has fallen, King Shark picks up the Green Lantern Ring. He uses Ito summon a shark contract that attacks the forcefield around Brainiac's ship.
While King Shark's Lantern Ring moment is cool, it also doesn't make any sense, because the Ring has to choose its bearer. This disregard to lore was a missed opportunity to give Green Lantern a moment of Redemption in his final moments.
Every since the story began -- Wonder Woman has been a beacon of hope for the team. Resistant against seeing her former Leaugers as villians, even as they leave piles of bodies in their wake. While King Shark is successful in disrupted the forcefield around Brainiac's ship, it is not without a cost. A.R.G.U.S. Launches a nuke to the ship only for the missle to be caught by Superman. Wonder Woman finally engages him in battle, and what follows is a truly epic fight, one God against another. She does not survive the fight, but it gives the team a piece of Kryptonite that they will need to take down Superman. But not before facing the Dark Knight Himself.
The Imbalanced Treatment of Batman
One of the biggest conerns going into Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League was treatment of Batman, given that this game was likely going to Kevin Conroy's last role as the chracter that he has voiced for decades. While this is his last video game performance, he still has many roles peromances unseen like the animated three part Crisis on Infinate Earths. The Batman sections in the game are unlike any other, with obvious care going to into his sequences. However, I believe his treatment in the story is very disjointed, and I think there is a layer of disrespect in a way to how his boss enounter is handled.
It begins with Harley leading a Psyched Up mission to find The Bat Cave, after Gizmo reveals that he has an older Batmobile. What follows a mission where Harley and the Squad must mix together chemicals from Scarecrow's fear toxin to use on Batman. I really like this idea -- unfourntuately, the way that its executed just doesn't make any sense.
The missions tasks you to mix these chemicals with each character, forcing you do something thats already repetative FOUR TIMES. This could have been a moment where Harley confronts Batman for killing Joker, her Joker. Tara Strong's performance in this section of the game was fantastic, some of the best dialouge she's ever delivered as Harley. The boss fight itslef in kind of cheat. The group is supposed to be fighting a scarecrow-infused game version of Batman -- a giant Bat who shoots fire. While I think can see the effort of doing something different here -- It just doesn't work.
While Batman intiially survives the encounter he's merely used as a plot device from here on -- and his death is only a tactic used to lure out Superman -- who is now going to be weaked by the Golden Krytonite that Lex figured out how to make from Batman's Brainiac-drenched cells. the much aligned death scene for Batman is very out of place -- and feels like a plot device. The blood from Batman's headshot splatters on Harley's face. Which in and of itself would have been a moment, except for the fact that she has golden Kryptonite in her hair and it looks way too goofy to take this scene seriously.
The Last Hope Destroyed
Immeadiately following Batman's pointless death, the team is greeted with its climatic battle against Superman, who is planning ot weaken him with their Gold Kryptonite. The fight is very similar to the Green Lantern fight because of Superman's powers of flight and he moves fast. Using a combonaion of heat vision and freeze breath the furious pace of this fight does match the power of the last remaining league member.
Nolan North reprises his Young Justice role as the Man of Steel and delivers a chilling series of insults trying to weaken the resolve of the team. In our next and final part of this review we will tackle Brainaic and its unique but not exactly original end game.
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