Review: Trinity Vol. 3 trade paperback (DC Comics)

After a soundly bad experience with Countdown to Final Crisis, Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley's Trinity is a breath of fresh air. The story is far from perfect, especially toward the end of this third volume -- though I begin to wonder if any writer can really get a fifty-two part story 100% right, and the wisdom therein of continuing to try. Overall, however, Trinity has been a nice surprise, and a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

[Contains spoilers for the Trinity books]

Fittingly, there are three acts to the third volume of Trinity, and of them all, I liked the best the finale of the alternate reality plotline that begins this book. I hadn't expected to enjoy what's essentially an impromptu "Elseworlds" tale, but Busiek both gives the trinity of this new world -- a retired Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, and Carter Hall -- so much tough-as-nails moxy, and also peppers the new reality with so many in-jokes, that there's plenty to love. To wit, this time around, we find J'onn J'onzz disguised in our midst as the spirit of humanity (much akin to Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier). That Lois jumps off the Daily Planet to get the god-powered Superman's attention, or that Nightwing similarly gets Batman's attention by shouting about Oliver Queen's chili, might seem rather obvious, but in their obviousness is nostalgia that reminds us what we love about these characters, which I think is the crux of Trinity.

In the previous volumes, Busiek explored the ways in which DC's Big Three characters contrast and make up a trinity, and also how those three heroes shaped our conception of a "superhero" like none other. In the last volume, Busiek properly lessens the hero worship a bit, and instead posits DC's main heroes not as the epitome of the heroic trinity in the DC Universe, but rather as an exceptionally visible representation of a trinity which constantly repeats itself in their world. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are a trinity, but so are Sun-Chained-in-Ink, the Void Hound, and Tarot.

"The trinity," Tarot intones, "are not the universe," but rather "three of the many faces of those forces, those concepts, those ideas." In this way, Busiek successfully reasons out why Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the Big Three both in their own universe and ours. Yes, they defined superheroics, and yes, they represent together certain dualities -- but moreover, in representing those dualities, they mirror ways in which our world works separate from comic books, like the sun, moon, and earth, or justice and punishment. To say that people around the world understand instinctively the Superman concept because he's this guy from Krypton, etc., is to overcomplicate the notion; to say that people "get" Superman because Superman is like the sun (especially when standing next to Batman) gets to the core of why the character resonates.

I enjoyed far more, however, both the heroes' personality-switching in the first book and the "world without the Big Three" in the second book, than I did "the Big Three-as-gods" in the third book. Obviously we all know the Big Three would be their old selves by the time this was done, and while the personality-switching carried with it some room for character reflection, having the Big Three as absolute versions of themselves (aloof Batman-god delivers only punishment, etc.) felt well-tread and unsurprising.

As well, perhaps showing the seams of trying to keep a story going for fifty-two chapters, Trinity began to repeat itself in the last volume. There's a good amount of running to one locale, having a skirmish, and then running to the next locale and having another skirmish. The heroes' loved ones try unsuccessfully to talk to the heroes-as-gods; they fail, fret a bit, try again, and repeat. I nearly lost track by the end as to which villain was meant to have betrayed which; there's numerous pages of Morgaine le Fay threatening Enigma, Despero threatening le Fay, Krona threatening all of them, and so on.

And Busiek and co-writer Fabian Nicieza get almost loopy in the back-up stories toward the end, as Krona has a conversation with his past self and with the Earth's Worldsoul, who tells Krona that essentially the point of life is just to exist. Interesting philosophical avenues, both, but at the end of the book the stories serve to slow the action when otherwise it ought be moving briskly along.

Trinity ends where we'd expect, right where it began on a pier in Keystone City, but this time in one of those large-scale superhero get-togethers that's always a lot of fun. Frankly the closing scene of the Big Three disappointed me -- so caught up is the plot in the god-power plotline that the heroes never return to how it felt to share each other's personalities and how their relationship might change; instead they reaffirm, yet again, their commitment to their loved ones. Hawkman, however, gets a great final scene that touches on his role as a leader on the alternate Earth, and ties (mostly coincidentally, I think) to events for him in both Rann/Thanagar: Holy War and Blackest Night. If nothing else coming out of Trinity, I'd be most interested to see Kurt Busiek write a Hawkman miniseries in the future.

