YMMV / Injustice: Gods Among Us

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The Comic

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Injustice Batman in the comics and main game is either a true Icon of Rebellion, or a self-righteous, judgmental Jerkass who makes supporters die for lost causes, such as having a bunch of Badass Normal heroes go against Darkseid's legions in an obviously suicidal action while still condemning Superman for killing Parademons, an action which saved millions of lives (including that of Batman and his teammates). He could probably have reined Superman in by working alongside him, as Clark offered when asking for emotional support. Batman refuses and this makes Superman isolated turning to a violent Wonder Woman and later, Sinestro, for guidance. Instead, Batman engages in petty surveillance and bugging schemes on Superman and the Justice League and still complains when Superman "outs" his Secret Identity in revenge. He also continues to insist on Thou Shalt Not Kill to Black Canary, despite knowing how dangerous it is to keep Knight Templar Superman in line. Indeed, this action kills Dinah, and only by Doctor Fate's intervention she survived. What's more, in the issue 23 of Year Five Bruce asks Alfred if he really is this.
  • In Regime Superman's induced dream, his daughter Lara Lane-Kent might be seen as the representation of his conscience and his sanity (both lost in his reality).
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The comics have continued for years after the game's release and extended beyond being a prequel to the game to its own series. Readers feel that the story is hard to enjoy thanks to the Foregone Conclusion nature of the premise (especially the many senseless and often brutal deaths suffered by popular characters) and would prefer it to either end, or be a proper sequel.
  • Years Three and Four are generally seen as the comics' low points, while the other Years were somewhat well received. These two series had characters missing from the games and generally featured a great deal of obvious Padding.
• Author's Saving Throw: Regime Nightwing, or rather Damian Wayne is a trash-talking jerk with little real depth in-game. Considering the game came out right before his comic counterpart's Heroic Sacrifice, this was seen as bad writing in poor taste. The comics have fleshed him out considerably, revealing that the death of Dick Grayson was an accident rather than an attempt at Klingon Promotion and focusing on his close relationship with the Bat family.
• Badass Decay: Regime Superman, in the first game he was considered so unstoppable, that trying to fight him without using kryptonite was practically suicide and he was capable of fighting Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern at the same time. In subsequent appearances in comics and games it has become much easier to beat, to the point that a large number of characters have beaten him up without using kryptonite, as Alfred or Wonder Woman.
• Broken Base: Superman being a victim of The Worf Effect all the time, many people like that Superman receives beatings, while others consider that these fights make him seem too weak, for someone who is supposedly the most powerful member of the regime. It also removes the sense of threat that Superman originally had,
• Complete Monster: Darkseid is the despotic ruler of the planet Apokolips and one of the most sworn and powerful enemies of Superman. Torturing Black Racer into submission, Darkseid allows his son Kalibak to lead an assault on Earth, killing tens of thousands of people, before his army was destroyed by Superman. Angered at the fact that Superman sullied his reputation by killing Kalibak, Darkseid starts scheming the destruction of Superman more aggressively, first hiring Lobo to take him down and then, when that failed, joining the conspiracy with Ares and Hera, manipulating humans, superheroes, and Olympians into a bloody conflict, with the human government even launching nukes as a result. After this, Darkseid found the weakened Skeletor in the cosmos, and from him, he found the location of the solution to Anti-Life Equation to be in Castle Greyskull. Invading Eternia, Darkseid kills, captures and transforms thousands of people into his obedient slaves, as he tries to uncover Anti-Life Equation, to take control of the multiverse, killing the minds and personalities of every living being aside from himself.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Plastic Man, despite not being a playable character in the games, and only having a secondary role in the comics, is beloved by fans for pulling off one of the biggest victories against the Regime, single-handedly instigating a mass jailbreak and escaping unharmed, all while not dropping his comical attitude for a second. Many consider his role one of the best uses of the character in DC history.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Ganthet meets Superman at the Hall of Justice, he gives a lecture about refraining to use their powers and allowing fate to run its course. The Regime leader retaliates by asking if this means that the Green Lanterns voluntarily chose not to interfere with Krypton's destruction, to which Ganthet coldly replies that the Kryptonians had already doomed themselves. The Guardians' indifference towards Krypton becomes even harder to swallow when the sequel reveals that Ganthet was lying, and the real reason why Superman's homeworld was destroyed was because Brainiac invaded the planet.
• Informed Wrongness: Superman killing an army of parademons as they were literally inches away from killing thousands of innocent people. He is treated as being in the wrong by Batman for no reason other than killing is wrong.
• Jerkass Woobie: Injustice Ares during Year Four. He wanted to join a battle against an unknown evil with the gods of other pantheons, was denied and humiliated by Zeus who refused to participate and was turned into a god of war for his troubles. And then, having tried to orchestrate the Regime's downfall for Darkseid, he winds up left at Darkseid's mercy at the end of the year, during which time he claims to have suffered immeasurably Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some readers of the prequel comic just want to see who dies and how, especially if some of the obviously doomed characters are ones they like from the main DC continuity.
• Just Hiding: Huntress gets this a lot from the comic readers, who point out that unlike some of the other characters, her gravestone hasn't been explicitly seen and there's some ambiguity regarding the manner of her (supposed) death.
