EP0034: Trinity, Vol. 2: Dead Space

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The book featuring DC’s most awesome heroes (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) begins with three villains gathering and then our heroes having a pow wow to discuss continuity before getting to a real adventure.

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Transcript below:

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, DC’s longest enduring superheroes come together to talk. We’ll tell you all about it next as we take a look at Trinity Volume Two: Dead Space straight ahead.

Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham.

Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the only three characters to have published continuously since World War II. Yes, there’s Captain America but he disappeared from publication for many years. Those three continued to be published even during that really dark spot between 1948 and 1956 when superhero comics really faded away. It was not actually thought to put all three of them together in their own book until 2003 when there was a three issue mini-series called Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman: Trinity and this was followed up in 2008 with a fifty-two week series of weekly comics called Trinity. With DC Rebirth a new Trinity series was relaunched. The first volume Trinity Volume One: Better Together focused on them getting used to the new status of a Superman we’ve talked about before being the post-crisis Superman, as opposed to The New 52 Superman. It wasn’t a great story but it was fairly good. Volume 2 of the series Dead Space collects issues Seven through Eleven of the series. [In Issue Seven] there’s neither Superman ,Batman or Wonder Woman but instead features there are three archenemies: Ra’s al Ghul, Luthor and Circe, and they’re being offered access to the Pandora Pit which will give them all sorts of evil power.

Now there are a couple of problems with this. From what I gather this issue does pay off and become something several issues down the line. I have a problem with that when you’re dealing with a monthly comic book and you’re setting up events and saying ‘Don’t worry, this’ll make sense in another book’ if you’re reading from the trade or in four months if you’re reading from the actual comics. So, yeah, that’s a somewhat dubious practice. The other problem is Lex Luthor was a bit off in this story because Luthor actually – if you’ve been reading Action Comics – has been trying to be somewhat of a hero, and that sort of determination to be a better person is kind of…it gets a bit of a battering in the story. He doesn’t go completely evil; in fact, he’s the one who is hesitant about a lot of this, not just because it’s evil but because it deals with magic which is not something he’s particularly comfortable with. Still this is a very talky issue without our heroes in it directly and yeah, it’s was just not a great read.

Issue Eight is The Truth About Superman which is another series or guest piece by the same writer, different artists and it’s essentially Superman relating a dream which we see drawn out and then them talking about it. And this is another really long talky issue with them just going back and forth about this thing that Superman barely understands himself. It’s not really necessary to be in Trinity because Superman has his own aftermath on this issue, and there’s just some stuff in there that’s lame, such as when Batman says in regards to the dream, “I’m not sure I love the idea of you having visions of me running around inside your brain”, and Wonder Woman says, “It’s not time for jokes”. Batman joking is not really a thing that happens too often, and you’d hope if he did tell a joke it would be better than that.

Finally, the book wraps up with a three-part story, Dead Space, which is actually by the title Trinity Titles main author Francis Manapul. So, he actually writes and draw the story, and the plot is that aliens have taken over the Justice League on the Watchtower. Most of the members have succumbed, The Flash is trying to hold on using his speed power but nearing the place of exhaustion. The Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman meet with an alien who explains that what this happened, these aliens were released from his care and the only way to save the Earth from destruction and further infection is destroy both his ship and the Watchtower. And this is not a great story but it is a pretty good one. It’s kind of a standard tale, but there is a twist at the end that actually does make it work and stand out slightly from all of the Justice League possessed stories that have been told, and there have been quite a few.

The art is far superior to anything else in the book with Manapul doing a great job. I’ve always loved his art since I first read it back when he was doing The Flash, but like I said it wasn’t that great and the other two issues were just really dull, and there does seem to be a lack of direction on the series. This series actually has been cancelled by DC and I’m not minded to read any further books in the series. It seems kind of directionless and unclear on what it wanted to be in the first place. There been some good moments but I’m going to go ahead and stop with the reading the Trinity series, and I’ll give Volume Two a rating of Not Classy – although if you want a nice Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Justice League story and it happens to be at your library, if you skip the first two stories and read the last one it could be a worthwhile read.

Alright, well that’s all for now. If you do have a comment email to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com; follow us on Twitter @ClassyComicsGuy and visit the website classycomicsguy.com. From Boise, Idaho this is your host, Adam Graham, signing off.

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