The team has traveled a long way to the mystical world of Skartaris. Now they need to travel across the dangerous lands and help the Warlord. Will they make it in time, or will they suffer the same fate as the many men before them?
Trinity #18
Author: James Robinson
Artist: Patch Zircher
Colors: Gabe Eltaeb
Letters: Carlos M. Mangual
Publisher: DC Comics
!!!Spoiler Warning!!!
What You Need to Know:
The Trinity is confessing their story to an unknown assailant of their experience in a very foreign land. We follow the story as they originally go looking for a way back to Themyscira. Wonder Woman has been deceived many times before about her home island and her Amazonian sisters, but she has decided to find a permanent way back to her family. Her most trusted allies, Batman and Superman, have offered to help and immediately find themselves searching all over the Atlantic ocean for the hidden island.
As soon as the team finds any evidence of magic, they start spiraling their way through an interdimensional portal where they get spit out and crash land on a yet unknown island.
Wonder Woman quickly deciphers where they have landed and assures the team it is not Themyscira but Skartaris. Our heroes soon find out that Wonder Woman has yet again lost her eyesight, and Superman is powerless due to the magic forces within the land. Batman is the only one still feeling himself as the team is almost immediately attacked by giant lizard men. After an excruciating battle, the team is greeted by the welcoming Warlord who explains they are here for a purpose.
What You’ll Find Out:
The second issue of the “No Home for You Here” arc starts the same way as the first, with our heroes telling the story of their adventure on Skartaris. Each hero has a vastly different opinion on how they felt when they arrived, Batman being the most dramatic due to being a mere mortal amongst yet another godlike character.
After transitioning to the actual story we find out that this Warlord is merely an apparition created by his magical daughter Jennifer. He explains that his home is under siege by his nemesis Deimos.
Before the vision of him can even tell them a direction to go in the team is attacked again by different looking monsters that are obviously agents of Deimos, due to their constant chanting of his name. Superman and Wonder Woman both get a cool highlight to them adapting to their handicaps. Superman even compares himself to Batman and admits a jealousy of his ableness to forget about his constant handicap of being a regular human.
After an unnerving fight, Batman finds a group of dead soldiers from earth. The group looked like they had died of old age.
After finding dog tags that explain a connection to the dead soldiers and a ship they saw when dragged through the portal towards Skartaris, they stumble upon another apparition of Warlords daughter Jennifer. She explains to the group that her father is actually dead and that they must hurry to stop Deimos’ army from destroying their peaceful land. On top of that, the land they are traveling through seems to have a mind of its own. Time functions very differently here as the team finds a way to travel a little more quickly without their powers. With the help of some interestingly mystical friends, the group travels through the different landscapes of Skartaris battling horde after horde of different monsters.
On the final stretch of their journey, they can all agree it feels as though they are being watched. This suspicion is confirmed to the viewer by a single panel of the antagonist Deimos watching the team fight his army through what seems to be a magical mirror.
The Trinity reaches their destination to find that what Warlord and his daughter both said was true, their home of Shamballah is in shambles as Deimos’ army overburdens the men fighting for their home. Wonder Woman makes a truly inspirational entry into battle as she successfully flies the two flightless heroes into battle and also executes a major monster of Deimos’.
The issue ends as Jennifer jokes about the eventful entrance but breaks the bad news that the team has almost suffered the same fate as the soldiers seen earlier as the last panel shows an aged Trinity.
What Just Happened?
Trinity has been a title that I can only compare to a rollercoaster. The amount of ups and downs this series has had makes me wonder what exactly caused the cancellation later this year. The end of this issue feels like we are sitting on top of the biggest hill after a very slow climb up. After taking over for Rob Williams chaotic time on the title I was very interested in Robinsons big pitch to DC. So far these last two issues have been a slow growth in quality that I think will flesh out best in the next couple issues.
The themes from Robinsons time on Wonder Woman are very noticeable as this started as a Wonder Woman-centric story, but panned out as more of a narrative story for the group. This narrative storytelling has the same problem many stories that use this same form of storytelling do, they gloss over what we really want to know about. I see the team battling a giant centipede monster for one panel, never knowing the pains and triumphs they had on their journey. Just that they fought a bunch of bad guys and they won. This wasn’t as bad of a problem in the last issue as it is here because of the magnitude of the journey they take over the course of the issue. Hopefully, this weird pacing issue will be fixed with the hopefully less compressed timelapse of the rest of the story.
The art of this issue is really the highlight of the whole arc. Patch Zircher’s landscapes are mystical, and his use of orange and red makes this truly feel like it takes place in a Middle-earth-type setting. The unicorns are an obvious highlight of this issue, seeing as how Batman was riding a pink haired unicorn, but still loves animals enough to name it before their eventual separation.
These small highlights for each character show how well this creative team knows these characters and their traits. Each monster is different and very unique, making me gasp in wonder with every panel. I only wish that each battle lasted a bit longer with less inner dialogue and more character dialogue between the group. The only real complaint with the art is the transition for the team’s age. The entire journey shows no signs of aging the group, and even when they get to their destination there is no sign of truly how old they have become until the very last panel. I understand that this was made to be a cliffhanger, but in my personal opinion I feel it was executed a little poorly, even if the change isn’t noticeable on the journey I feel like the first panel within Shamballah when Diana flies the men into battle would have been a good time to start showing the transition.
Rating: 8/10.
Final Thoughts: James Robinson continues his magical journey with “The Heroes Three” that has its highs and lows. The linear adventure story is not a bad read and definitely makes you want to continue just to find out who the team is telling this story to. This issue is definitely mandatory for fans of the last issue but for anyone not a fan of Robinson’s storytelling or his Wonder Woman run I can’t say you will automatically change your mind when reading this. The art makes up for the low points in the story, with only one real complaint from me. All and all I would recommend this arc for anyone looking to see the Trinity fight there way through a Middle-earth setting with limited amounts of powers.
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