Injustice 2 continued the civil war that tore DC's video-game universe apart, with Brainiac aiming to conquer Earth and add to his collection of worlds. Batman, after toppling Superman's regime, had to focus his rebellion and turn it into an army prepared to face off against the maniacal alien while at the same time trying to come up with ways to stop Grodd's villainous society and stave off remnants of the established order that wants Superman free again.
RELATED: Injustice 2: 8 DC Comics Characters Who NEED To Be DLC (And 8 Who Shouldn't)
This set the stage for a barrage of blistering fights, which in the game's story-mode, felt as cinematic and enticing as ever, even rivaling what the DCEU did on the big screen. As fighters ran through the game, their final battle was to stop Brainiac, no matter if you were a villain or hero, and then resume on your own quest to either destroy or rule the planet. No matter which side you picked, the Batman vs. Superman angle had to take a back seat to the apocalypse that Brainiac was bringing to the table. However, there were some disjointed scenes once you beat the big baddie, which felt disconnected from the epic storyline, and as such, CBR decided to look at 15 of the game's worst endings!
SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for the Injustice 2 video game
15 SUPERMAN
Superman has one of the game's most underwhelming endings. He combines with Brainiac's technology, proceeds to free the worlds that were imprisoned and then builds a new Legion to safeguard the galaxy. Doesn't he know he could be corrupted by Brainiac's machines? Guess he has a super anti-virus built in. That aside, he also brainwashes Bruce to join him and imprisons Kara under a red sun.
He claims to be merciless, but why is he giving all these people second chances, especially after they tried to kill him? Superman just appears to be nothing more than a dumb villain because these are probably the two people who can stop him again in the future. They tried to make him a galactic dictator, but instead, Superman came off as someone trying too hard to be cerebral instead of a true brute.
14 BATMAN
Batman and Superman successfully overcame Brainiac but Batman knew that it would only be a matter of time before the Kryptonian turned on him and tried to reassert dominance over Earth. Bruce Wayne, as usual, came prepared with a contingency plan and depowered Superman by using gold kryptonite and banishing him to the Phantom Zone.
He also gave the reins of the Justice League to Supergirl and other younger members, as he tried to rebuild the planet as a Wayne and not a superhero. However, he secretly continued to build an arsenal of kryptonite weapons, preparing for the day Superman escaped and came looking for vengeance. Firstly, it's like his never-ending battle with Joker. Why not just kill Superman? This dance between them is so overplayed. Also, the fact that he's already planning for a break-out and doing so in secret makes Batman look like an amateur. He should have had fellow superheroes prepping too.
13 FLASH
After enemies became allies once more to vanquish Brainiac, Flash found himself at a crossroads, making childish decisions similar to the ones he makes on television. While Superman and Batman argued over how to proceed after beating Brainiac, Flash grabbed Brainiac and leaves him in the Speed Force at the end of history. It's a stupid move because it's not like another evil speedster can go grab him, right?
Also, after he deposited Brainiac, we saw the other speedsters such as Jay Garrick, Jesse Quick and Wally West meeting him in the Speed Force and hinting at an upcoming crisis. This felt like a gimmick or poorly-written fan fiction, aiming to promote another video game. Coupling this with a prison that Brainiac can surely slip out of made Flash look highly inexperienced.
12 FIRESTORM
Firestorm (Jason Rusch/Martin Stein) not only shaped one of the game's smartest plans -- creating gold kryptonite in case Superman went rogue again -- but they also did one of the most idiotic things a hero could do. In their ending, they try overheating Brainiac in order to defeat him in his ship, but in the process, they blow the ship up, as well as the thousands of worlds within it. The inadvertent genocide was so needless and made the superhero look like an idiotic amateur.
They knew their heroic reputation was tarnished as most heroes will never look at them the same way again. After their mistake, they still pledged loyalty to helping Batman if he needs it, but honestly, that's a resume that should go in the bin. They constantly showed how rash they were, but this kind of ineptitude was downright dumb.
11 CATWOMAN
Catwoman was used as a mole by Batman, planted to give him insider information for those who were against his plans. Eventually, she helped him defeat Brainiac and this win was a big notch under her belt as no one expected someone like her to stand a chance against the alien. When the dust settled, in her ending she moved in and became Bruce's official lover. In fact, it was like marriage.
However, she got bored and decided there wasn't any excitement, instead returning to the past and a life of crime. That undid all her character development and also, it placed her back at square one because that would mean Batman would have to catch her before some other hero inevitably did. This was a very regressive soap-opera ending and showed her to be a selfish child.
10 BANE
Bane proved to be better than Grodd's cabal and eventually, he would use the power of his Venom-serum to defeat Brainiac. By that time though, the forces Batman and Superman tried to counter with were more or less broken. This allowed Bane to then establish a new world order, similar to Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. He rallied all criminals, who were now free, to take what they wanted under his watch.
However, his ending showed that he grew bored and actually regretted this. We all know that Bane likes a challenge, but you have the whole world in your hands and you're going to moan? Whiny Bane was very uncharacteristic because he had no more obstacles placed in his way. Injustice 2 really made him out as an infant here who wanted someone to punch.
9 GREEN LANTERN
Hal Jordan was a menace in the first Injustice, even killing Guy Gardner, as he was a Yellow Lantern who tread similar lines to Sinestro. He ended up leaving Superman's regime and this time, he was all for Batman's philosophy. The fact that he got a free pass was stupid in the first place, but you know what tops that? Him beating Brainiac, taking him back to the Guardians of Oa for judgement, and then deciding to become a Yellow Lantern again.
