The world of Injustice: Gods Among Us has made its anticipated return, but it isn't as the latest NetherRealm Studios fighting game. The franchise is back for another go around with a 14-part prequel comic called Injustice: Year Zero. Read on for details:

Writer Tom Taylor has returned for the digital first series that takes place before the conflict of the first Injustice video game. It will be a timely release for those struggling to access print comics during a time of pandemic, but as Taylor told The Hollywood Reporter, it's also an opportunity to tell an escapist story set before the corruption of Superman and the DC heroes.

"I really didn't feel like this was the right time for stories of a dictator Superman. My favorite comics are an escape from the real world, and the real world has more than enough power-hungry men stomping their will on the people. I wanted to write something where my heroes were truly heroic. The only way to do so in the Injustice universe, was to check in before Superman's fall and before Batman and Superman's friendship was broken."

Injustice: Year Zero will tackle some of the most glaring holes in the Injustice premise, including revisiting the reason for The Joker's fateful trip to Metropolis, which ended with the murders of Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and Superman's unborn son.

The absence of reason behind these events, which set off the Injustice concept by triggering Superman to begin his totalitarian Regime, were a sticking point when MK Online reviewed the opening chapters: "You get a sense that there is - or should be - more to this story than we know. Joker's reasons for being in Metropolis -- a trip that includes the casual, quickly forgotten murder of Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen -- aren't explained. To think a comic focused on backstory would gloss over this catalytic detail seems like a discredit to the creators involved. Joker may have a reputation for being a wildcard, but his actions are rarely so incongruous or shallow..."

Taylor also aims to answer what happened to the Golden Age heroes of the Justice Society, whose fate was teased in the first game with background cameos, but is yet to be fully divulged.

Injustice: Year Zero cover art features JSA heroes The Green Lantern (Alan Scott), The Flash (Jay Garrick), and Black Canary (Dinah Drake). A future digital cover also reveals Amazing-Man punching Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler in a reference to classic comics of the 1940s. See below:

Introduced retroactively in All-Star Squadron #23 (1983); William Blake Everett was a competitor at the 1936 Olympic Games who was later caught in an explosion in Cyclotron's lab, granting him strange super-powers. Able to absorb the properties of anything he touched, he was deployed by the villainous Ultra-Humanite, before joining up with the WWII allied heroes in the All-Star Squadron to fight he Axis powers, and later join efforts in the American Civil Rights movement.

Doctor Fate was included in the playable Injustice 2 roster, along with a premier skin for The Flash. The modern day daughter of Black Canary was also playable. Retro versions of the Justice Society characters can be seen in the opening panels of Year Zero Chapter One.

You can read a digital Injustice: Year Zero #1 Free Preview right now on the DC Reader by following the link! Excited for more? Share your thoughts about the comic and future games in the DC Universe Injustice forum!