Miles’ Book
Trinity #2
Written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza
Art by Mark Bagley, Tom Derenick, and Wayne Faucher
DC Comics, 2008
After reading this, the second issue of Trinity, I have come to the conclusion that DC Comics no longer wants new readers. Between comics like this and Final Crisis, the editors of DC have decided that they have enough readers and should only cater to the most devote of them. Here we are, the second issue into a 52-part story and I spent most of the issue thinking, “What is going on; I’m sleepy.”
It was a good idea. Put Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in a weekly, eleven-page series and have two decently talented people do it. Then you have recently-washed-on-shore Fabian Nicieza, unseen since his days writing all the X-Men titles in 1996, do a connected eleven-page backup story with the farm team. The problem is that this story opens with our three heroes already in an action scene with no explanation as to what they are doing. Then Superman says something like, “These fights must all be connected,” and you think, “Well, that’s a leap of logic. Why does he think this? Oh right. I don’t know because DC stubbornly refuses to put recap pages in their fucking books. Fuck this, I’m buying more Marvel.”
Busiek does make parts of this issue worth while with some nice writing. However, I think he’s overwriting Batman’s inner monologue. At one point he actually thinks, “I don’t like this.” Which is silly, because Batman doesn’t like anything; he doesn’t need to single this out. The backup story by Nicieza only enforces what I said about “what the hell is going on” because, besides a long-finished joke about how Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, I had no idea what the hell anyone was talking about.
Bagley does okay on his very fast art chores. There is something about his facial features, though, that remind me of teenagers — so everyone looks like the teen version of themselves. This might be partly influenced by the 100+ issues of Ultimate Spider-Man I read that he drew.
The other major stay-away factor in this issue is Chip Kidd’s monstrously ugly logo for the book, proving that even geniuses have off days. I love Chip Kidd’s design. I have a whole book of just his book covers. But this is, bar none, the ugliest logo of all time.
So excuse me while I go buy some more Marvel.
Isaac’s Book
Angel: After the Fall #8
Written by Joss Whedon and Brian Lynch
Art by Tim Kane, Fabio Mantovani, Kevin Schmidt, and Mirco Pierfederici
IDW Publishing, 2008
I haven’t been following any these Angel “season six” comics. It’s only because of a friend that I’ve been reading the Buffy comics (Buffy is published by Dark Horse, and these Angel books by IDW, so it’s no surprise that reading the one gives no insight into the other). But I did watch a whole bunch of the Angel television series, so I know how the show ended and pretty much where the comic picks up: Angel and his crew against an overwhelming horde of monsters, a quick quip, and into the fray – probably to their deaths.
That was the end of the series. I apologize if I go back to that point a bunch of times, it’s just that I always want my heroes to pull out the big win in the end and I wasn’t really happy that that was the end of the show I had invested so much time in.
Even though this is issue eight of this series and I should be totally lost about what’s going on, things don’t seem to have progressed that far from where the show left off. A big part of that is because this issue contains a couple of mini stories. So whatever adventures that have happened advancing our heroes’ cause to save the day in issues 1-7 doesn’t come into play here. With the probable exception of a vampire arguing with a taunting fish that’s lying on the floor. Whether the fish is actually talking to this guy, or the fish is just a trick of his own mind, it’s pretty awesome. The fish is purple, by the way.
In a Gunn vignette I get the clearest view of what exactly happened after the series ended, however it quickly stops being about the battle and starts being about Gunn being abandoned (at least by his point of view) and rescued by a bunch of vampires. Here’s something I love: Gunn is lying in bed, seriously bandaged up, not saying a word, but with his narration boxes (Yeah, I guess they’re more dignified than thought balloons. They definitely serve two very different styles of storytelling.) it’s clear that he’s analyzing the situation he’s in, not sure of his surroundings and what kind of danger he may be in. This long haired fellow (you may know him from earlier in the series if you’ve been reading along, but he’s new to me) walks up to Gunn with a little wave and says “Everything is going to be okay.” Then Gunn thinks “Good. He’s delusional. Use that.”
Well, I liked the line.
The art is pretty solid all throughout the book, in the story “Gwen” the carnage that erupts suddenly in the background is a less defined, impressionistic end of the world, which oppresses us into a state of shock – this is even more true of the story “Civilians” where we don’t have the good looking Gwen to “hold our hand” through the end of the world scenario, ending our fears. Just some regular non-beautiful people who probably never once had a speaking part or even a cameo when the show was on air.
Just out of curiosity I bought Trinity #1 and the main thoughts I got out of it was “Why is some guy with a helmet fighting Morgaine Le Fey? What’s the point? Why do I care?” Too much wasted porential.