• Les Yay:
  • Huntress and Batwoman. A big part of this stems from the fact that Batwoman reacted with far more explicit anger and sadness at Huntress's death than she did at the death of Renee Montoya, who was her wife.
  • Huntress and Renee, for a similar reason. Renee was so broken up by Huntress's death that she was willing to overdose on super-pills and fight Superman to the death on her own to avenge her.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • "Year Three": John Constantine wants revenge on the Regime for oppressing his daughter, so he joins the Insurgency and enacts a plan to take the Regime down. Constantine first tricks Raven into calling on Superman for help so he can trap Superman to exploit his weakness to magic. He uses this to spread false rumours in hell from Etrigan to convince Trigon that Superman was the one who kidnapped his daughter, which causes Trigon to return to Earth, putting all of reality at risk for Constatine's own ends. Constantine manipulates every single event throughout the issue to get rid of the Regime and Trigon in one shot. He banishes Trigon and Mr. Mxyzptlk to another dimension and severely cripples the Regime, though at the cost of Huntress's death.
  • "Year Four": Ares is the God of War and an ancient enemy of Wonder Woman. After the rise of Superman's Regime, Ares was terrified of the idea of this alliance since it would mean he would be starved of all conflict which he needs to survive, so he allies with Darkseid. He manipulates the Olympian gods into coming to Earth to reclaim it and works for both the Insurgency and The Regime as a way of pitting the two against each other to create anarchy in the world. His plan fails, and Ares is taken to Darkseid where he manages to escape from captivity and continue assisting the Insurgency in taking down the Regime, eventually playing a major role in its eventual fall.
• Memetic Badass: Alfred, due to the beating he gave Superman. Some even joke that he never took the pill or that the pill weakened him so he couldn't turn Superman into a bloody paste and end the story right there.
• Memetic Loser: Superman due to the beating he suffered at the hands of Alfred, Wonder Woman and a squirrel.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Dick Grayson WAS KILLED BY A ROCK.^Explanation His death in issue #16 is widely derided as silly.
  • The Butlering. ^Explanation Refers to Year One's climax which involved Alfred taking a super-pill to curbstomp Superman, which is widely regarded as the highest point in the whole comic series. Or just another stupid contrivance to make Superman look bad for the "badass" Batfamily.
• Moral Event Horizon: Sinestro does this when he kills John Stewart… and lies to Hal Jordan about his death, in order to make him murder Guy Gardner. It works.
• Narm:
  • The artist in the comic has problems with drawing faces. But the crowner has to be Batman's face when Catwoman finds him after Dick Grayson died. Later topped by Black Adam making this◊ face. Made even better/worse in context, since he's supposed to be attacking in that scene.
  • The way Superman reveals Batman's secret identity. Batman shut down the Watchtower, so Superman, using Cyborg, posts "Batman is Bruce Wayne" on his Twitter account. It makes sense, but many fans see it as mundane and anti-climactic. Also, Superman has his own Twitter account and everyone knows it's Superman's Twitter account.
  • In Year Five, while Bane is waiting for his promised duel with Batman, he's leaning against a car with his arms crossed, making him look a bit like a pouting toddler.
  • Every single cry of pain is rendered "NAARGH!" Once is a normal exclamation of wordless agony. Even twice, if spaced out, would be fine. But over and over again becomes narm.
• Never Live It Down: Batman's cold treatment of Superman after the Joker's death and Superman's killing of Darkseid's parademons is something that always casts a shadow of him in the eyes of his detractors, even when the comic attempts to rectify it with Batman trying to apolgize.
• Older Than They Think: Metropolis was destroyed by a nuclear attack aimed at Superman in a 1996 Elseworld comic. Despite the horrific loss of life, Superman remained the same hero afterward simply because Lois just happened to be safely elsewhere that day.
• One-Scene Wonder: Martian Manhunter in Issue #29, when he confronts Superman and Wonder Woman, and comes dangerously close to killing the latter, but not before using telepathy to tell Superman why he joined Batman against him, sharing his memories of losing his family to the White Martians.
• Signature Scene: Alfred's beatdown of Superman is the most comonly reference moment in the comic, especially with regards to Alfred's Memetic Badass status.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • While no one will argue that Superman Jumping Off the Slippery Slope is a good thing, the fact is that in the comics, a lot of the "extreme" measures taken by Superman and criticized by Batman as Beware the Superman are on the face of it, practical and reasonable. Like annihilating all the parademons in a single revolution saved countless human lives, including those of his teammates who were strained fighting this situation. Batman himself comes across as a Failure Hero whose main asset is self-righteousness on how he maintains Thou Shalt Not Kill over Superman when he has never been in anything like the same situation as he, nor is he willing to compromise and try and temper Superman when the latter, at least in earlier issues, is seeking his approval or guidance when he's at his most troubled. Huntress subscribes to this in-universe at first, outright asking Batman how Superman dealing with the parademons the way he did is a bad thing and threatening to walk away from the Insurgency because Batman has no strong arguments against Superman.
  • Particularly difficult to fault among these early actions is Superman's decision to relocate everyone in Arkham Asylum to some unknown, more secure, location, on the grounds that Arkham Asylum is utterly useless and isn't helping anyone. Arkham Asylum is the poster child for the Cardboard Prison trope, and many of its residents treat it more like a Rec Room than an asylum. Superman's actions essentially amount to a Lampshade Hanging reality check on one of the most ridiculous conventions in all of Comic Books, one which has never had any satisfying explanation apart from simply not drawing attention to it, which makes Batman's opposition to Superman on this matter patently absurd.
