Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials
Trinity #24
Scheduled to arrive in stores: November 12, 2008
Cover date: November 12, 2008
Main Story: "Dead and Burnt to Ash"
Back-Up Writers: Kurt Busiek
Back-Up Pencillers: Mark Bagley
Back-Up Inker: Art Thibert
Back-Up Story: "Air is for Cowards"
Main Story Writer: Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza
Main Story Penciller: Tom Derenick
Main Story Inker: Wayne Faucher
Reviewed by: Neal Bailey with Jeffrey Bridges and Barry Freiman
Click to enlarge
Morgan Le Fay rampages across France, unworried that the spell did not do its proper job and secure her a remade world. Enigma takes umbrage and attacks her, given that he wants a world to remake in his own image, and refuses to let her fulfill her desire until he can fulfill his.
The former members of the JSA on New Earth receive a scroll from Gangbuster, take it into another room, and come out knowing that the world is wrong. They are also restored to youth, and believe Firestorm and Gangbuster.
Alfred goes to meet with Lois Lane.
To be continued...
Back-Up Story: "Air is for Cowards"
Kanjar Ro observes as Green Lantern and Despero fight. Krona, distracted in his quest to understand the cosmos, comes to see what's going on.
He sees the Chrono Hound in Green Lantern and kidnaps him.
Kanjar Ro is left with Despero, who prepares to kill him before Ro offers him power and allies, in the form of the Crime Syndicate.
To be continued...
Neal's Review:
 Main Story - 1: Still nothing enthralling for me here. Lots of extrapolation through dialogue, even more names in dialogue.
What changes from last issue to this one? The JSA lightswitches their opinions because of an ethereal plot device scroll. That's about it.
Enigma switches loyalties, but his loyalties have been obviously switched from issue one.
Yawning through this. I literally get so distracted reading this it takes me about an hour a week. I'll start, just not be able to stand it, then go surf for a bit, then return.
 Main Art - 5: Bagley still manages to make the apathetic story compelling. I didn't enjoy the scenes in the JSA compound, mostly because there was nothing to draw but talking, but the action he drew more than made up for the dull story pages for me.
Back-Up Story - 1: It is, quite literally, those three sentences above. All of those things are pretty darned boring to me, barring any subtext of context. And what little I can find in the sense of remaking the universe isn't giving me any shivers of anticipation.
Despero and Kanjar are quite literally flying "nyah" machines. As is Krona. I just... there's absolutely no depth here. It even laughs at itself.
"Air is for cowards." IE, I know this is an absurd scene, but I'm gonna write it anyway and try and pass it off as bad@##.
Clue: It's not.
Back-Up Art - 5: Despite all of the cheesiness in the script and what's going on here, the art pops, with lots of dynamic paneling and crazy, well done action. You don't know what the heck everything is, but enough detail and heart has been put into it that you don't care. Still the best part of the book... the art.
Cover Art - 1: Nothing that happened in the issue, Wonder Woman over Tomorrow Woman (or whatever she's called), tangentially related idea in a less than compelling pose. Bah.
Jeffrey's Review:
Main Story - 1: Hey, the scroll opened a portal and Khufu did... something and made the JSI guys young again. Ta da. And hooray for Nth metal.
I just wrote this issue of Trinity. Where's my paycheck?
 Main Art - 4: Actually I dig the representations of Morgaine and Enigma here. Very ethereal.
Back-Up Story - 1: N-space! Sub-real viewing!
Hm. It's like Busiek can read my mind.
Reading "Trinity" is completely sub-real viewing, and puts my head in N-space.
What the heck is that... metal plug on Despero's hand? Why do we care about Green Lantern becoming a Cyborg-American? Why do we care about Kanjar Ro? QUIET! FLASH! BOOM! LOOK! The Crime Syndicate is back again somehow via no explanation whatsoever!
Wow, that amazing and pointless revelation completely made me forget about the lack of character, lack of story and lack of Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman in this book!
Excellent!
 Back-Up Art - 3: Zzzzzzzzzzz.
Cover Art - 1: Tomorrow Woman smashing robots! Ancillary and irrelevant to what passes for story here?
LET'S PUT IT ON THE COVER!
Barry's Review:
Main Story - 1: So Alfie becomes Alfred, and JSI members Carter Hall, Jay Garrick, and Alan Scott have recovered their memories and youthful vigor. With 28 issues to go, this surely isn't the story climax it should be.
If the Trinity is so important to the Multiverse, why didn't the spell have the slightest impact on the antimatter Earth? Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have been represented in this series as the core of not just Earth but the Multiverse itself. They've been removed from reality. That means Owlman, Ultraman, and Super Woman shouldn't exist either and 'Earth-3'/antimatter Earth should be a completely different place too. That would also provide an explanation for the changes made to New Earth by the spell which took place prior to the now-removed-from-reality debuts of each Trinity member. For instance, the JSA standing up to Congress in the 1950s would make more sense if we saw that the Trinity from Earth-2 disappeared as well and that their disappearance from their reality in the 1930s and 1940s had a rebound effect on New Earth. But that would require logic and plotting, two things this book is renowned for lacking.
Main Art - 3: Bagley's art is pretty average this issue but I suspect that's because he's artistically torn into so many directions in one half-issue.
Back-Up Story - 1: There are too many dangling unrelated dull plotlines that remain unresolved - in addition to the continuing absence of the Trinity. Despero's revenge. Green Lantern's Qwardian armor. Hawkman's guilt. Tarot's mission other than that of meta-damsel in distress. Konvikt. I'm waiting for a payoff that I know isn't ever going to come.
 Back-Up Art - 2: The art on the backup story is just another alien space fight - there's nothing we haven't seen in any number of comic books. Yes, average art (sometimes better, sometimes worse) is the only thing I can recommend in this issue - and generally in the series. As a reader who's a writer, that just isn't enough for me.
Cover Art - 1: The main problem with this cover is it's the last part of a triptych that, two issues ago, made sense, and, now features a character - Tomorrow Woman - who isn't even in the issue. In fact, the Daily Planet headline is also behind: Tomorrow Woman decimated the Ultra-Humanite's robots last issue.
Mild Mannered Reviews
2009
Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
Back to the Mild Mannered Reviews contents page.
Check out the Comic Index Lists for the complete list of Superman-related comics published in 2009.
|
