Broken Frontier

One dream, three heroes, and a mystery that could have cosmic ramifications.

Kurt Busiek is arguably one of the most creative guys in comics. He has peopled series like Astro City with a plethora of original comic book characters but he also has proven adept at handling the creations of others. In this case, DC Comics have handed him the keys to the kingdom – so to speak. The three most well-known, and among the oldest and most venerable of DC’s heroes, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are under Busiek’s pen for one year and 52 issues. The only problem is – is this a story that really needs or deserves to be told in a weekly format?

While Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman often work together battling evil and injustice, it is rare that Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent and Diana Prince meet for breakfast. Bruce has called the meeting to discuss a strange dream – a dream all three have had but no one else. What can this mean to the three old friends and three of the most talented and powerful heroes on the planet? In the backup story, the sorceress Morgaine le Fay and the villain called Enigma also have dreams… dreams that reveal more about the nature of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman and dreams that seem to call the evil doers to stand against the heroes. To do this, though, the villains need to find a third…

Busiek immediately gets to the hearts of these heroes. He wisely shows how their civilian identities are reflections of their heroic selves – no matter how much they may try to disguise the fact or not. By providing them with the same situation – in this case an identical dream – he shows how each of their backgrounds and upbringings cause them to see that same situation in very different ways. In other words, this first issue is all about showing how these heroes are the same and how they are different. In the backup story, co-written with Fabian Nicieza, Busiek goes on to show how the heroes also have other, symbolic roles that they play.

The problem here is not the subject matter or the approach. The problem is that, for a series starting out of the gate, the plot seems thin and there is a sense that nothing new is being brought to the table here. With 52 DC had the hook of innovation and telling a story about a missing year. The less-well-received Countdown at least had the hook of promising to set readers up for the (then) mysterious Final Crisis. But what does Trinity have? There is no hook here; there is nothing to make the series a "must read" and nothing that makes readers think that they will learn anything new about any of the three heroes. The story is well written, it is interesting, but there is nothing here that convinces me that it will be worth the money it will cost to carry it weekly for a year.

Also flexing new muscles here is long-time Marvel artist Mark Bagley, now brought to DC’s stable. Bagley hits a home run in his first time at bat here as he nails the depictions of Bruce, Clark and Diana. He perfectly captures Clark’s down-to-earthness, Diana’s unassuming beauty and practicality, and Bruce’s intensity. In fact, in a nice, humanizing touch Bagley even includes a slight hint of crow’s feet at the corners of Bruce’s eyes. He also stretches out for a nice, cosmic, double page spread that would probably have made the likes of Jack Kirby or Jim Steranko proud. For the backup Scott McDaniel does a solid job, although there is really not that much action here. McDaniel smoothes out his sometimes blocky style a bit here and that makes it fit better with Bagley’s work on the lead story.

Trinity #1 has all the makings of a good, solid story such as fans have come to expect from Busiek, but there is nothing in the opening that convinces it was screaming to be told in such a massive format. And as a number one issue, where DC has not really been publicizing the overall threat for the plot, it really needed to slam readers to the wall and hook them fast and hard. In this it ultimately fails.