  • In comic Year Two #5, on Sinestro's inspiration, Superman asks Ganthet if they allowed Krypton to die, which Ganthet admits they did. Superman responds with anger. Despite Ganthet's talk about "preserving free will" and Superman already probably being a villain, this is indeed disgusting, as Guardians could help evacuate the planet or at least save some people.
  • Swamp Thing refuses to help the Insurgency because Superman's Regime has reversed ecological damage, weaned off the use of fossil fuels and revolutionised green energy; for all the Insurgency's gripes about humanity being oppressed, humans are not the only living things that matter on Earth.
  • In Year Five, Catwoman calls out Batman's approach to resistance, noting that the only thing the Insurgency has succeeded in is pushing the Regime into taking increasingly extreme and violent measures to combat them, while they still fight with useless, outmoded tactics and no end-goal other than vindicating their self-righteousness. It's hard to disagree with her, and her decision to walk out of the Insurgency. In Year Five, Issue 23, Bruce actually comes to agree with her, but continues to act because of Alfred's reassuring speech.
  • As much as Batman has been shown on here to be repeatedly called out on what he has or hasn't done, everything that has happened from the other heroes' fall from grace only seems to prove to him what they, including himself, either would or already have become by killing the Joker, even if they had just done it sooner.
• Take That, Scrappy!: In the prequel comic, Damian gets beaten up to varying degrees (and on separate occasions) by Catwoman, Renee Montoya, Batgirl, and Batman himself.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The comic gets hit with a lot of this, to the point where many just skip out on it and enjoy the game proper. A major criticism is that it tends to rely too much on killing off characters for shock value, or as plot devices, rather than take time for character or story development. For instance, it wasn't enough that Lois Lane had to die, she was also pregnant at the time. Every superhero winds up stabbing another superhero in the back. Batman even disowns his own son. The villains actually seem to be the most trustworthy characters. And, of course, the massive amounts of Doomed by Canon, which means that the Regime is gonna massacre a hell of a lot of people and the audience is gonna have to be satisfied with only putting them in jail.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Injustice Batman is meant to be The Paragon, yet he comes across as unlikable, partly because of the overplayed Evil Superman AUs in DC Comics in general. His own actions in the comics as an incompetent General Failure are also hard to respect, since Batman clings to Thou Shalt Not Kill even when he's in a war situation rather than a vigilante one, and ends up leading many of his fellow insurgents to their deaths. Some argue that Batman is even responsible for escalating the conflict, and wonder if Superman would have turned out so bad if Batman hadn't opposed him in such a petty way at every step, since Clark is in such a vulnerable position that he's seeking some kind of emotional support; without Batman, he turns to Wonder Woman and later Sinestro, who only cement his dictatorial tendencies.
  • Injustice Harley. Despite helping nuke Metropolis, showing no remorse for helping to cause Superman's Start of Darkness, killing cops upon her breakout from Arkham, instigating another breakout at Arkham that leads to the death of Dick Grayson, torturing the Flash for no reason, kidnapping a 12-year-old and more, the series treats her as though she's a character who is earning her redemption because of her eccentric and zany personality. One point often brought up is her mention of her daughter that she loves dearly and has kept secret from the Joker, despite the fact that her reaction to finding out Lois was pregnant when she died was one of stark indifference.
  • The Joker Underground group, who obviously idolize the Joker, which means they get incinerated by Superman. While the narrative treats this as another way in which Superman has gone off the deep end, the fact remains that they were celebrating the Joker. Even besides the countless bodies he left in Gotham, the Joker is the one who nuked Metropolis and set Superman on this path and did it specifically to turn Superman bad in the first place. Even if they didn't know the last part, unironically celebrating the Joker isn't so much rebellious as it is spitting on the graves of his victims. Superman incinerating them was too far, but viewers are likely to feel much less sympathy towards the Joker Underground.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite the story being about superheroes, this comic was clearly not meant to be read by younger readers. Special mention goes to the image of Superman impaling the Joker with his bare hand.
• Win Back the Crowd: Early reactions to Year Five of the comic have generally been this after many readers were upset with the direction the story took from the middle of Year Three all the way through Year Four. The reason seems to be that Year Five feels more like Year One, regarded as the best year of the comic.

The Game

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • In a case of Even Evil Has Standards, when the alternate version of Ares explains to Aquaman that some of the villains who joined Superman were coerced. There seems to be a note of pity, if not outright sadness in his voice. Also his status as a god of war shows that he is somewhat a Jerkass Woobie.
  • When the Regime's Hal Jordan surrenders near the end of the game, is he finally doing the right thing, as Clark suggests? Or is he doing what he's done all along, refusing to stand up to Superman? This carries over into the sequel, with Barry viewing Hal's actions as him turning on the Regime while Bruce sees it as Hal surrendering to the victorious Resistance.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Doomsday and Raven. Both characters have received both praise and criticism for their appearance, moveset, and especially their voices (particularly Raven for the latter, whose demonically deepened voice doesn't sound as expected). Even after Tara herself revealed that she still is Raven, the camp of "We want Teen/Non-Demonized Raven voice back" is still not destroyed.
