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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Trinity #27

Trinity #27

Scheduled to arrive in stores: December 3, 2008

Cover date: December 3, 2008

Main Story: "Time to Suit Up"

Main Writers: Kurt Busiek
Main Pencillers: Mark Bagley
Main Inker: Art Thibert

Back-Up Story: "Here and There and Everywhere"

Back-Up Story Writer: Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza
Back-Up Story Penciller: Scott McDaniels
Back-Up Story Inker: Andy Owens

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey with Jeffrey Bridges and Barry Freiman

Click to enlarge



Konvikt leaps across the Arctic. In Opal City, the citizens talk about seeing lizard men.

Tarot realizes that the world is out of whack, and that the guys who came for her before the world changed will be coming for her again, after learning that there was once a Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

Giant minotaur looking things calling themselves "Rein-Kings" attack St. Roch as they battle the Heywood Corps.

Carter debates the merits of his world with Gangbuster. Gangbuster gives Carter his Hawkman wings and tells him to use them.

Konvikt arrives where Enigma and Morgan Le Fay are hiding out, and she offers him unlimited power, which he accepts.

To be continued...



Back-Up Story: "Here and There and Everywhere"

A boy who can see and manipulate dimensions breaks out of his cell and releases Morgan Le Fay's Dreambound.

Le Fay appears, and commands them to assemble an army.

To be continued...



Neal's Review:

1Main Story - 1: There's an attempt at some character work here, the problem is, the character work is decentralized from the main plot almost entirely save in the case of Konvikt, who is a character whose origin and catharsis have been told, and aren't sufficient cause to motivate someone to really care.

We do, however, have much of the typical odd, random dreck that's characterized the series thusfar. The Heywood Corps (which sounds like a bunch of guys with no teeth in middle America who drink beer and fight the force of standing cows), Rein-Kings, and lizard men, all typical fairly strange and Silver Age seeming elements, only without any modern re-imagining. Just "GRAP-THOR THE WORLD CONQUERORS!" and their pod-mates. Etc. You either get what I mean about this brand of storytelling or you don't.

There are internal contradictions, at least by my reckoning. A world where the big three don't exist, and yet people remember them, and specific things about their universe. The universe is gone, or the universe is there, but if you create a mish-mash where some remember, and some don't, then it's sticky and cheap to have Tarot suddenly "know" that the people who did something she can't comprehend all of a sudden will be coming from her, and having her know the specific plot doesn't help either.

The whole "my universe... is it the right universe!" dilemma is one that really annoys me. Geoff Johns pointed out well, in his Earth-2 comments in a recent comic (I can't remember which), it was condescending to label Earth-1 as Earth-1, if you think about it, and the people of Earth-2 would have had to be really game to put up with it. So imagine you get this scene where someone is told their whole world is a lie, they're not going to pensively say, "My, I wonder if my whole world was a sham!" without being bad conflict. He'd be fighting to save his universe, his existence. Maybe he's miserable. His world is still a viable world. I disagree with this character choice.

I could go deeper and examine the idea that the analogue in this story for Superman is an empty lunk with a boring origin who has killed someone, but it doesn't inspire me enough to go into it, honestly.

3Main Art - 3: There were a couple of patchy spots, particularly a few Morgan panels, and a few funky looking spots. But generally, the story was told well, just not up to typical Bagley par for me.

1Back-Up Story - 1: The above is, quite literally, the plot. The story also starts with a completely new setting described in dialogue without any subtlety. It's a tale that seems like it thinks it's funny. I don't really understand why or how it works.

All I do know is that it end with the return of Sun-Chained-in-Hamburgers, and that's enough to make it crap to me.

5Back-Up Art - 5: Cool art, per usual. McDaniel and Owens have a very strong and original style that I continue to enjoy. Though Sun-Chained-in-Hamburgers is a ridiculous concept, I think his realization on the page is often beautiful when drawn by this pair.

3Cover Art - 3: Exquisitely drawn cover. Very good thing.

Subject of Konvict: Very bad thing.

Jeffrey's Review:

1Main Story - 1: More Tarot!

