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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Trinity #33

Trinity #33

Scheduled to arrive in stores: January 14, 2009

Cover date: January 14, 2009

Main Story: "There Must Be Hope"

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

Back-Up Story: "To Reflect Her Nature"

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

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey with Jeffrey Bridges and Barry Freiman

Click to enlarge



The troop, caught with a cell phone, have "the powders" cast at them by a shaman, and are thus exiled from the caravan and the informative stories.

One blue person stays behind to speak of the machinists. The machinists looks like Luthor and Brainiac, but with the blue humanoid form.

She (the blue person) tells the Max Lord "Sacrifice" story in a thinly veiled metaphor, leaving when she's done. The three former heroes start to remember their powers.

They resolve to listen to the story from afar, and the machinists watch as the blue people begin to speak of the death of Superman.

To be continued...



Back-Up Story: "To Reflect Her Nature"

We follow the story of a young girl's family as Morgan changes Tel Aviv into one of her held positions. The people consequently turn to reflect her nature.

The young girl begins to change into a snake, and the father is forced to shoot her to protect the family, before beginning to change himself.

To be continued...



Neal's Review:

1Main Story - 1: My DAD'S a machinist! Haw.

Anyway, so here we have space wasted. Usually it's just not compelling, but in this issue we learn utterly no new information. The three have a few powers now, but that's about it.

They can listen to the story from afar, and yet they endanger a little girl with exile to hear the Max Lord story. Meta-speaking outside the story, it's just an excuse to retell the Max Lord story, which, while a good story, is not retold in a more compelling way here, it's just retold. And it's already been told, so hey. It's just service for fans of Sacrifice. But speaking as a huge fan of Sacrifice, keep your homage. This doesn't hold a candle to it, and might diminish it, were the story not strong enough on its own.

Supergirl has Superman's powers. Why have they not found the statues? This is padding. It's wasting time. It's crap, to explore how cool the blue people are, but they're boring as hell.

Supergirl won't tolerate joking and playing, because it distracts her from her objective! Unlike following a caravan of blue people you can listen to from afar while seeking the statues that they're seeking for no apparent reason. TRINITY!

99 bucks worth to you, I ask?

3Main Art - 3: Strong art, but no compelling subject here. It's hard to fault the artist on that, but then, I had an average time with the art despite a superior artist because of the fact that the characters involved were pretty sad to look at.

On one level, Bagley chose to be involved in this. On another level, I feel bad for him, because an artist should be given good things to draw in a collaborative medium.

5Back-Up Story - 5: Where the hell did this come from, and why is it in Trinity? This is a touching story of a family in a disaster scenario, and taken completely out of context, it's a stirring example of character. They did this earlier in the story, to great effect, in Gotham, I believe. This touched me, honestly. I felt for this family. I felt... something, unlike in the rest of the issues. Good work.

5Back-Up Art - 5: The story would have been half as good had the depiction of the young girl's metamorphosis not been surrounded by the horrific necessary imagery. Very strong.

2Cover Art - 2: Superman and Wonder Woman flying at something we can't see, they're not in the issue at hand, and Batman's glaring boot comes out of nowhere to take two full points off the composition.

Yes, I know he was in the last issue's cover. No, I don't care. Multiple covers that work together should work on their own, in my opinion. That whole "Every comic is a first and a last" principle. If this was a first issue, you'd be saying, "What the hell is that boot?"

Alas.

Jeffrey's Review:

1Main Story - 1: The thing with Max Lord, Wonder Woman and Diana, as wonderfully originally told by Greg Rucka, is retold here by Kurt Busiek in worse fashion as a way to... I don't even know. There's no reason to retell an excellent story in a crappy book except to try to make the crappy book seem excellent by association.

It's not working, and frankly, now I'm actually a bit angry.

I DO NOT *&%ING CARE IF THE NEVER-BEFORE-MENTIONED "MACHINISTS" ARE NOW ABOUT TO ATTACK THE MEANINGLESS PURPLE PEOPLE.

This book has been out and out tripe for a long time, and now it goes and co-opts one of the best stories from recent years, adds nothing new and simply retells it as a fireside chat.

What is the point of this issue? Of this book in general? To remind us the good stories are out there, and that this is not one of them?

WE FIGURED THAT OUT ON OUR OWN, THANKS.

3Main Art - 3: You know what this book needs? A Purple People Eater.

Then they'd all get eaten and we wouldn't have to see them anymore.

1Back-Up Story - 1: Morgaine, being the terrible villain she is, has decided to reshape the world ONE CITY AT A TIME.

And her changes now suddenly cause people to turn into... weird things. Even though that never happened before.

And one family changes and kills each other.

Color me unconcerned and unaffected.

