Winning with Ted would probably be like playing on hard with no continues; but should be more doable than this.

I buy a fair amount of quarterbooks, and more often than not they're delightful. Every once in a while we hit one that's we don't like, and sometimes we still have to blog it, so we don't buy it again, like I did here...from 2017, Injustice 2 #5, "Hostile Takeover" Written by Tom Taylor, layouts by Bruno Redondo, finishes by Vicente Cifuentes.

This was set in the video game's continuity, where...honestly, I forget. Pretty sure Lois is dead and Superman has gone totalitarian, and while his reign may have ended at this point, the world was not in good shape. At Kord Industries, Ted Kord and Skeets are training the very green Jaime Reyes, the new Blue Beetle. Feeling Jaime was shaken up after blowing up an expensive robot, Ted sends Skeets with him, and the little security robot ominously notes "Yes. This is how it happened." Ted doesn't have time to dwell on that, since he's then visited by the skulking Batman: Ted angrily says Jaime isn't ready, but Bats is actually there for him. Not as Blue Beetle, god no. He needs people with honesty, and assets, to help in the rebuilding. Ted is in, but soon gets another visitor.

Booster Gold is there, to say goodbye, although he promises to be there at the end. To his credit, Booster had tried to stop it, more than once, apparently getting sent to time jail more than once. He suggests Ted put on his costume, "make a few of them regret it." He suits up...and is almost immediately shut down by Damian, now Nightwing, with Deadshot and Katana. Katana cuts off his hand, even! Why those three and Cheetah are working for Ra's al Ghul, your guess is as good as mine, I haven't played the game. Cheetah forces Ted to read an statement, but Ra's gets on camera as well: it's not a ransom demand. Demanding the immediate stop of "everything" from deforestation to coal burning, Ra's has Ted and a dozen other captured industrialists murdered to make his point. It looks like they're going to be fed to the sharks, but it's to Killer Croc and Orca, which may be worse. For good measure, Ra's also blows up several of their buildings with the workers inside.

True to his word, Booster is there with Ted when he dies, as his best friend makes him laugh one more time. I think I'd be less pissed at this comic if Ted had got more than just one punch on Deadshot; and I don't know how the rest of the series would go down, but Katana and Damian need to pay for this. That and I hate the recurring motif of Ted's death, partially to make way for Jaime, not quite to make him the replacement for Saint Barry Allen.