by Rob Williams, Guillem March, and V Ken Marion
Collects #'s 12-16 and Annual #1
What? No more Manapul on Trinity? I guess it was just going to be a spotlight run all along. Fair enough. Rob Williams takes over on the writing duties, while Guillem March and V Ken Marion split art on this trade paperback. Guillem does the endcap issues while V Ken gets the main story,
the 3-part "Dark Destiny." "Dark Destiny" is a continuation of issue 7, where Circe gathered her own "Dark" trinity so to speak, to destroy the Trinity of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. It leads to a host of magical guest stars, including the "mystical" trinity of Zatanna, Constantine and Deadman, as well as the "arch" trinity of Red Hood, Artemis, and Bizarro, along with the "stooge" trinity of Larry, Moe, and Curly Jason Blood, the host of the Demon Etrigan. So many Trinities.
Guillem has this dynamic, sinew-y, shaded style that translates pretty well to the heavy mystical focus of the trade paperback. V Ken Marion is a part of the "house" style of art so not much to remark on there. The story itself is pretty color-by-numbers, with a small twist by Circe at the end but it goes pretty much the way you'd expect. Only if you're into the mystical corner of DC would I think you would enjoy this story. And then for whatever reason, Annual #1 features a team-up between the Trinity and Deadshot. The Trinity fight off a group of terrorists to help Deadshot find his daughter who, apparently, is missing. I'm all for introducing new characters in media res, but it just seemed like a shoehorned introduction for an annual issue, what should have been a celebration of the main characters.
by James Robinson and Patch Zircher
Collects #'s 17-22
The pacing is somewhat unique in that you're only receiving morsels of the truth at a time. You're discovering just exactly what's going on along with the Trinity, and you're not always sure who to trust -- who's a good guy and who's a bad guy. Multiple narrators all telling their version of the story in the past tense helps to cement this feeling. A reread is also valuable once you finally learn just what's going on and who's up to no good. Kudos for all the unique writing techniques here -- they turn what could have been standard super-fare into interesting super-fare.
Turns out this war in Skartaris involves some shady dealings on Earth, and it's up to the Trinity to stop them. All things told, it just felt like there was too much plot with not enough characterization. There's so many side characters that they just feel like chess pieces. For a story that's subtitled "The Search for Steve Trevor," there's really not a lot of page time given to the relationships between Steve and the three members of the Trinity. You're expected to just know that he means a lot to them. It's that kind of story expectation that rings flat. A mystical conclusion to the series, and a muted one as well. At least we got to see Batman riding a unicorn.
Read More Trinity:
No comments:
Post a Comment