That's right. He successfully redeemed himself as a Green Lantern here, but now, he chose to go undercover to find an escaped Sinestro. It's not like he succumbs to fear easily, right? This made no sense because he tried so hard to move away from such a path. Also, Sinestro knows him, so how will he hide?
8 CHEETAH
Cheetah was the last person you expected to beat such a powerhouse as Brainiac, but she did. A shocking win, right? She moved from Grodd's army into the person who saved Earth by clawing up the villain, but her ending showed that she clearly wasn't ready for the big leagues. She had Brainiac there, primed for the kill, but she didn't because he promised her a planet where she could hunt any game, undisturbed.
Cheetah accepted this zoo, proving she was easily bought. Now that she was the alpha predator hunting aliens for sport, she still kept Brainiac's murder as a main objective, which left us wondering why she didn't kill him and then go hunt on an already scorched Earth. Seriously, her standards proved low and Brainiac exposed this with a laughable, simple bribe.
7 ATROCITUS
Atrocitus' ending was highly out of character. He accidentally killed all of Brainiac's collection when they fought and the rage his Red Lanterns felt through all these dead souls saw them turn on him. However, he ended up being saved by the entity of compassion, Proselyte, and Atrocitus then proceeded to spread the good word and form a multi-colored corps. Wow, that's a lot to take in.
Not even Geoff Johns (the critically writer of the Green Lantern comic book series who first created Atrocitus) is crazy enough to do something so left-field with the character. This feels like it was not written by a fan of the Green Lantern mythos and it totally made Atrocitus feel like something other than a Red Lantern. He's all about rage and not compassion, and if any Red Lanterns rose up, he would have killed them. This watered-down Atrocitus is a shell of what we know.
6 AQUAMAN
Aquaman only bowed to Superman's regime out of fear and here, we see him cowering again, unsure of which side he should really pick. He's always been afraid for Atlantis when Kal-El and Wonder Woman came knocking, but even after switching allegiances, he never felt regal and battle-ready for Batman's war against oppression. His ending here sees him just as docile.
His Atlantean scientists discovered a secret Lex Luthor underwater lab and they reconfigured the universal teleportation technology found there so that Aquaman can start recruiting other heroes to ally with him, and in the future, Batman's posse. It's a poor choice to turn him from someone who roamed the seas as his kingdom into this spacefarer. This ending was so out of character as well, leaving his royal disposition severely lacking.
5 BRAINIAC
Brainiac killing Brainiac needs to be assessed, but in this ending, all we got was fan service. The good Brainiac was revealed to be none other than Brainiac 5 who came back from the future to help stop the evil Brainiac. That's right, he came back from the era of the Legion of Super-Heroes. First off, having a good Brainiac is such a cop-out because it's clearly meant to give an easter-egg ending with the Legion.
Secondly, there isn't enough context and additional storyline to explain how Brainiac 5 came to life in this game, why he came back to stop this threat, and how it will affect the future. Such a bold move deserves much more exposition than what this ending tried to achieve.
4 WONDER WOMAN
There's no one who's written as out of character as Wonder Woman in this franchise. She also has no motivation to follow Superman apart from the fact that she wants to be his new Lois and in her ending, all that's reinforced is that she needs anger management. She beheads Brainiac, imprisons Team Batman and then wages war on Themyscira.
She has been so ruthless and willing to endorse killing heroes, such as Shazam, so why leave these heroes, including Supergirl, alive? It's a big inconsistency in how she's depicted. Also, this ending paints her like a female Hitler when she razes her own people for showing backbone. Wonder Woman appears focused on personal vendettas and this finale highlights that she's nothing more than a petulant child, instead of a weathered enforcer.
3 SUPERGIRL
Kara Zor-El has such a boring ending in this game. Superman's cousin, after beating Brainiac, doesn't become anything great as Supergirl. She just works with the Flash on restoring the mini-planets Brainiac had. We don't even see the emotional fallout with Superman having been banished, which sucks because their kinship was built as a big part of the storyline throughout.
We know she needs to restore Kandor and other worlds in Brainiac's collection, but why not have her discussing the future with Batman? More exposition into Superman's fall (yet again) and into the future of the Justice League should have been showed instead of Kara trying to play scientist. This ending spent way too much time on something we automatically assumed would happen, rather than making her the new beacon of hope.
2 DAMIAN WAYNE
Damian's ending turns him from being the game's most interesting character to a predictable pleb. After Brainiac killed Bruce, Damian ended up avenging his father by toppling Brainiac, but in victory, suddenly he started to feel love once more for this father, thus becoming the Batman we saw from Grant Morrison's Batman #666.
It makes no sense because he hated the entire Bat-family, the symbol and also, what his father stood for. If he did this to spit in dad's face, that would be understandable but after tainting the Robin and Nightwing symbol, as well as killing Dick Grayson, this change of heart ends up as insincere. Damian, since following Superman, lost all compassion and heroism, so this ending doesn't come off genuine at all.
1 DARKSEID
Darkseid didn't want Brainiac to steal his glory of conquering Earth, so once he defeated the Superman villain known as Brainiac, he turned his gaze on the Kryptonian himself. He never let his hate for Superman subside, and with Batman's army fallen and Wonder Woman dying, Darkseid finally accomplished a major goal. He told Superman the pain he had in mind for the planet before killing him via his Omega Sanction, especially enraged after Superman killed his son, Kalibak.
As part of his revenge, Darkseid also had Desaad brainwash Supergirl into becoming his new general, and used Superman's DNA to create new Parademons. This felt very unintelligent because the best revenge would actually have been to brainwash Superman as well. Wonder Woman was also terminated, so she too could have been used by Darkseid. Killing Earth's strongest heroes showed a lack of foresight.
Thoughts on our picks? Let us know in the comments who had an even worse ending in Injustice 2!