  • Killer Frost. Some are fine with her inclusion, others are upset that she was chosen over Captain Cold, and others still decry her as just filling out the "ice character/Sub-Zero/Frost" archetype instead of giving it to a more deserving non-archetype character.
• Broken Base: The costumes' armored, Darker and Edgier look is either awesome or awful. Flash and Harley are the most divisive.
• Can't Un-Hear It: While bolstered by a number of cases from the DC Animated Universe and Young Justice (2010), this game did set up a number of voices fans imagine in their heads, including Neal McDonough as Barry Allen, and helped cemented Troy Baker and Kimberly Brooks as alternates for Nightwing and Batgirl/Oracle (granted, unlike in Batman: Arkham City, Baker actually did voice Nightwing, as opposed to his grunts for Tim being reused).
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • According to Maximillian Christiansen, a metric crapton of players have been using Deathstroke chiefly for his keep-away game.
    Max (after clearing Deathstroke's chapter in Story Mode): I'm gonna use him, but I'm not gonna abuse him.
  • Maximilian says similar things about Green Lantern, stating that he's pretty easy to use.
  • When he was first released, Scorpion had high-damaging, easy to perform combos which overall made him the most broken character at the time. Nerfs have since been applied, knocking his tier placing down considerably.
  • Superman also gets a lot of online players who do nothing but spam Eye Beams all day. Never mind that Superman has ridiculously damaging close range combos.
  • Evo 2014 also had an excessive amount of Batgirls, due to her nasty vortexes.
  • For an example on the mobile version, go online and see how many teams are some combination of Arkham Origins Deathstroke, Prime Killer Frost, Static Shock, Arkham Harley, or Scorpion. ^Explanation Static Shock cannot be power-drained and builds meter on block at a rapid rate, which in the AI's hands is liberally abused, and compounded by Killer Frost's power dampening. Deathstroke of course, has his unbreakable criticals on his S1, and an unblockable S2 when teamed with Arkham Harley, who repeatedly heals her entire team or alternately throws an unblockable bomb with her S2. Scorpion causes heavy bleeding damage with all his basic heavy combos and burning damage with all his specials, and like all AI controlled characters, is downright abusive with his perfect block rate. Combine most of these with Killer Frost's nullifier effect and her own unblockable S2 which always leaves its victim open for a devastating tag-in followup and the opposing team is a sitting duck.]]
  • Every character has the same basic structure to their combos. Quick hitconfirm, followed by an ability that locks the opponent in for a free Megaton Punch, or just outright animation-canceling into said punch, hit them midair, and the do a further damaging combo as you land. Everyone.
• Cry for the Devil: While Regime Doomsday is not a good person, to say the least, it is pretty easy to feel bad for him considering he is enslaved by the Regime and forced to work for them as a mindless brute. He pretty clearly hates having to do this but has no choice, and in the end, he ends up thrown into the Phantom Zone.
• Designated Hero: Insurgency Harley. Her whole raison d'etre in the Insurgency is that Superman killed the Joker, and nothing else. She somehow doesn't acknowledge that Joker brought it on himself by pushing Superman past the Despair Event Horizon, and is somehow never really called out on her own complicity in the destruction of Metropolis, and remains a Karma Houdini for it. And yet we're supposed to root for her simply because she's a Cloud Cuckoolander and in mourning. It takes the good Lex's intervention late in the story for her to have an actual Heel–Face Turn.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Leader of the Red Lanterns, Atrocitus, who only appears in the game as a non-speaking background character. Many people were excited to see a character from the Green Lantern expanded mythos in the game and hoped he would be made playable. Though he was never added as DLC when the sequel was announced Atrocitus was one of the first characters they announced.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Doomsday's Super Move, Mass Destruction, is often referred to as the "Wrong Turn at Albuquerque."
  • The perpetually usable hanging pig in the Arkham stages is often referred to as "Pig Advantage."
  • The prequel comic is known as Injustice Ball Z due to how little each digital issue progresses the story. It doesn't help that the digital issues are rather short to begin with.
  • Alfred Pennyworth's famous beatdown of Superman in the comic is affectionately called "The Butlering".
• Game-Breaker:
  • At launch, Cyborg's Air Nova Blaster was completely broken: if it was used immediately after jumping, the duration of its blockstun was longer than the time it took for Cyborg to land, jump again, and fire another Air Nova Blaster. With some practice (which was made much easier with certain controllers such as the Hit Box), you could easily put your opponent in an inescapable situation where they're forced to block forever until time runs out or they die from the Scratch Damage. Because of this, he was banned at tournaments until a balance patch nerfed this move.
  • From the mobile version:
    • Arkham Origins Deathstroke. His passive allows him to do obscene amounts of unblockable damage on special 1 if he hits 200% (around 80% of a maxed card's full health)... which the AI (including the online defend AI) always achieved. Coupled with the staggering 56% promotion damage bonus on top of his base damage, he got so ridiculous that eventaully Netherrealm changed his AI behaviour so that it doesn't get 200% every single time, but he remained easily the most dangerous card in the game to the point when they released Red Son Green Lantern, they changed his passive so that he makes Red Son characters immune to crits, practically designed to make AO Deathstroke useless.
