This week examines the reach of the Troika’s plans with a look at DC antiquity; and introduces a couple of new mysteries about the altered timeline. Let’s get on with it, shall we…?
SPOILERS FOLLOW
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FIRST STORY
“A Hope For Tomorrow” (pages 2-10) was plotted by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, scripted by Nicieza, pencilled by Scott McDaniel, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Allen Passalaqua, lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.
In Brief: A flashback to ancient Egypt sets up turmoil in the present.
Page 1
– For those who came in late, this is Alfred Pennyworth, who’s a little more hands-on in the altered timeline.
– As the son of Prince Albert Edward (later King Edward I) and the grandson of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert Victor (1864-1892) was second in line to the British throne all his life. (Clearly this is not unlike Morgaine le Fay, as we saw last issue.) For our purposes I suppose it’s noteworthy that he was one of the “Jack the Ripper” suspects. The idea of his reign was also the subject of a series of alternative-history novels (King and Joker and Skeleton-In-Waiting) written by Peter Dickinson.
Pages 2-3
– As we know, Khufu grows up (so to speak) to be Hawkman.
– Set is the Egyptian god of evil.
– Nephthys represents the head of the household, and is also apparently the closest thing the ancient Egyptians had to Death personified.
– I am not just saying this because he’s been a frequent commenter here, but I do think that Allen Passalaqua’s coloring job was especially good in this story, and especially on these pages. I would ask “what can brown do for you,” but that might be too cute.
Page 4
– Tell El-Dab’a is thought to be the site of an ancient Egyptian capitol city called Avaris.
– Syene is another name for the Egyptian city of Aswan.
– Hath-Set and Chay-Ara are familiar to us from Hawkman’s origin. Like Chay-Ara, Hath-Set goes back to the first Hawkman story in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Dennis Neville.
– We’ve covered Nabu before briefly, in the annotations to issue #15. He was an ancient Egyptian magic-user prior to being revealed as a Lord of Order.
– Ra, Toth, and Ma’at are indeed the ancient Egyptian gods of the Sun, Moon, and truth/order/balance/justice; and Geb is the god of the Earth. I like the notion of these atavistic gods fading in influence now that the “rightful” Trinity has been displaced.
Page 5
– Naturally, we remember the spinning wheel of Hawk-fortune from issue #16. I don’t think there are any new lives to catalogue here.
Page 6
– No annotations.
Page 7
– “Ki No Tamayoshi”: the Internest isn’t coming through for me here. As listed in issue #16, there are two Japanese Hawk-incarnations, one in the 15th Century and one in the 17th, so I suppose he could be either one.
– Like Hannibal “Nighthawk” Hawks, Kay “Cinnamon” Manser was an existing DC character later incorporated into the Hawkman mythology (in Hawkman vol. 4 #7 (November 2002)). Created by Roger McKenzie and Jack Abel and first appearing in Weird Western Tales #48 (September-October 1978), she was a red-haired Old West gunslinger eventually revealed as the reincarnation of Chay-Ara.
Page 8
– No annotations.
Page 9
– The Thanagarian starship was first seen around JSA #20 (March 2001). According to Chris Miller’s chronology, this places the story at approximately 1270 B.C.E.
Page 10
– “Died in my service for the salvation of a world they would never see”: this is not exactly a rare sentiment, but it’s put pretty eloquently here.
– “The world’s soul”: there’s that term again….
Page 11
– The casing is made of gravity-defying Nth Metal, of course.
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SECOND STORY
“Winds Of Change” (pages 1, 11-22) was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.
In Brief: The JSI struggles with the Troika, Gehenna, and a spare Tomorrow Woman.
Pages 12-13 (story pages 1-2)
– I just realized … Kanjar Ro is (shudder) naked.
Page 14/3
– The idea of the Justice Society “taking over the world” in an altered timeline was also explored in the excellent DC 2000 miniseries, written by Tom Peyer, pencilled by Val Semeiks, and inked by Prentis Rollins. The villain T.O. Morrow changes the world of the 1940s with inventions from, yes, the year 2000 … but once the original JSA gets a look at the horrific turn of the millennium, they decide they have to stop it from happening. Read it just for the Spectre’s reaction to a laptop. Oh, and the line “… your consciousness couldn’t threaten a kitten.”
– No new Justice Socialites here; only Power Girl, Atom-Smasher, Triumph, Sky Rocket, Red Tornado, and Black Lightning.
Page 15
– Hey, it’s page 23 from issue #1! The differences in dialogue are mostly degrees of specificity: no mentions of “after-patrol cocktails” or “protect[ing] business interests” in the original.
Page 16
– Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know what’s going on here. (No sarcasm intended, either.) Sending Green Arrow and Speedy “away” with a word might be one of Ragman’s (or Tatters’) powers. However, it might also be a callback to issue #2, when Batman left the Magic!Gotham with a single spoken word.
