Trinity #1

“Green Lantern” “Darkstars” “L.E.G.I.O.N. ‘93”

Cover Price: $2.95
Bargain Price: $0.50
Cover Date: August 1993

Not to be confused with DC’s recent weekly, 1993’s Trinity was the anchor book for a two month, eight issue long crossover for DC’s space fairing law enforcement agencies: the Green Lanterns, Vril Dox’s L.E.G.I.O.N. and the Darkstars, the extreme, take no prisoners nineties take on the Lantern Corps. Despite the flashy cover, this looked like a good chance to, if nothing else, learn more about the L.E.G.I.O.N., a concept I found intriguing, but which, so far, has failed to hook me (which is a shame because I really like Vril Dox). The Darkstars and Green Lantern stories are mediocre, despite art from Travis Charest and Gene Ha respectively. Ha and Charest may be superstars today, but, unfortunately, they’d yet to crystallize their distinctive styles in 1993. Fortunately, the L.E.G.I.O.N. story is pretty fun. Written by Mark Waid with pencils by Barry Kitson, the chapter sees both creators at the top of their game. The art is clean and distinctive and Kitson handles the large cast well, effortlessly distinguishing one character from another while handling the crowd scenes and alien city without ever skimping on detail. This issue really reminded me just how good Kitson is and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more recognition. Waid’s story is also a lot of fun and serves as an excellent showcase for the conflicting personality types of the characters, particularly the arrogant Dox. I’m looking forward to finding some issues of Waid and Kitson’s L.E.G.I.O.N. and seeing if it holds up.

Strange #1

“A Whole New Ballgame”

Cover Price: $3.99
Bargain Price: 3/$1.00
Cover Date: January 2010

Dr. Strange, who recently lost most of his powers to Brother Voodoo over in the pages of New Avengers, gets a new miniseries with this issue from Mark Waid and artist Emma Rios. Rios’ Manga influenced art is nice and clean, if not really my cup of tea, and Waid’s story, about a baseball team playing a gang of demons for their immortal souls, makes for a light and fun one and done tale. The end result is an issue that’s good enough, but feels like it could have been more. The has been magician breaking in a new assistant angle that Waid seems to be taking with this series was done much better in last year’s excellent Mysterius, The Unfathomable, which also had a slew of much more creative and gruesome looking demons. True, the story seems a little hampered from really indulging its premise by a general all ages vibe, but even that is contradicted by the Vertigo-eque cover and a T+ content rating that seems a little extreme to me (but then I suppose demons and immortal souls are probably a bit much for a lot of kids). Still, Thor: The Mighty Avenger is telling truly memorable, amazing stories right now without letting it’s A rating hold it back. All in all, I suppose my main complaint, and it’s sort of a double-edged one, is that the issue is good, but it’s just not as interesting or memorable as it could be.