    • Regime Killer Frost. It didn't help that she was plagued by bugs in multiple ways, including one that makes her stop all power generation upon special move activation instead of the stated 50%, which is still not fixed. Coupled with her 50% slow (which makes it very hard to block during a basic combo, if you can land them at all), a whooping 90% healing reduction that affects all your cards whether she is tagged in or not and another bug that prevented many players from getting her at all, she got rather infamous.
    • Raven. Her passive swaps health with her opponent when she falls below 20% twice per match. Basically, it allows her to steal 80% of two opponent's maximum health and heal roughly the same amount. Unlike the above two, she is not as good in multiplayer defense because it is relatively easy to burst her down without triggering her passive, but she becomes insanely powerful when controlled by the player. With some block gear, even an E0 Raven can bring two maxed cards almost 10 times as strong to near-death.
    • Ares. He has the single highest damage stat in the game (barring AODS's passive). His special 2 is a humongous one-hit nuke that is unblockable and disables blocks for 10 seconds, basically making him an extremely simple "press s2 to win" character.
    • Man of Steel Superman, even considered as an example by Netherrealm themselves: his passive gives him a 30% chance of using no power on any move, allowing him to theoretically pull off unlimited back-to-back super moves for massive damage... if you are really, really lucky. While he is considered one of the most powerful cards especially in single player, it is generally too unreliable in multiplayer, yet Netherrealm made the rare decision to nerf him so that his passive only affects specials but not supers, as well as Regime Wonder Woman, lowering her power generation from blocking (maybe more justified because it promotes a zero-effort playstyle).
    • Default Killer Frost isn't far behind in this category as her very presence on a team dampens power generation for the entire team, thus making any match against her an annoyingly long slug fest, especially if she has healing gear equipped.
    • Injustice 2 Superman in a reversal of the trend of Superman variants with ineffectual passives, can cancel out the first special he takes without blocking, allowing him to No-Sell power drains, DOT of any kind and all other effects such as freezing, thereby nullifying all the others on this list. And he can do this each time he tags in, effectively neutralizing any and all enemy specials if timed right. His second special if unblocked is also extremely powerful and capable of instantly wiping out all three members of an opposing team.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Watching Superman murder Shazam with Heat Vision can be even more unnerving if you’ve seen Brightburn, where a sociopathic boy with Superman's powers kills his father like that in an even more gruesome way. It also becomes incredibly disturbing for anyone who has seen The Boys, due to a scene where Homelander kills a woman by firing his Eye Beams into her eyes.
  • A Running Gag recurring goal in the S.T.A.R. Labs missions is hitting Nightwing in the head a certain number of times when fighting him. It becomes a lot less funny when you realize that's how he died.
  • Troy Baker voiced Robin in Batman: Arkham City, and voices Nightwing here, mirroring Dick Grayson doing the same thing in his backstory. Then you realize Damian Wayne does the same thing in the Injustice storyline, by killing Dick.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Superman is hated for being simultaneously fast, high-damaging, and worst of all, easy to use. In the Grand Final of Evolution 2013, the Superman player dominated the matches by spamming his heat vision, being booed by the audience the whole time.
  • While true of most Superman variants, the Injustice 2 version takes the cake, with high stats and a useful passive.
  • Both versions of Killer Frost in the mobile game are loathed in online PVP for being such Game Breakers, especially the default version that nerfs the entire team's power generation and has an unblockable S2.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Batgirl and Catwoman's Clash dialogue could easily read as a Take That! to the controversial Batman: The Killing Joke if this game didn't predate it by several years.
    Catwoman: I'm not sharing Batman with you.
    Batgirl: What? Ew.
  • Killer Frost and The Flash's somewhat out-of-nowhere "I know your weakness." "Romantic comedies?" dialogue becomes funnier when The Flash (2014) is picked up by TheCW with Caitlin Snow as a main character, knowing what they are (in)famous for...
  • In an early scene of the story mode shortly after Billy Batson shoots down Black Adam with a lightning bolt, Green Arrow and The Flash engage in a brief exchange which is humorous in light of the controversial reception to the DCEU films and overall better reception (by comparison) of the Arrowverse TV shows. Another humorous observation is that the voice actor for the Flash and Damian Wayne (AKA Regime Nightwing), Neal McDonough, later opposed Green Arrow in another medium (Arrow) as Damien Darhk.:
    Flash: Green Arrow! What was that?
    Green Arrow: Thunder of the gods, Flash. Thunder of the gods.
    Flash: What does that make us?
    Green Arrow: [after Doomsday and Black Adam crash land into the ground] The clean-up crew.
  • In Justice League: Gods and Monsters, the Superman of the film is the son of General Zod, and at one point muses about taking over the world to make it a better place, much like Regime Superman's goal. Despite his lineage, the Gods And Monsters incarnation decides to become more traditionally heroic and rejects his father's ideology.
  • Joker and Nightwing's Clash confrontation below, on both sides - Nightwing's voice actor Troy Baker voiced Robin in Batman: Arkham City and voices Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins; whilst Joker's Injustice voice actor Richard Epcar has had to follow fan favorite Joker voice actor Mark Hamill, who played Joker in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
    Joker: Liked you better as Robin.
    Nightwing: Liked you better in Arkham.
