The greatly hyped and touted DC Comics summer event has come as past. Was there aplomb? Was there anything of any significance and importance? Was it even good? Well, those are tricky questions within themselves but the truth is that overall that no is the correct answer. "Trinity War" has been highly disappointing.
Now, while I say that I only really mean that the crossover itself as a whole was completely underwhelming. More specifically it was only interesting and even a bit engaging in very sparse and rare moments within the main six issues. Otherwise the whole thing was a plodding, dragging, mess that could have been done in half the amount of time. Three issue at max really, as any more would again drift into the filler infested and backtracking story that was actually released. If it had been advertised and put out as a small prelude to, the honestly better sounding, "Forever Evil" then this would have been softened to some amount.
As a conclusion Justice League #23 follows suit from the other parts of "Trinity War" in neglecting and ignoring all other parts of the story in favor of what it wants to accomplish. In truth, if anyone wanted to pick up and read the story all they would need is the final part since nothing else matters or carries over. Not only that but the ending flies in the face of every other bit of set-up that has been littered through the DCU for the past two years. If anyone had actually been following this narrative it comes off as a giant left field turn. In general it also makes every magical DC character also look incredibly incompetent.
The big twist as the end of "Trinity War" is exactly the same as the big twist from Lemire's Justice League Dark run. That the whole magic subplot, including the one featuring the highly publicized Trinity of Sin, was entirely a red herring. As it turns out everything was part of some gimmicky and generic 'sci-fi' plot. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if there has been build up to it, but when your highest authorities on magic go out and call Pandora's Box magic and then you do a supposed "twist", then you're stretching the boundaries of willing suspension of disbelief. That and the rather blatant turn to try to make the title "Trinity War" into a reference to Earth-Three was just rather hamfisted.
Speaking of Earth-Three, otherwise known as DC's standard "evil universe", it's become well knowledge that this crossover was simply prelude to "Forever Evil" which focuses on the Crime Syndicate as the main villains. They make their first appearance in the final pages of this issue and are pretty much the best part of the conclusion, and of the the crossover in general. In almost all regards really. They were the best written, the best drawn, and overall proved a whole lot more imposing as villains than any of the conflicts that have been forced in this crossover. Johns is able to belt out small character pieces in a matter of panels that just really set in stone who the Crime Syndicate are.
I won't go into too much detail about each member suffice it to say that one of the stand out ones was Johnny Quick and Atomica, who comes off as a rather refreshing homage to the old 50's greaser/dame dynamic - and it works greatly. Ivan Reis, perhaps given his standard DC "house style", is able to give the Crime Syndicate a look that is both new and yet very old school. To sum up I really wanted to see more of these guys and I guess that I've been waiting for "Forever Evil" to start ever since "Trinity War" began, and now the moment of truth has arrived. Hopefully it will be better than this tacked together tale.
