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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Trinity #50

Trinity #50

Scheduled to arrive in stores: May 13, 2009

Cover date: May 13, 2009

Main Story: "So..."

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

Back-Up Story: "Her Realm"

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

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bridges with Barry Freiman and Neal Bailey

Click to enlarge



The world is destroyed.

To be continued...



Back-Up Story: "Her Realm"

Krona talks to the Worldsoul. He tries to find out how she exists, doesn't believe her, and then the Trinity show up. Wonder Woman hugs Krona, Batman envelops him in his cape and the world is put back together but is still falling apart.

To be continued...



Jeffrey's Review:

1Main Story - 0: No, not a 1. This is zero. Absolute Zero.

Four pages. Three of them splash pages! Showing nothing but crap floating in space. Look at the description... it's exactly what happened. And it took Busiek FOUR PAGES to show one panel of information? Jiminy Cricket!

THIS IS NOT A STORY.

2Main Art - 2: Oh look. Space junk and splash pages.

1Back-Up Story - 1: Why is this book even pretending to have a "backup" anymore?

What sense is this? Krona just wants to understand the Worldsoul? He's a scientist? Then why didn't he skip all the bull*&^% of the past 49 issues, ask the Worldsoul what he wanted to know and be done with it?

This is absolute garbage.

And the god-Trinity sacrifice their godhood to save the Earth by somehow hugging Krona to death. You know that's where this is going. And it's supposed to be noble, and it's supposed to be grand, and it's just bull*&^%.

What are they giving up? What did they do with the abilities they had? They went to some alternate world, with purple people, AND KILLED MILLIONS OF THEM IN PETTY SQUABBLES.

Yeah, give up all of that, HOW NOBLE OF YOU.

This book is a #*&%ing travesty. I'll tell you what else...

FIFTY issues, people. FIFTY.

Fifty issues of the three greatest comic characters ever created. What do we have to show for it? What has this book done that is new, original, innovative, lasting or important? What has it shown us about the three greatest characters in all of comics? What have we discovered? What have we learned?

We learned that Busiek loves his pet characters and can't write dialogue to save his life.

We learned that GAPING plot holes are unimportant and not work fixing.

We learned that people being in character is of no importance whatsoever.

We learned that this book had nothing to do (AT ALL) with Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman.

We learned that DC owes us our money back.

We learned exactly what is wrong with the comic industry today, and why it's an aging, failing dinosaur.

We learned that dreck like this that is so completely out of touch with the audience and even the very characters it purports to be about that serves no purpose other than to sate the fanboy desires of a writer pining for the Silver Age (which was left behind for a reason) is what's killing the industry.

This book has almost single-handedly destroyed my love of comics. I collected them religiously for FIFTEEN YEARS. I had every Superman comic book DC put out. Most of the Wonder Woman comics. A large chunk of the Batman comics. And more.

And the industry as a whole (and this book as a paragon of what the industry has become) has alienated me. Destroyed me. Killed my fandom.

Recently I moved to a new apartment. Much better neighborhood, much better schools for my son, everything was an upgrade. Except storage space. It's a little less than we had before.

I looked at my eight longboxes of DC books and wondered what I'd do with them.

I left them by the recycling at our old place when we locked the doors and left.

That is not hyperbole. That is not exaggeration.

I LEFT THEM TO BE RECYCLED.

Sure I kept a few that were important to me. I'll replace the really good stories with trades, but those are fewer than they should be.

Fifteen years. Thousands of books. Thousands of comics. Thousands of my dollars wasted on a company that doesn't give a crap about the people buying their product.

This is what DC has done to me. This book is a prime example of it. They do not care about their audience. They do not care about their fans. And most unforgivable of all, they do not care about their own characters.

This book is an absolute disgrace. And if that's how DC wants to treat a longtime fan who was with them through all the ups and downs of the last decade and a half, every week, then fine. I know when I'm in an abusive relationship.

This book has taken the audience, the fans and the characters for granted.

No more, I say.

No more.

4Back-Up Art - 4: Kind of trippy, but that worked for what it was supposed to convey. As much as I don't enjoy seeing Krona, this was the way to see him.

2Cover Art - 2: Generic pose of the greatest comic book character ever, ruined further by half of Morgaine's face screaming at me about how bad this book is.

Barry's Review:

1Main Story & Back-Up Story - 1: It's the end of the world as we know it. But I feel bored. With two more issues to go, I'm left wondering incredulously when the Trinity plans to appear in Trinity in their pre-godly forms? This series is going out without even a whimper. The boredom, disgust, and indifference I feel toward this series is only surpassed by the obscene amount of money I spent buying a 52 issue series I lost complete faith in before the 10th issue. Unfortunately, Lois Lane is right in her parting comment this issue: It isn't over. Which means it can only get worse.

2Main Art & Back-Up Art - 2: The colorist this time out deserves much of the credit for the beautiful art that is in parts bright and shiny and in other parts lifeless and grey. Other than the colorist, the rest of the art team is deservedly phoning it in.

3Cover Art - 3: Haven't I seen this cover before? I'm not saying this isn't a great iconic looking depiction of the Man of Steel. However, there's probably at least a dozen great looking iconic depictions of Superman on the covers to this series; and none of these covers by the way have the slightest thing to do with the story in the particular issue. Superman stands in a generic pose - it's pretty but it means absolutely nothing.

Neal's Review:

1Main Story & Back-Up Story - 1: It's all one big plot this time, kinda, so I'm going to review it all in one.

The world is blown apart and reformed because people who have power that is derived from the person they're fighting will it.

In other words, the entire conflict in the story is like if I gave you a gun with a rope on it, and then didn't try and pull it out of your hand when you shot me in the head.

But even if you're okay with all of that, the whole thing is a kind of existential pile of nothing. Worldsouls, like real souls, are an ill defined and fanciful concept that are so ethereal that to speak of them is like staring into the sun. You might see something, but it's probably better to put on shades and try and create a solar-powered awesome machine.

This issue again proves that Krona and pet characters are the focus of this story. I will be glad when this is over.

2Main Art & Back-Up Art - 2: It's not Bagley or McDaniel, it's the awful, continued CG backgrounds that just yank you right out. It's evident they were either short on time or gave someone a bit too much leeway to define ethereal setting. Apparently, the godhead looks like Tron wanded a little.

I don't think it's the pencils that did this. I think it was someone on a computer. The underlying images look pretty awesome, it's just... god. Can you make anything look more like you ran it through a printer running low on ink?

2Cover Art - 2: Let's again emphasize that Superman hasn't really appeared in his full form in this story in a long time, under the Bat symbol, in front of a giant grinning guy out of context.


Mild Mannered Reviews

2009

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

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