But overall, for me, Trinity came down to one question, would Busiek find a way to keep alive the resurrected Tomorrow Woman at the end of this story, and the answer thankfully is yes. Tomorrow Woman first appeared in one issue of Grant Morrison's JLA, but the character had so much potential as to evoke a cult following and brief later appearances in a handful of DC titles, though never to return for good.

Nothing demonstrates that a writer "gets" the DC Universe (and DC fandom) like the way Busiek spotlighted Tomorrow Woman and equally-brief Leaguer Triumph, and that Busiek resurrects Tomorrow Woman for good is to cement Busiek's name as a writer we have to thank, for this one small glowing moment. Trinity is debatably good sometimes and not so good other times, but again, what's definite is that this series most certainly loves the DC Universe.

[Contains full covers, "What Came Before" pages]

Reviews of Green Lantern, Rann/Thanagar, Titans, and more coming up. Don't miss it!

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Review: Trinity Vol. 2 trade paperback (DC Comics)

There's a friendly crisis on infinite earths going on right now at DC Comics, so subtle you might have missed it. That crisis is the quiet collision of the Kurt Busiek-verse with the Geoff Johns-verse (and the Grant Morrison-verse), each encompassing their own overlapping corner of the DC Universe. I, for one, didn't used to be such a fan of the Busiek-verse, but after the second volume of Trinity, I'm beginning to change my mind.

[Contains spoilers for Trinity Volume Two]

Busiek himself has disagreed with me on this point before, but it seems firmly to me that he got short shrift during his Superman run, with Geoff Johns writing Brainiac and General Zod and Busiek writing, well, a couple of crazy Daxamite priests and a space pirate. (I suggest no animosity here between Busiek and Johns, this is just my take on their stories.) By design or by accident, Busiek's are the "other" Superman stories, the ones in service to the main story. Ditto that elements Busiek established in JLA, like John Stewart having a Qwardian robot in his ring, has been soundly in Johns' Green Lantern (compare with Johns' Blackest Night appearing just about everywhere).

This changes with Trinity, at least in part, which would seem to be Busiek's Magnum opus; by the second volume, Busiek has referenced all his recent DC Comics work to date. JLA/Avengers is here, as is the unofficial sequel, JLA: Syndicate Rules. With Trinity's second part, Busiek also introduces elements from Superman: Camelot Falls -- not enough necessarily to distract from the main story (whereas the JLA tales are required reading for this book), but enough to demonstrate a through-way between Busiek's stories. Trinity, it would seem, finally makes the Busiek-verse legitimate and makes his otherwise irrelevant (if entertaining) stories relevant. That Trinity has been soundly ignored in favor of Final Crisis and the Morrison-verse ... well, we won't go there.

Still, let me tell you, this book is a fun ride. The second volume of Trinity accomplishes what Superman/Batman still struggles with -- telling a story about DC's biggest heroes without devolving into obsequious hero worshipping. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman barely make an appearance in this volume, and yet Busiek not only makes their presence felt, but makes those who search for the heroes remarkably interesting, from alternate versions of Lois Lane and Dick Grayson to Gangbuster, Hawkman, Firestorm, and a number of other "not ready for prime-time" heroes.

Indeed, I dreaded that this second volume of Trinity takes place in an alternate reality where DC's Big Three never existed, and the Justice Society became a totalitarian force -- a concept we've seen too many times before -- Busiek has a lot of fun with it. In Busiek's alternate reality, we find a Lex Luthor still in his battle suit, forgotten heroes like Space Ranger and Black Orchid, and even a priceless scene between Justice Leaguers Triumph and Tomorrow Woman, both aware they'll be dead when the world goes back to normal but fighting to make things right anyway. In this way, Trinity is more than a study of DC's Big Three -- it's Busiek's love song to the DC Universe.

Just as the first volume of Trinity looked at the similarities and differences between DC's flagship heroes, the second volume examines the effect those heroes have on their world. Busiek notes through Firestorm (whom I'd be in favor of Busiek writing in a series!) that the Justice Society of World War II were "mystery men," but it wasn't until Superman that the world had "superheroes" -- and without the concept of superheroes, he notes, Aquaman's just "the creature from the Black Lagoon."

Moreover, Busiek posits, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman resonate with their world (and ours) because they are themselves representative of our basic concepts of justice, truth, punishment, and the like. They're pure archetypes of elemental forces (represented also by the characters of the tarot card in Trinity) from which all other heroes spring; as with Busiek's musings in the first volume, this is a remarkable cogent distillation of these heroes, and gives the Trinity books a lasting value far beyond their first reading.

