With Batman: Arkham Origins just around the corner, it was kind of a shock to hear about a season pass for the title. Traditionally, the format of the Arkham games didn’t lend themselves to enough DLC to warrant a season pass. When you finally read what you get for this $20 price tag and is also claimed to be a $30 value, it really doesn’t feel worth investing another 50% of the game’s original price for this extra content.

I went for the tacky pun. I had to. Chris doesn’t let me put enough puns on the Flickcast. And it’s Zatanna. You really can’t expect me to post a story about her in any way shape or form and not mess with it at LEAST a little bit. So now that I have gotten that out of my system, let’s get down to business: Zatanna is coming to Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Though appearing in a number of comics such as Hawkman, Batman, Green Lantern and The Atom alongside the title heroes starting in 1964, it was more than a decade later before she was offered membership into the Justice League. The crux of her early appearances revolved around the search for her father, magician Giovanni Zatara. Unlike most magicians though, Zatanna actually possesses legitimate magical ability because of her mother Sindella, who is Homo magi. Staying true to her father’s profession, Zatanna’s costume resembles that of a Playboy bunny combined with a magician’s tux (though the New 52 version only wears that costume on stage).

Like we originally said, the Martian Manhunter made his way to the cast of Injustice: Gods Among Us yesterday in the form of DLC. The first character not released as a part of the Season Pass, J’onn J’onzz as he is also known was released for 400 Microsoft Points over XBox Live and $4.99 on the PlayStation Network.

For the most part though, not many people know the full story behind the Martian Manhunter or even just how much power he holds. Luckily, Netherrealm studio has released a quick video to help bring people up to speed on those very important details of the Martian Manhunter that you chan check out below.

As it is discussed in the short, the Martian Manhunter has not only the strength and speed to go toe to toe with Superman but also owns a host of other unique powers that make him even more of a wildcard in battle. The ability to phase, turn invisible and shapeshift coupled with his abilities to read and even rewrite memories puts the Martian Manhunter in to a class of his own as a total wildcard in a fight.

When someone can attack you in so many different ways, how is someone able to prepare a defense against it? That is going to be the challenge for all Injustice: Gods Among Us players as the Martian Manhunter enters the fray for the first time in his new DLC pack.

Back when NetherRealm gave us the Scorpion reveal trailer as the third piece of DLC for Injustice: Gods Among Us, they also teased Martian Manhunter at the end.

But, as all Injustice players know, they instead got Zod which just so happened to time out around the same time as the Man of Steel feature film release. Luckily, that tease ended up being true as the Martian Manhunter is still joining the likes of Lobo, Batgirl, Scorpion and General Zod as a member of Injustice: Gods Among Us’ DLC roster. Sadly though, because he is the fifth piece of character DLC, Martian Manhunter won’t be a part of the season pass.

For those who aren’t familiar with J’onn J’onzz, he has been around since the fifties and has played a variety of roles in the DC Universe. Currently, the Martian Manhunter is the top dog in the Justice League of America book from the New 52 as the corollary to Superman. With strength, speed, senses, intelligence, endurance, shapeshifting, invisibility and intangibility to name just part of his power set, the Martian Manhunter could very well be one of the strongest characters in DC’s lineup.

Considering the level of exposure through both the comics and animated series and his overall power, it makes sense that Martian Manhunter would be in that roster, especially more so than a character like Killer Frost. (To this day, I still haven’t figured out why Killer Frost is in that game, especially as her main adversary Firestorm is not.)

Take a look at the roster of Injustice: Gods Among Us and tell me, who do you think is missing? The Season Pass has already brought us Lobo and Batgirl but there are still so many of DC’s top tier talent or at least upper B-level stars yet to appear in the game. Scarecrow. Mera. Firestorm (who is conceivably the only reason Killer Frost is in the game). Deadshot. Guy Gardner. The Black Hand. Hell, even Ambush Bug. So who is the third character revealed in the Season Pass for Injustice: Gods Among Us?

That’s right. Scorpion. Yup, the fighting game that won’t let you perform fatalities was just begging for Mortal Kombat to make its way into its ranks. Now, I won’t be completely cynical about it. There is an awesome new redesign to Scorpion done by Jim Lee in the game (so we know what he would have looked like if he had been a Marvel mutant during the Claremont run of X-Men).

