The aftermath of ‘Superman: Reborn’ has consequences for more than just the Man Of Steel. How will Batman and Wonder Woman respond to the knowledge that their very reality is being altered? Your Major Spoilers review of Trinity #8 awaits!
TRINITY #8
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Penciler: Emanuela Lupacchino
Inker: Ray McCarthy
Colorist: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Paul Kaminsky
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Trinity: “Kal-El reveals to Batman and Wonder Woman what had happened to him-and how they all may be in danger!”
“THEY’VE BEEN TWISTING MY HISTORY…”
As this issue opens, we find Superman explaining a recurring nightmare: Another Superman has arrived, and their battle has spilled out into the streets of Metropolis. The battle for the right to be himself leaves Superman shaken and concerned… Cut to the Fortress Of Solitude, where we find the Man Of Steel, fresh off having his reality reshaped for the umpteenth time, explaining the dream to a sympathetic Wonder Woman and a dismissive Batman. Their interaction underlines their places in the DCU: Wonder Woman hopeful and ready to help; Superman cautious, wanting to protect his friends; Batman unwilling to consider any possibility other than fighting what’s in front of them. As Superman explains the mysterious hooded man who has popped up since the beginning of ‘Rebirth’, the dream gets weird: Multiple Batmen and Wonder Women spill into existence as well, and the three heroes are faced with the terrifying reality that they’re NOT who they are, but just part of an infinite series of multiversal echoes…
PLAYING WITH THE META-STORY
On the one hand, it’s interesting to see one of these multiverse shakeups played for drama: The Crisis’ changes were mostly unremarked upon, save for Grant Morrison’s ‘Animal Man’, and even Zero Hour’s sweeping alterations to reality were seldom the primary narrative drive of the story. The disappointment comes in the execution: The visuals of the infinite Trinity would have held much more weight were they the actual previous designs rather than generic alter-egos. (If the intention was to show specific Bats and Supers, the artist fell well short, and most of the visuals are unremarkable throughout the issue, with the details of costuming and positioning changing from page to page…) The issue ends with our threesome deciding NOT to tell anyone what they know, especially the Justice League, which means that the lessons they presumably learned from ‘Identity Crisis’ have been forgotten and/or retconned away, which is worrisome. All in all, though, the greatest weakness of this issue comes in the fact that nearly nothing actually happens, and the attempt to add action scenes in the form of Superman’s dream makes that fact painfully obvious throughout…
THE BOTTOM LINE: A LOTTA SOUND AND FURY
I’ve gone on record as saying that the use of The Trinity as separate and distinct from the JLA or the greater community of superhumans is a mistake, one that doesn’t make these earliest heroes seem more important so much as it devalues the rest of DC’s mythos. Trinity #8 makes that part and parcel of the narrative, even doubling down by having the heroes refuse to share intel with their colleagues on what is clearly a massive, universal threat, which makes them seem selfish at best and downright stupid at worst, leaving the issue with a middle of the road 3 out of 5 stars overall. With the build to “Mister Oz” being so prolonged, I can’t help but wonder if the eventual reveal of what’s actually going on is going to be completely anticlimactic…
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