[Contains full covers, "What Came Before" pages]

Trinity remains a rollicking adventure -- from deep space to Camelot to the Anti-Matter Universe to big superhero-supervillain battles to primitive mythology -- and as long as it's taken me to get through these books, I more than feel I've received my money's worth. On now to the third volume -- I'm ready to read something else, but I wish any number of creators would take a page from Trinity and present books even half as detailed as this.

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Review: Trinity Vol. 1 trade paperback (DC Comics)

I wanted to like Trinity -- swimming perhaps again what I understood to be the popular curve -- and indeed I found much to enjoy in the first volume. If we take as writer Kurt Busiek's purpose to explore the similarities and differences in DC Comics' Big Three trinity -- Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman -- he accomplishes this handily, even revealing some unexplored aspects of the three. At the same time, Trinity doesn't feel like a Big Three-centric book to an overwhelming extent, but rather seems to make good use of much of the DC Universe.

I think Busiek's Trinity project is unique in that, from the beginning, it explores the partnership of of DC's Big Three self-referentially. That is, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are presented with the idea that the three of them make up a cosmic trinity and are attacked because of this role, and therefore within the story consider the way the "trinity" idea applies to them. This makes for a fascinating conversation about a third of the way through the book, where the heroes consider themselves as representatives of the sun, the moon, and the earth; as a savior, punisher, and warrior, and as an alien, a "native," and one in-between, among others.

I found this last concept most interesting, that Superman is the ultimate alien outsider while Batman is the ultimate human insider. We know this to be the obvious case, but Busiek takes it further in pointing out Batman not just as human, but the quintessential "self-made man." While Busiek means this not just financially, indeed the Waynes are the embodiment of the American dream -- family wealth and estate -- but yet we know that Superman is closer associates with the "American Way" than Batman, and that Superman is highly more the "insider" than Batman. Busiek offers the concepts from all sides, and I appreciated it.

I also thought Busiek offered fair insights into Wonder Woman's place in the trinity. Most of what Busiek posits for Wonder Woman tends to be "in between" -- the earth in between the sun and the moon, the warrior between the savior and the punisher -- but even if this only makes Wonder Woman "half" of Superman and Batman respectively, they're also valid assesments of her character. Additionally, Busiek addresses, rather than ignores, Wonder Woman's identity as a woman alongside two potentially overshadowing men, and even looks at why she's been at times attracted to each of them and vice versa.

The first volume of Trinity offers a gigantic rolicking superhero story, a kind of popcorn movie without the weight of something like Final Crisis, but still fun to get lost in. Busiek loads on esoteric DC Universe concepts with abandon -- Krona, Morgaine le Fey, Despero, Kanjar Ro, and the Anti-Matter universe all find a unlikely place. At the end, if it doesn't all make sense, or you find yourself wondering as I did just how the heroes managed to get from point A all the way over to point B, it hardly matters; there's a joy to the deep history of this story that's well worth it.

Indeed one of my very favorite parts of Trinity so far is the inclusion of the late 1980s Superman character Gangbuster. The backup features here, which dovetail almost seamlessly with the main story, mostly focus on Gangbuster and Hawkman, and the two human, brutal characters together is a fun match. Busiek utilitzes the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Titans, and others here, giving the story a crossover-like feel, and the characters are more than just window-dressing. Busiek has Vixen, for instance, provide a remarkably cogent picture of how other heroes see the Big Three.

All of this isn't to pretend Trinity doesn't have its problems. Busiek's new characters like Tarot and Konvict fail to compete with the grandeur of DC's established heroes; to me, the story felt stronger when Busiek wasn't imagining off on his own. Also, some of the supposedly-hip slang Busiek puts in Tarot and Gangbuster's mouths, his stereotypically urban characters, falls very flat. While it's a thrill to see artist Mark Bagley's great rendition of the DC Universe through most of the book, the costumes of his new heroes and villains look hopelessly trapped in the 1980s, including his ridiculous update of Gangbuster's costume. (Brass knuckles with "Gangbuster" on them? Please.)

Overall, however, I enjoyed the first volume of Trinity much, much more than I expected. Unlike 52 and Countdown, Trinity doesn't try to bend itself to the weekly format; rather it's a just a winding multi-part tale, not much different that what you might find in JLA, but painted on a canvas that encompasses the entire DC Universe. What I've read so far makes me eager to pick up the next book.

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