This is also a character who MK fans will instantly be familiar with his moveset allowing for a much slower learning curve to the character since his gameplay isn’t almost entirely new like most of the rest of the cast. You can check out his full trailer below.

As we previewed early yesterday morning, the team behind Batman: Arkham Origins at Warner Bros. Games Montreal revealed an almost five minute long CGI trailer for the game yesterday afternoon. With it came the reveal of pre-order information, two new major characters and some interesting news on the voice actors.

From the initial teaser, it was already confirmed that Deathstroke would find his way into the game. It was announced today that those who preorder Batman: Arkham Origins would be able to play as Deathstroke. It will be in similar fashion to the Joker or Catwoman challenge maps of Arkham games past as well as contain two additional costumes for Deathstroke.

Additionally, the trailer reveals two characters. Black Mask makes his return to the series after a brief cameo in Arkham City. It should be noted that it is revealed in Arkham City that Black Mask was the only man to ever escape. In addition, Deadshot will be making a return to the series as well.

This past weekend at Dallas Comic Con, the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, confirmed he would be returning to the Batman: Arkham series in the upcoming prequel, Batman: Arkham Origins. After a rumor surfaced in April that Conroy was done with the series, there was a lot of hesitance from series’ fans that someone else may be voicing the Dark Knight (because they have heard what happens when Christian Bale does it).

Early in the video below, Kevin discusses his involvement in the project and how he has been working on it for more than nine months. There is tons of hype right now around Batman: Arkham Origins as teaser trailer featuring Deathstroke going toe to toe with Batman from last week revealed a longer version would be premiering later today. So far, we’ve seen a healthy number of Batman villains represented in the two previous Arkham titles but there is a lot of excitement as to who will make their Arkham debut this time.

After Scribblenauts Unlimited came to the Wii U with a fairly soft launch, a lot of people wondered what might be next, if at all, for the series. Aside from new puzzles, what was there really left you could do for Scribblenauts that hadn’t already been done with the customizability of Scribblenauts Unlimited? I mean, it has “unlimited” in the title. The answer of course is rather fitting, a comic book crossover.

Whenever publishers in comics are in a sales dip, they crossover a more popular character into another series to give it a sales boost. But why stop at just a Batman Scribblenauts or a Scribblenauts Metropolis? WB Games and 5th Cell took the whole DC Universe and brought it over to the Scribblenauts world in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. In addition to giving the powers of various DC heroes and villains to Maxell, the trailer below indicates that players will be able to actually play as various DC characters in the game as well in the puzzle solving adventure.

Ever wonder what the attraction to Lobo as a character was? Aside from being an amalgam of various comic tropes and stereotypes, something about him ended up resonating to the point that thirty years since his inception, the anti-hero (who is pretty much just such a badass villain that people still like him) finds his way to the roster of Injustice: Gods Among Us as the first of four DLC characters.

For those who purchased the Season Pass, Lobo was announced on launch day for the game as the first member of the DLC roster. From the video below, he looks like a combination of fighting styles of some of the other brute characters like Solomon Grundy or Doomsday with the gunplay of Deathstroke. The trailer also gives a brief history of Lobo and the concept behind him, and how Lobo started out almost as a parody before taking on a life of his own.

After the long wait since first seeing glimpses at San Diego Comic-Con last Summer, Injustice: Gods Among Us arrived last week. After all the hype behind it with its roster of heroes and villains facing off against each other in a Mortal Kombat style fighting engine, “What could go wrong?” we pondered. Famous last words right? Well, luckily the team behind Injustice: Gods Among Us at NetherRealm Studios pulled through and gave the best DC fighting experience to date that could possibly rival that of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

The Long

On the surface, there is a huge appeal to seeing who could win in a fight between Batman and Superman. Comic fans won’t deny that but to create a successful fighter, NetherRealm couldn’t play by traditional comic book rules. While Superman and Batman may be on a level playing field in a comic setting where brain matters as much as brawn, no one is ever going to believe that the Green Arrow can beat up Superman or Doomsday… like ever (sorry Arrow fans). So while the appeal of the game is the premise, it is the nuts and bolts under the hood of Injustice: Gods Among Us that make it a solid fighter.