Page 17
– Catwoman, a/k/a Selina Kyle (although we’re not sure it’s Selina in this timeline) was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and first appeared (as “The Cat”) in Batman #1 (Spring 1940).
– Remember from issue #18 that in the altered reality, there is no Joker … so here, Catwoman has taken up his poison-the-water-with-your-signature-chemical schtick.
Page 18
– Brainwave Jr., a/k/a Henry King Jr., is the son of the original Brainwave (Henry King, of course), a villain who fought the Justice Society. Junior was created by Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, and Mike Machlan, and first appeared in All-Star Squadron #24 (August 1983). Dad was created by Gardner Fox and Joe Gallagher and first appeared in All Star Comics # 15 (February-March 1943).
Page 19
– “Quadri-lobed mutant brain”: this is part of the cover story programmed into the android Tomorrow Woman, who didn’t realize she was an android until too late. In her first appearance in JLA #5 (May 1997) she supposed herself to be a mutant, “the first of a new species, born ahead of my time.”
– Forgot to mention that Tomorrow Woman is yet another character who is dead in the regular timeline (as of JLA #5) but alive here.
– Remember from issue #17 that the Ultra-Humanite has been terrorizing Metropolis.
– “Richard”: no idea.
Page 20
– No annotations.
Page 21
– This Tomorrow Woman sports her original costume, designed by Howard Porter.
Page 22
– No annotations.
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I’ll close this week by answering a question from commenter Julius Brown: would I still buy Trinity if I didn’t have to?
Yeah, I would; and I say that without hesitation. Trinity isn’t without its flaws, but this space is more about immediate reactions and I would prefer to discuss the overall pluses and minuses from more of a distance. Even with its roots in Busiek’s JLA and Superman, I don’t know that I would call it another Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or Justice League series. I’m not even sure it’s World’s Finest Plus One. It’s becoming a story about DC-Earth itself — about the way that this conglomeration of characters dreamed up by dozens, if not hundreds, of different people can actually share a universe. Now, I’m not going to start humming “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing,” and I know that there’s more to the names I list every week than just who created what, but there is a certain elegance to the way Busiek, Bagley, Nicieza, et al., bring these characters to life.
I have said before that the central conceit of this series comes out of what some might see as a happy accident of publishing. Well, with over half the story still to come, Trinity is justifying its conceit pretty well. It’s been a fun series, and I think it will hold up well over the long term.
Back next week!
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Act One (including links to previous issues)
October 31st, 2008 at 10:15 am
Hmmm…. looks pretty “inside baseball”, which has its fans but not me. I refused to buy this on the basis of getting burned by the utter garbage that was Countdown – man, what I could have done with $156… and it looks like this wouldn’t appeal to me not from being garbage, but from being very um, engaged.
Is it good? fun to read? enjoyable?
October 31st, 2008 at 11:45 am
“Is it good? fun to read? enjoyable?”
Yes.
If only for the realization that Batman is the reason why Ollie Queen is a social liberal.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I gave up after issue 10 (anyone want the ones I bought?). I still take a look at the annotations here, just to see what’s happening, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.
“Inside Baseball” is a great way to describe Trinity. Tom’s annotations were helpful at first, but even those lost me after awhile simply because I had little to no context to most of the references that were being made. More and more characters show up, and from what I can tell The Big 3 are AWOL? Didn’t that already happen in 52? From what I can tell, the book is more about Hawkman (whom I can’t stand) than it is about the supposed trinity.
So, “Is it good? fun to read? enjoyable?” Not for me, but I’m sure for some readers it is. I think it’s every bit as convoluted as the previous DC weeklies, and just like those books I’m not seeing the payoff with this one. But I guess it depends on what you want from the book. I’m just happy to save the $3 for something else each week.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am
Well, maybe it depends on how you define “inside baseball.” I would disagree with that description, because despite what I do here each week, Trinity seems very new-reader-friendly to me. I mean, it doesn’t try to tie into the main characters’ regular titles, and it certainly doesn’t try to be as plugged-into current continuity as Countdown or even 52.
You do have to know the basics of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their immediate friends and families, but I don’t think it requires any more of a learning curve than the average episode of “Justice League” did. Now, that said, Trinity does take full advantage of DC’s characters and history, and there have been some fairly obscure references (I may give out awards at the end), but those are more like Easter eggs than anything else. Let me be clear: ideally, you shouldn’t t need me to understand the book. I’m basically trying to see if I should be reading anything between the lines, and I still struck out with the Void Hound subplot.
Naturally, if you don’t like Hawkman (and I’m on record as not being the world’s greatest Hawkman fan) or if you’re looking for something which does tie into “New Krypton” and “R.I.P.” explicitly, then I can understand your frustration. The book did start rather slowly, with the Trinitarians saying what probably seemed like very obvious things about themselves. Still, I’ve seen many readers say that it picked up with the Crime Syndicate storyline, and I am enjoying the Trinity-less Act 2 so far.
