For The Love of Comics

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After a very very VERY slow start, Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley’s Trinity seems to finally kicking into gear. The past five issues have mainly been a set-up arc, establishing what Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman each stand for and their relationships with - and how they relate to - each other. We’ve also briefly been introduced to (for lack of a better term) the trinity of evil - Despero, Morgan Le Fay and the mysterious Enigma - who may or may not have a connection to Riddler.

Unfortunately, the splitting of issues between the main story and backup stories means that this opening arc, which should have taken only two issues, took five issues to complete. In this issue, Busiek seems to finally have decided that he’s established what he needs to have established and has set up the heroes to delve into this whole “Trinity” thing, but many people, like Mike Haynes of Panels of Awesome, have already written the series off and dropped it from their pull lists.

I’m glad that Busiek is ready to move on and I somewhat enjoyed this issue, but there was one page that stood out to me as a pretty big flaw and perhaps another symptom of what’s been wrong with the series so far.

While I totally get what Busiek is trying to say and it’s a somewhat valid point, I’m not sure that this was the time or place to make that point. It required pulling us out of the story and making Diana seem (to me) somewhat out of character.

And, really, I suspect that may be exactly the problem with Trinity. Busiek has made story secondary to what he wants to do with the series, and that’s bad writing. I obviously don’t have the skills to do any better, but I know better can be done - I see it every day.

I’m still in it for the long haul, but I may end up being the only one if this series - and Busiek’s writing - doesn’t come together soon.

Technorati Tags: Trinity, DC, Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Morgan Le Fay, Despero, Enigma, Mark Bagley, Kurt Busiek

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CBR has an interview with Kurt Busiek about DC’s FINALLY revealed next weekly series, titled Trinity. As the title implies, the series will focus on DC’s holy trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Busiek will be the main writer for the series, with Fabian Nicieza handling partial cowriting and Mark Bagley handling art.

“The most obvious is that it is about Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. But the term ‘trinity’ means more than that there are three of them. Why are they a trinity? What’s important about them being a trinity? The word ‘trinity’ and the concept of ‘the trinity’ are central to the story we are telling. It’s not just a fancy way of saying ‘three guys.’ There is more to it than that.”

Rumors have been circling for months that Jim Starlin’s “Death of the New Gods” mini-series was possibly making way for DC’s holy trinity to make the leap themselves to a god-like status in DCU, but Busiek said drawing a religious parallel to the book’s title may be a bit of a stretch.

“Clearly, Superman is the father, Wonder Woman is son and Batman is the Holy Ghost,” laughed Busiek. “Yes, first we will start with the ‘Song of Solomon’ but it will be the ‘Sound of Solomon Grundy.’

“No, ‘Death of the New Gods’ is one of the series that is leading into ‘Final Crisis.’ ‘Trinity’ is not ‘Final Crisis’ related. It is a relatively self-contained story that follows its own track. It’s part of the DC Universe, but it’s not one thread in the giant plot structure that is a big event. It is its own story. It has a beginning, a middle and an ending. There will be repercussions, yes. It has new characters that are introduced that I sure hope will spin off into their own mini-series or series or things like that, but it’s not leading to ‘Final Crisis 2: This Time It’s Personal.”

So speaketh the Busiek.

To read the entire interview, check out CBR’s article.

Perhaps I should know better after Countdown, but I’m kind of excited about this series. The beginning of Batman and Superman was excellent, the creative team on this series is top-level, and they’re avoiding my main problem with Countdown by making this series self-contained, all very good signs.

Regardless, it appears that we have about four months before we find out if DC’s learned their lesson or this whole weekly concept has run its course.

Technorati Tags: Comics, DC, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Trinity, Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley

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