Kill the Justice League: Evil Superman Could Be the Best Video Game Superman

Publish date: 2024-05-08

I’ll never give up on the idea that someone can find a way to get Superman truly right as the playable hero of a video game, but after seeing a little more of Superman in Kill the Justice League, I’m increasingly convinced that Rocksteady may be well on-track to giving us the most compelling video game version of Superman that we’ve seen yet.

To be clear, this is hardly the first time that we’ve seen a darker or “evil” version of Superman in a video game. In fact, I recently praised the Injustice games for their portrayal of a similar version of the classic character, and I wouldn’t try to gaslight anyone into thinking that Kill the Justice League is breaking new narrative ground, in games or elsewhere, so far as that basic idea goes.

However, the version of Superman we’ve seen so far in Kill the Justice League is simply compelling. This is a version of Superman who has seemingly been taken over by Brainiac and turned into the most dangerous weapon imaginable. He looks like an absolute wrecking ball who may be mostly humorless but strangely contributes to the dark humor of the game through the simple, hilarious notion that you’re somehow expected to stop him.

In fact, if I had to summarize what could potentially make this version of Superman so special in just a couple of words, it would have to be this simple term: “Final Boss.”

Superman as a playable protagonist in a video game has historically been a tough sell because we’re supposed to believe that there are a sufficient number of threats in the world that could possibly beat him. If you program a game where Superman can even be knocked down by anything less than a universe-ending threat (or something with unusual access to a large amount of kryptonite), you’ve made a questionable game. You can’t just have the player take their hands off the controller and watch as Superman’s health bar is slowly drained by a level one goon.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, Kill the Justice League brilliantly plays with that dynamic by casting you in the role of the level one goon who is somehow supposed to even slow down Superman. Yes, the game’s latest trailer suggests that characters like Wonder Woman may be around to help in some capacity, but unlike Injustice where you can pick another incredibly powerful hero to go toe-to-toe against Superman with, Kill the Justice League leaves us to wonder how even the most powerful Suicide Squad member is supposed to be more than an annoyance to Superman.

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