I understand that the cost to get completely up to speed is around $66.00 retail. However, Act 2 started in earnest with issue #18, and that’s only five issues (six including next week’s). If you’re interested in jumping back on, that’s not a bad place to start.
November 1st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I liked “DC 2000″ a lot as well.
November 1st, 2008 at 8:25 pm
“Tom’s annotations were helpful at first, but even those lost me after awhile simply because I had little to no context to most of the references that were being made. ”
Um, is this another “I don’t get allusions” complaint?
November 2nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
You don’t need to know much of anything to understand Trinity in my opinion. Knowing the stuff just enhances the experience.
If anything, the most important thing to have read is Busiek’s JLA/Avengers and his JLA followup story with the Crime Syndicate.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
So far, Trinity has proven to be a much more enjoyable read than Countdown (though still working to reach 52). Let’s hope that is does not fall victim to one of Countdown’s biggest problems (in my opinion) and begin to have “wandering” storylines, that do not appear to have a viable ending…
I do have some questions around Hawkman’s origin(s), especially in light of the Rann/ Thanagar Holy War series.
****Spoilers****
Not sure how Hawkman’s past lives work into his overall story, considering in the Hawkman Special, this portion of his background was said to be false. This, however, could have simply been a ploy to create confusion by Synnar. Or, is could be another example of DC editorial snafu’s (e.g. the apparent diconnect between Death of the New Gods and the ending of Countdown).
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for the props!
“Is it good? fun to read? enjoyable?”
it’s good to work on and fun to read, thus enjoyable to me
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
“Well, maybe it depends on how you define “inside baseball.” I would disagree with that description, because despite what I do here each week, Trinity seems very new-reader-friendly to me.”
Trinity is the first comic I ever regularly bought– and while I’ve enjoyed coming here and finding out all the background detail, my standard pop-culture knowledge of the heroes has usually been enough. Moreover, I’m really happy that this story hasn’t been tied down with continuity– I tried getting into Batman at the same time, and he was wearing purple. This was not what I wanted. Bats in Trinity (at least as long as he existed) was classic Batman, and I got to see him do Batman-like things.
I mean, I look at Trinity almost like a DC Universe Sampler. I’ve gotten into Superman based off this book, dabbled with Wonder Woman and JLA, I want to go back and read some Firestorm, and the moment Primat shows up in Nightwing, I’m there.
So yeah, it’s a great comic for a new reader. I’m loving it.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:02 am
It is an enjoyable book. I saw this on here and it enhances the stories some with a lot of information but you do not need it to be entertained by the books.
I have been pleasantly surprised that so many different characters have been woven into the series,even minor ones such as Gangbuster.
I was fearful it would be an overload of how great and perfect the “Trinity” are but it`s come off as more of an ensemble piece with different characters playing many different roles and all of them trying to help each other.
Oh,and Batman was wrong for once! How great is that!? lol
And i happen to like Hawkman.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Re: inside baseball: this is exactly what I’ve always loved about Busiek, his knowledge of comics history and love of obscure characters.
That said, I’m a recent DC convert and find this series totally approachable. I think it does a fine job of telling the reader all he needs to know; the various backstories we see here in Annotations are there for those who want them but IMO aren’t necessary to enjoy the story.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I’m clearly in the minority on this one!
That’s okay. Trinity just wasn’t for me. I wanted a book with The Big 3, and something that put WW on par with the other two. Trinity’s been a lot of things, but I don’t think it’s been what I wanted. A book about the 3, but the 3 get “benched”? Not what I wanted. And I’ve never read Busiek’s JLA stuff. So, I move on.
Here’s an interesting, mostly negative review that sums up a lot of what I felt about Trinity. I just hadn’t put in these words (Scroll down a bit to see it):
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38986
November 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Blessedly, they’ve shied away from the events of the Hawkman Special, claiming it was a “toe in the water” to see how people would react to another Hawkman revamp. The reaction was loud, sharp and quick – “never again”. Besides, why are we supposed to suddenly trust what this villain that came outta nowhere said in the first place?
Trinity has been a delightful surprise issue after issue. Even if you don’t know that character x is a reference to a story from ten years ago, it doesn’t matter; the story works even if you don’t know all the jokes.
This is, I think, the second or so (maybe much more – correction anyone?) time we’ve seen the main and backup stories swap places in both position and page length. It just drives home the point that they are equally important parts of the narrative. Sometimes a backup character becomes a more important part of a story, so here does the secondary plot points require primary coverage. It’s a neat storytelling process, and a very successful one.
It amazes me that Kurt and Fabian are not far more respected and appreciated writers than they are. Their talent at weaving a dense story, steeped in continuity while still remaining accessible to new readers is impressive.
January 17th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Better narrate. Thanks for posting such an in depth impression. I’ve handled one in the market, but your review covered alot of ground that i couldn’t with such a small estimate of time. based on my in-store feel and your spin i consider i’ll be