*snore*

More Konvikt! With a crazy SPACE ALIEN NAME!

*snore*

Hey, all they needed to redo the spell and control the universe as gods was Konvikt. Now they have Konvikt... and instead of doing their spell and getting all they desire, they now need an army... because... gods need armies? With the power Enigma and Morgaine got WITHOUT Despero/Konvikt they were just about unstoppable gods.

WHAT THE %@#& DO THEY NEED AN ARMY FOR!

4Main Art - 4: No idea what happened with the art here... it's boring Tarot and lots of leaping Konvikt and people standing around, but I really dug it this time.

1Back-Up Story - 1: WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY?

An origin story for TVM?

Get outta town! No way! Really? Could we be that lucky?

WE ARE THAT LUCKY, MY FRIENDS!

I have decided I must have been a total bastard in a past life, and reading this comic is my karmic penance.

3Back-Up Art - 3: Hey man, it's a bunch of people no one cares about except Kurt Busiek! WHEEE.

Wait, that's kind of been every issue...

2Cover Art - 2: Jim Lee wants to do covers? Awesome! What does everyone want to see? KONVIKT!

Because, I mean, he's so freakin' PURPLE, man! With his yellow shoulder fur that turns to blades, he's the coolest thing a ten year old from 1992 ever dreamed up!

DO COMIC COVERS GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS, I ASK YOU?

Well, yes.

Yes they do.

Barry's Review:

1Main Story - 1: I didn't review last week's issue because I had to leave town suddenly for a family matter. However, I did read the issue - nothing happened of consequence. Even ignoring it all, I return to the Superman Homepage trinity of reviewers and nothing's changed. This book's like the daily newspaper strips or soap operas when, five years later, it's later the same day.

And so, later the same day, people are still starting to remember the way things used to be. Konvikt has finally been solicited to join the axis of Busiek evil. Morgaine's ending words lead directly into the back-up story, which just makes the back-up story worse. She can't even keep the truth from her enslaved army for long. Some magic villainess.

3Main Art - 3: Surely an artist of Bagley's talent must be tired of this year-long obligation by now. I'm surely running out of ways of saying his art is usually the only thing of any real value in the typical issue of "Trinity". Unfortunately, as the story gets more ridiculous, the things that Bagley's forced to draw get more ridiculous too like this issue's half page "PFAK".

1Back-Up Story - 1: Half the back-up explains the sunny tattooed kid from however many issues ago when le Fey assembled her gang to steal the Trinity's personal effects. The other half shows what an incompetent enchantress le Fey is - she boasts in the narration that they were never really free but they were really free in exactly the same way the good guys are slowly freeing their minds to the right reality. She just isn't all that powerful.

And even if I believe that, when she's focused on them, she can overpower their wills again, I'm being asked to believe that her group overpowered - and le Fey magically enslaved - beings of the caliber of Grodd, Eclipso, Parasite, Poison (wrong color) Ivy, Psimon (isn't he dead?), Queen Bee, Shrapnel, Dr. Polaris, the new Vigilante (I think that's her hidden behind le Fey's last narrative box), at least one member of the Royal Flush Gang, and someone I don't recognize. He's wearing Luthor trademark purple and green and he's bald. But he's got sunglasses and a goatee. Beyond that, I'm at a complete loss. Anyone? Anyone even out there?

One thing: I still like Primat and think there is a place in the DCU for her when this is all finished. Hey, I'm a lifelong DC'er - gotta love big monkeys if you read DC.

1Back-Up Art - 1: Art should supplement story. The art here doesn't. I have no idea what created the new sunny tattoo guy - is he now the Tattooed Man in the DCU (at least till "Trinity" ends)? Did the first sunny tattoo guy empower himself with the sun emitted by Tattooed Man's tattoo? Who cares.

And, while this is an inker problem, there is no excuse for a tan Poison Ivy - she's white or green. Let's not add a new shade. Uma Thurman was bad enough.

3Cover Art - 3: I hate Konvikt. I'm not a big fan of Jim Lee's work. I like this cover. Go figure.


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