Trinity
The much vaunted and hyped fourth weekly series ( Action, 52, Countdown) 'Trinity' by BUsiek and Bagley is a very odd thing. Initially I wrote it off as just crap, boring, unimpressive and a very pedestrian project for two such high-profile and quality creators to be involved with.
Now, after reading through the issues up to 12, it's still not terribly good but it's at least more intriguing as to why it's not blowing me away.
To my mind, Busiek is over-egging the pie. He seems to be trying to work about three or four different types of stories into the mix and it's simply not working. On the one hand, he wants to do a series that (re)defines the powers, the personalities and the relationships between the titular trinity of the DCU, Superman, Batman and Wonder-woman. On the other hand he also wants a galaxy spanning saga of sneaky behind the scenes doings and mysterious villains such as Enigma. ANd on top of all that he decides to use the multi-verse in exactly the way that it shouldn't be used: a big huge confusing mess of alternate realities thrown at us for no good reason except for cheap spectacle.
And all of these aspects do not mix well. The initial storyline about the relationships between the three and their personalities is just not very interesting and not very well done. Busiek doesn't have them defined well enough to then 'swap' their personalities and show the three of them being manipulated into 'growing closer' in terms of each becoming more like the other for us to properly notice. In other words, it's a badly thought out idea that leads to a lacklustre story.
It just doesn't work.
Then we have the villains manipulating things behind the scenes. And again it's a big resounding 'who cares?' as the villains are cliched, cardboard, crap and just not enough to hold anyone's interest.
So we have the usage of the Multiverse and I'm just not impressed with this either. Don't get me wrong, I love the Multiverse, I am delighted that DC finally had the sense to bring it back but I'm also keenly aware of why it went away first time and why DC need to follow what Grant Morrison and Dan Didio have been promising this time, that it will be treated as separate lines of books from DC and not just used for every half-baked crossover idea that comes along. And here we are, in a half-baked crossover idea that came along and there it is. Oh my.
DC probably needs to drop the weekly book idea for a while unless it has something really special and more importantly, appropriate for the format to offer. 'Trinity' is just not interesting enough or sustainable enough in the long run to fill a weekly book by itself (even with yawntastic back-up strip each week) and will inevitably just lead to driving readers away and souring them on the potential of the weekly which would be a terrible shame.
Now, after reading through the issues up to 12, it's still not terribly good but it's at least more intriguing as to why it's not blowing me away.
To my mind, Busiek is over-egging the pie. He seems to be trying to work about three or four different types of stories into the mix and it's simply not working. On the one hand, he wants to do a series that (re)defines the powers, the personalities and the relationships between the titular trinity of the DCU, Superman, Batman and Wonder-woman. On the other hand he also wants a galaxy spanning saga of sneaky behind the scenes doings and mysterious villains such as Enigma. ANd on top of all that he decides to use the multi-verse in exactly the way that it shouldn't be used: a big huge confusing mess of alternate realities thrown at us for no good reason except for cheap spectacle.
And all of these aspects do not mix well. The initial storyline about the relationships between the three and their personalities is just not very interesting and not very well done. Busiek doesn't have them defined well enough to then 'swap' their personalities and show the three of them being manipulated into 'growing closer' in terms of each becoming more like the other for us to properly notice. In other words, it's a badly thought out idea that leads to a lacklustre story.
It just doesn't work.
Then we have the villains manipulating things behind the scenes. And again it's a big resounding 'who cares?' as the villains are cliched, cardboard, crap and just not enough to hold anyone's interest.
So we have the usage of the Multiverse and I'm just not impressed with this either. Don't get me wrong, I love the Multiverse, I am delighted that DC finally had the sense to bring it back but I'm also keenly aware of why it went away first time and why DC need to follow what Grant Morrison and Dan Didio have been promising this time, that it will be treated as separate lines of books from DC and not just used for every half-baked crossover idea that comes along. And here we are, in a half-baked crossover idea that came along and there it is. Oh my.
DC probably needs to drop the weekly book idea for a while unless it has something really special and more importantly, appropriate for the format to offer. 'Trinity' is just not interesting enough or sustainable enough in the long run to fill a weekly book by itself (even with yawntastic back-up strip each week) and will inevitably just lead to driving readers away and souring them on the potential of the weekly which would be a terrible shame.