3Back-Up Art - 3: I just. Don't. Care.

3Cover Art - 3: Wait wait wait... Batman gets his own cover, and Superman and Wonder Woman have to share one? And then... Batman gets prominent placement on the next cover, too, I see from the preview.

Because THAT is fair. Could you show just a LITTLE more bias for me, that's not really quite enough for my tastes.

That being said, and despite the stupid damned BATMAN BOOT horning in on the action here for no reason, I like this cover. I like Superman and Wonder Woman together (not in THAT way, I'm a strict Lois/Clark guy, I assure you) as a team and this could have been a really cool image.

If it weren't for the damned boot of the damned Bat. Oy.

Barry's Review:

1Main Story - 1: More rubbish. Are we in a DC comic or a Beatles cartoon? The Blue Meanies don't like the Purple Kinda-Sorta Meanies with the DC supporting characters stuck in the middle (with you). That about sum things up? Makes me want to break into song: "We all live in a yellow power ring, a yellow power ring, a yellow power ring."

There is one moment of comedy to those long-time "Titans" fans who are just so over the 'let's talk about our feelings/we aren't a team, we're family' way in which the elder Titans act. We get it. No one else on Earth gets what it's like to be a sidekick. That's a bond - but it's a bond no different than that shared by Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland, and Susan Olsen. No other people on Earth will ever know what it means to be the original Brady Bunch than the original Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy. That's great for them. But why on Earth should I care? The very nature of that bond excludes me. With that in mind, it was much fun to see Donna and Dick chastised for becoming the often-times annoying touchy-feely emotion-spouting at the wrong-time people they used to be.

Some final thoughts. The alternate reality Batman still lost Jason. The alternate reality Superman still allowed himself to become enthralled by the alien equivalent of Max Lord, forcing Diana to kill alternate reality alien-Lord. The alternate reality Superman died. I see DC's biggest and best three heroes - with their alternate reality makeovers -- making the same mistakes they made in the real world. I always thought a hero didn't make the same mistake twice.

2Main Art - 2: Picking up on the Lead Story review above and my comment about heroes not making the same mistake twice: Well alternate reality Superman's still dressed like a chick. That's Superman's second fashion faux-pas in two consecutive issues. Where's Heidi Klum when you need her? "Superman, you can leave the Runway."

1Back-Up Story - 1: After last issue's decently rated back story, I hoped upon hope that meant a change was in the offing. Nope. Just a fluke. We be back to crap.

I'm no closer to understanding what this superhero/super villain border war is all about than I was last issue. Le Fey wants land and whoever gets more territory wins? Who does she think she is - Lex Luthor? Clearly she's seen "Superman Returns" one time too many.

People are becoming beasts. The skies are red. Is it possible for one DC comic book ("Trinity") to rip off another DC comic book ("Final Crisis") before the latter has even finished its story? If so, Grant Morrison ought to call his lawyer (I'm kidding, I'm kidding - I'm not suggesting anyone sue anyone). "Trinity" may not have a "Crisis" title, but man is it a crisis in writing.

There was little about this story that made Israel, Tel Aviv, and Judaism integral in any way to the overall plot. This could have taken place anywhere in the world if not for stupid throwaways like having Dina mutter the Hebrew prayer, the Kaddish. This story not only gets rated a one out of five, it gets a big "Oy Vey!" from me too.

I cannot believe any father would choose to shoot his teenage daughter as the first resort. Um, she hardly looked like she was about to eat the family. How about locking her in the refrigerator or a strong closet and getting far away from her? Then, at least, she's got a chance to live and a chance to be transformed back to normal. Of course I could be projecting my own feelings as I'm also the Jewish father of a teenage daughter.

1Back-Up Art - 1: The Israelis in this story look no different than the Latinos drawn in previous issues - they have the same faces and the same dark hair, the same olive skin. But with one difference. The noses are bigger. Jew say what? Uh-huh, bigger noses. Check it out. But Latin in every other way in which the Latinos have previously appeared in "Trinity". I'm sorry to say (you know how us Jews are always apologizing) but these artists have demonstrated the limits of their talent. This, ladies and gents, is about as good as it gets for another 19 issues.

4Cover Art - 4: I'm still not the biggest fan of Lee's work, but it's at least a huge leap toward logic that all three heroes - if you count Batman's foot - are represented as real people, not statues, on the same cover.

I do like the way Lee draws Superman's "S" but I think that's because it's reminiscent of the Earth-2 Superman's logo. Wonder Woman's tiara appears to be on upside-down - I get that he's making the tiara more resemble a piece of fighting armor but let's be real: she's a princess, it's a tiara, let her enjoy it.


Mild Mannered Reviews

2009

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

January 2009

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