• Inferred Holocaust: Main Universe Superman arrives just as the Regime begins its destruction and slaughter of several cities. Before the battle, we see Regime Superman cut down a steel bridge full of cars, and we don't see any of the heroes going to rescue them. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, probably died before Good Superman even got there.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some players don't care about the story at all, and just want to use their favorite character to beat up other characters.
• Les Yay: In the mobile version, you see a pattern for the special cards that give the 10% health bonus to characters. Superman has Lois Lane, Green Arrow has Black Canary, General Zod has Ursa, Black Adam has Isis... Harley Quinn has Poison Ivy. No, it is not Mr. J, which is her energy regeneration card.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • While in the non-mobile versions has Superman as overpowered as mentioned above, most of the Superman variations in the mobile version fall on the opposite end of the spectrum, as they tend to have relatively low attack and uninspired and useless passives. Dawn of Justice Superman in particular was decried for having a passive that both has a very low chance of triggering and is useless in single player, one notable exception being the Injustice 2 version of Superm. This trend would only be reversed with the Injustice 2 version, who has high stats and a useful passive, making him an instant Game-Breaker.
  • In the mobile version, Hawkgirl is memetically considered the worst character to ever plague challenge packs. Somewhat improved after a buff that doubled her passive tag cooldown to 4 seconds, making her a reasonable niche pick that goes well with Black Adam, New 52 Nightwing and the new (thus very powerful) Luchador Bane.
  • The Joker (the regular silver version and the Insurgency version), as his passive used to deal very little damage that scaled poorly. An update changed it so that upon death, his passive deals 30% (silver) / 40% (gold) of enemy maximum health as unblockable damage, which is no laughing matter. This would also make him a possible counter to cards that increases team % health like Red Son Solomon Grundy or Krypto Lex Luthor. He is also not reliant on power to support stronger cards - he just needs to blow up in your face to smack off a large portion of your life bar, dealing the same damage regardless of his stats.
• Magnificent Bastard: Deathstroke was a mercenary and assassin and a major enemy of the Titans, whom he tried to kill on many occasions. After the rise of Superman's regime, Deathstroke lost most of his work. He was brought back into action when Batman contacts him, hiring him to steal a Mother Box from the Regime for Batman's plans. He manages to get to it, but knowing he can't escape, he sends Batman the Mother Box's model so he can copy it before he is captured by the Regime. After being tortured by the Regime, he joins the Insurgency and ends up on a mission with Cyborg; during it, he enacts his own plan. He first takes out Shazam and Flash with creative usage of bombs, then sabotages the Watchtower reactor to blow up, not caring about it putting the Insurgency's plans in jeopardy. He is then sent on another mission by Lex Luthor, in which he sneaks up on and ties up Wonder Woman, later taking her down by analyzing her fighting style and outsmarting her.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Zod, you missed earth again! ^ExplanationGeneral Zod's entry cinematic is to look at Earth from what looks like the Moon, express interest in conquering it, and then land on the battlefield. Thing is, in Classic mode, his battlefield is the watchtower, which is very clearly not on Earth, implying that he missed. And, to make things funnier, clearly shows Earth outside of its window.
  • From the tournament scene: Joker is banned! ^ExplanationThe given reasons range from how he's dead in the story, how he has a one button infinite combo, or how his keepaway game is too unbeatable. None of these are true (including the Joker ban, because he isn't) and anyone saying this is most likely just having fun.
  • From the tournament scene: Two frames, son! Two frames! ^ExplanationSuperman's super move. If Superman has full meter, and the opponent has less than 40% life, they are as good as dead, as almost anything the opponent does (except walk forward and block) is punishable by Superman's super move because it's just that fast.
  • Jedi Lex Luthor ^Explanation Lex Luthor's trailer has a scene of him as a Bluish Hologram, with dark simplistic clothing. Just like Jedi in Star Wars, people immediately jumped on it.
  • Injustice must have evolved power drain gear. ^Explanation A reference to how rapidly the mobile game drains phone batteries.
  • The game's name has led fans to call out every perceived unfairness with "This is injustice!"
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Both Joker and Lex Luthor from the main universe, when the former decided to blow Metropolis with a nuke, and the latter gave it to him in order to mock Justice League by rebuilding the city in his own image.
  • The kickstarter of the plot: The Joker of the Injustice universe tricked Superman into killing his wife and unborn child and destroying Metropolis. This breaks Superman to the point that he murders Joker in retaliation, thus causing his Start of Darkness. And why did the Joker do this in the first place? Because he got bored from constantly losing to Batman and wanted to liven things up a bit...
  • After Regime Shazam tries to talk Regime Superman out of a different one in the form of sending his armies after Metropolis, Gotham City, and then the main universe as an example to those who would oppose his rule, the latter murders him in cold-blood when the former brings up Lois. The murder of Regime Shazam, who is a teenager at oldest, is so cruel that it causes a Heel–Face Turn in one member of the Regime (The Flash), shows that one of the more villainous members (Solomon Grundy) has some standards, and shakes the resolve of a third member (Yellow Lantern).
• Narm:
  • At the end of Classic Battle, Regime Superman has flashbacks to his downfall as he's being sucked into the Phantom Zone. The final flashback is of him before the graves of his wife and unborn child. Yes, graves plural; in a display that's simultaneously too much and too little, their unborn child got an entirely separate tombstone yet wasn't assigned a proper name, the engraving reading "Baby Kent."
