Trinity #17 review 


Superman and Batman are helping Wonder Woman search for Paradise Island, which has been hidden from her by godly hands. Signs of a possible interdimensional portal send the heroes flying to the North Atlantic. 

And they do indeed come across a doorway to another world; it may not lead to Themyscira, but it’s certainly worth investigating. More immediately, a small boat is being pulled towards its energies. Magical energies. 


The heroes save the vessel and its crew, but get close enough that the doorway pulls them into another realm. Magic permeates the very air, negating Superman’s powers and causing - Diana posits - her to lose her sight. Not that she’s helpless.  


Soon, they see they’re not the first people from the outside world to reach this place. 


If you’ve been reading DC Comics awhile, you’ll have worked out just where our heroes have wound up, whose lost world they’ve entered. If not, I heartily recommended you buy this first issue by the new Trinity storytelling team of James Robinson and Patch Zircher. The set-up is simple, but it allows for nice moments of characterisation shedding light on the relationship of DC’s Big Three, their different approaches and personalities. I particularly like that Superman has had such a rotten time with magic over the years that he can pretty much sense it. And of course the Amazons train with blindfolds, it’s just one more restraint. I’m not usually a fan of back-and-forth narrations, and here we do have Diana, Bruce and Clark narrating, but Robinson has their voices down pat, so the three perspectives complement rather than clash. The narrations are set up by a framing sequence in which Zircher shows how a fine artist can show personality through body language. 




Zircher apparently spends a great deal of time sketching from life. Whether it’s the pitch perfect facial expressions, the fearsome waves, even something as ordinary as a chair, he impresses with his devotion to details. His placement of blacks for shadow and atmosphere is superb, and he’s not afraid of tricky compositions, such as that shot looking down at our heroes from the trees.

And when the storyline’s special guest star shows up on the last page, blimey, that is one manly man! It’s just a shame this is one of those comics where someone reckons it’s a marvellous move to put the title and credits at the end, rather than the beginning; if the title is linked to a surprise, OK, but otherwise, as here, it’s random and gets in the way. 

Colourist Gabe Eltaeb looks to be having a whale of a time unleashing the unearthly oranges for skies and choosing sickly greens for lizard men, while Josh Reed’s lettering is exemplary. 

Zircher and Eltaeb’s main cover is well composed and coloured, while Bill Sienkiewicz’s variant is worthy of a 1930s pulp mag - it’s stunning. 


So if you fancy a story melding high adventure with superheroics, Trinity #17 has it all.  

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Trinity #17, James Robinson, Patch Zircher, Gabe Eltaeb, Josh Reed, Bill Sienkiewicz, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman



 

Comments

  1. So is "Trinity" a pretty decent book to follow? This seems quite encouraging. As a fan of the old "World's Finest" series, this seems to answer what happens when Wonder Woman joins the WF team.

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    1. It should be now. Bunn tried to make it a dark negative thing like all his series and his successor ran with it but with Robinson it's gonna be as much fun as his other stuff!

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    2. It's definitely more fun, yeah - I'd like to see our heroes visit everyone and everything in the DCU... have Diana and Bruce ever actuallt been to the Legion's future?

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    3. The Batman story I've always wanted to see is the Legion recruiting young inspiration Bruce Wayne like they did young Clark, putting the same mental blocks in, only to have the timeline change around them later as Bruce's indomitable will beat the blocks and he used future tech to wipe out crime as a fourteen year old. The story would end with their own future selves stopping the Legionnaires who were to recruit Bruce before they do so...

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    4. Now you’ve put that in my head, in a few years I’ll be convinced I read it... sounds a terrific tale!

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  2. I take it Diana wears a tiny thong if anything at all under that armour, according to the cover. I think that's worse looking than if she had briefs, but I guess that's just the artist.

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  3. Oh, I finally answered your reply in regards to the Artgerm TDNAOS variant cover.

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  4. Loved the guest star back in the day despite disliking the artist. They should fix his costume though. All I can think of when I see it is the dude must be hung like a toddler...

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  5. The guest-star and setting brought me back to this book. I agree that Robinson does a better job than most with the multiple narration trick (it might help that they're all presumably talking to the same person, for the same reason), and boy, do I love Patch Zircher's art.

    The story feels a little slight this time out, but still... it's so good to be back in Skataris!

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    1. It's certainly an about-turn from all that Eeeevil Trinity business... which I now realise I never actually finished. Oops.

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  6. One other thing, a bit of an Easter egg -- the lizard people worshiping the Travis's plane as a god was a plot point in Warlord #3. (And I'm SO glad that, from Batman's assessment of the plane, it seems he's still a Vietnam vet, rather than being updated to a more recent war. Time moves differently in Skataris!)

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    1. That's rather excellently observed. I never read Warlord, though I do have a trade paperback of the first stories waiting to be read, courtesy of the lovely Darrin and Ruth Sutherland of the Warlord Worlds podcast.

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    2. Over at the Captain Comics boards, I have a thread called Rob Reads Warlord, in which I recap whichever issues of Warlord I've been able to find in dollar bins. My term for the fashion sense of the book is "Disco Gladiator."

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    3. I must see if Darrin and Ruth know about this!

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    4. Here's the general link; it's been a few months since I've done a recap, but I hope to get back to it soon.

      http://captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/rob-reads-warlord

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    5. Oh, I’d already sent the link to the Sutherlands. Am trained newshound!

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    6. They’re enjoying a read, going to mention it on the podcast. You should guest!

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    7. Oh, wow, that would be fun!

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    8. Say hi via @WarlordWorlds on Twitter!

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  7. I really appreciate your thoughtful reviews. They’ve added a nice element to each NCBD.

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    1. Hello Sean, thanks so much, you just made my day. Let me know if there's anything you want covered.

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  8. I wish that whatever Robinson's channeling when writing Trinity he'd also channel while writing Wonder Woman. That his Trinity story, so far, is so much more fun than his WW run is frustrating, but at least we have this. And I agree about Zircher's art. I wasn't too familiar with him, and this is a mighty fine looking book. :-)

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