  • Superman's scream is up there with Dante's in terms of narm.
  • Yellow Lantern's outro consists of him trying his damn hardest to sound threatening, but it's ruined with the line "yellow is power." - In fact, a major problem some people have with the character in the game is that he just doesn't sound threatening at all. But perhaps that's the point, since Yellow Lantern is beaten handily by Green Lantern; and is actually very cowardly, immediately surrendering when faced by Heroic Superman.
  • The way characters bounce between buildings in the Gotham City street-to-rooftop transition looks kind of goofy.
  • During challenge battles in the mobile version, the player is tasked with collecting five artifacts related to the character unlocked by completing the challenge, such as Batman's cowl or Deathstroke's rifle. During the challenge to unlock Darkseid, his gear is all inexplicably prefixed with "Omega," leading to such intimidating names as "Omega Boots."
  • Early on in story, Superman bursts into a serious interrogation between Batman and the Joker. Superman barks a commanding, "Get away from him!" towards Batman. Batman's response? "I'm handling this." It's the disinterested, near-deadpan tone Batman uses that sells it.
• Narm Charm: Darkseid's super move is simply called "I Am Many Things".
• Porting Disaster: The arcade version released by Raw Thrills exclusively for the restaurant chain Dave & Busters. The game is based on the mobile version of Injustice rather than the console versions and is controlled via four buttons, two to attack, one to block, and one for the special move, while directional control is automatic, always keeping the two fighters in striking range. As a result, the simplification eliminates nearly all the nuance from the control system. To add insult to injury, you must buy a trading card (dispensed by the machine) to select a character. So for example, if you wanted to play as Batman, but kept getting Green Arrow and Bane cards, tough. You would need to continue spending until the machine decided to give you a Batman card to scan. Only then would you be allowed to use Batman. To top it all off, the game was released in October of 2017, well after Injustice 2 had seen widespread release in both console and mobile forms.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Zatanna's voice actress uses the same voice used in Young Justice (2010). It's fine in that show... where she's a teenager. Here, it sounds a little too young for what appears to be a more adult physique (and in the comics since it brought over from the DC Animated Universe, Zatanna is supposed to be around the same age as Bruce Wayne/Batman^note That said, Zee originally was a teenager when she first debuted). If she's meant to be a fairly young adult (say, early twenties), it would be understandable, but as it is, it can be somewhat jarring. Especially, since the game has another actress who is already known for playing an adult Zatanna amongst the cast members.
  • Stephen Amell from Arrow naturally provides the voice for Green Arrow's Arrow skin but his performance, though just the same as the one on the show, doesn't mesh well of the lines that were clearly written for Alan Tudyk's more lighthearted take on the character.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Aquaman's portrayal in this game, where he's a badass in story mode and a top-tier fighter in-game, partially helped revitalize his reputation to non-comic readers after decades of being treated as a pathetic Memetic Loser due to his Superfriends incarnation tainting how he's perceived by the public.
• Scrappy Mechanic: In the mobile version, the random tag mechanic. It makes you impossible to choose when to tag into your team's characters. Since a lot of the skill involved is managing power (and super moves) as well as knowing when to tag in who due to mobile's simple gameplay, this is very frustrating and often particularly luck based.
• Signature Scene: Regime Superman’s cold-blooded murder of Shazam, in part because of many feeling Fridge Horror at the realization that Superman had just killed a teenager-at-oldest.
• Special Effects Failure: In Green Lantern's victory cutscene, he stands among a host of fellow Green Lanterns, all of which are very obviously static images hovering back and forth. Hammeroon, the humanoid immediately to Hal Jordan's left, is particularly conspicuous due to how dynamic his pose is.
• Spiritual Adaptation: For various reasons, namely being a relatively story-based fighting game based on a licensed property, some call this the western Persona 4: Arena.
• Spiritual Successor: Of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the previous DC-related fighting game by Netherrealm (formerly known as Midway). Injustice borrows many concepts from that game, but executed with more creative freedom thanks to the absence of censorship.
• Squick: Some of the stage transitions have impacts visceral enough to elicit wincing or at least a That's Gotta Hurt reaction.
• That One Attack:
  • Aquaman’s Trident Rush rapidly slashes Aquaman's trident in front of him. It does this for quite a while, especially if it's amplified, and does quite a bit of damage, making it pretty hard to get around it and punish him.
  • Bane’s Body Press is a command grab that is extremely fast, does a pretty good amount of damage and even combo's into itself, with the only way to escape being to jump.
  • Batgirl has two moves that fans can't stand.
    • Bab's Bola is a projectile that stuns your opponent in place and provides easy followups, as well as restanding your opponent.
    • Batgirl has an almost limitlessly ranged move where she teleports right to her opponent and grabs them. The AI uses this move for all its worth and makes it almost impossible to launch any attacks that she won't just intercept.
  • Black Adam has two.
    • His Lightning Strike is a solid projectile that is really fast, hits from above instead of in front and does really good damage for a projectile, especially if amplified.
    • His character power, the Orbs of Seth, also gets some dislike for being 3 damaging orbs that surround him and always do decent damage even when blocked.
  • Deathstroke’s Quick Fire is considered the most overpowered projectile in the game. It has good range, does good damage, and is extremely spammable. Its amplified version is even better, doing even more damage and sending a barrage of bullets that are impossible to get around without blocking.
  • Doomsday is one of the most hated characters to face in the game, and these three moves are a big reason why.
    • Earth Shake is a move the hits overhead and then low, making it extremely difficult to block, and is completely safe on block, meaning the Doomsday player can use it without any risk.
    • Supernova is completely unblockable and has an extremely large blast radius, making it very difficult to punish Doomsday. Its amplified version is even better being able to track its opponent, making it even harder to dodge, let alone punish Doomsday.
    • Doomsday’s trait Doom to All gives him armor that makes it impossible to combo against him, knock him down or hit him at all without putting yourself at risk of a punish.
  • Green Arrow’s Super Move Arsenal Assault is considered by some to be the best Supermove in the game. It is completely unblockable, does pretty good damage, and can even start combos. Because of these properties, it is possible to touch of death opponents using the Super.
  • Killer Frost’s slide is pretty disliked because it is fast and can start damaging combos.
  • Superman has a few of these. His Eye Lasers hit across the full Screen, builds meter, and does solid damage and chips, and its even better when meter burned. His super move has super armor, goes all the way across the screen, and executes in only 2 frames. (For reference, most normal standing light attacks take 10 frames to execute.) None of the other super moves are anywhere as good as it.
  • Raven's psychokinetic grabs have ludicrous range: Only from the far side of the screen is her opponent safe without having to block.
  • The AI tends to use Green Lantern's "Lantern's Might" grab and Sinestro's "Final Impact" attack very frequently.
  • Scorpion retains his Mortal Kombat 9 moveset, including his Hellfire attack, which teleports him behind an opponent to set up damaging combos. This is problematic here because Injustice lacks a block button: players must hold the opposite direction button from their opponent to block. An attack that lets your opponent teleport behind you before attacking can thus be extremely tricky to defend against.
  • Cyborg's air projectile can be done again and again so quickly, it's the best zoning move in the game. (It used to be mid-hitting, which resulted in opponents being unable to crouch under it, making it a block-stun infinite—before it was patched to be a high attack. Even after that nerf, it's still the best zoning move in the game.)
• That One Level: The S.T.A.R. Labs missions certainly don't lack for challenge, but some, such as The Flash's last mission (Mission 40: Go Boom!, where you have to defeat Lex Luthor—who comes with a shield ability that reflects all damage for a few seconds—under a time limit), are ludicrously hard.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Some characters have such small parts in the plot when they could have greatly expanded the overall story. Notable examples include the heroic Nightwing, who could have had very interesting interactions with the Regime world's Bat Family, and both versions of Catwoman, as her brief appearances in each setting unfortunately result in her seem unwitting at best and idiotic at worst. It doesn't help that the main Catwoman is portrayed as a villain, even though the comic book character has been heroic since the mid-90's.
  • The main universe versions of Shazam, Hawkgirl, Black Adam, and Raven (i.e., the one not possessed by Trigon) are all but an afterthought in the story, with Raven getting little more than a line in the opening cutscene.
  • The Clash system has a lot of wasted potential even with how extensive it is. Most characters don't have Mirror Match dialogue between their main and Regime/Insurgency counterparts. The DLC are also a bit wasted; Lobo and Scorpion only have dialogue with Superman and Batman, while Batgirl only has dialogue with all other Batman characters save for Bane and Harley.
  • In term of supporting characters, we never see Prime Lois Lane react to the fact that Superman has gone so much to the deep end at her death. She didn't even make a cameo.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite being a fighting game featuring beloved superheroes, this game was clearly not meant for adolescent gamers. There's an abundance of bloody violence, a few sexual innuendos, complex character arcs, morality issues, and Superman turning evil and taking over the world through a violent dictatorship. The game opens up with Supes violently murdering the Joker before he grows into a much worse character as the game goes on. It should say a lot that the creators of Mortal Kombat developed this game.

• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • It's understandable that Superman and Batman might have their Underwear of Power removed, but The Flash gaining◊ Underwear of Power is just baffling.
  • Bane's alternate, AKA "S&M Bane". It needs to be seen to be believed◊.
  • Killer Frost's alternate costume◊ looks like she took a wrong turn at the corner of Fallout Avenue and Mad Max Boulevard.
  • Regime Doomsday with his ridiculous bone spike mohawk/suspenders combo◊.
  • Player 2 alternative colours occasionally fall into this. While some looks great, like "mostly black" Batman or "Blue 52" Nightwing, we also have stuff like "sky-blue Domino Mask" Nightwing and "mustard yellow shirt" Aquaman.
  • Superman's Man of Steel costume, or rather the awkward hairstyle change in an attempt to replicate Henry Cavill's look. Cavill has the jawline and physique to pull it off, but the in-game model looks too similar to the Regime skin's swept back do. Some fans wish that NRS had simply used the New 52 skin's head instead. This just adds to the studio's dubious history of odd character face models. By contrast, the costume is directly modelled on the actor in the mobile version, and looks much better as a result.
  • Zatanna, being a performer, doesn't have a set uniform in the comics— just a general aesthetic of feminine pantsless tuxedo, top hat, and fishnets. Her Injustice costume suffers from the character designers wanting to have their cake and eat it, too— she has a bow tie, cleavage, and a ruffly thing on her neck to suggest a doublet. Any two of these would be fine, but all three just looks awkward.

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