By: J.T. Krul (writer), Angel Unzueta & Chris Batista (pencils), Wayne Faucher (inker)

The Story: Fractured, Part One: The Titans are mopping up a second string crew of thieves. Donna is pretty upset about what Prometheus has done to Roy in Cry for Justice #5. Flash is going through a crisis of his own due to the return of Barry Allen. Kory has been offered a berth on the Justice League, but doesn’t know what to do. And Cyborg is stuck thinking about what to do with this evaporating team.

What’s Good: As you can tell from the summary, Krul has set up a character-heavy story. I first noticed his work on those 1-issue solo Titans stories that came after that god-awful Deathtrap arc. He shows here that he’s just as able to simultaneously make life painful for five characters as he is for just one. There’s so much good stuff in here that I’ll just stick to some of my favorite moments: Donna Troy, going to town on Vault with a ton of anger; Wally West, running backwards, faster than Carom, and trash-talking; Wally’s take on the return of Barry Allen and what it means to him; and Kory’s visit to Batman, particularly her insight into him. I also loved how she explained away Donna’s criticism of the visit and repositioned what she was doing in terms of her culture and who she is. What was a bonus for this book was seeing Dick Grayson as Batman, and how he is adapting to a role, rather than changing his personality. No one but Kory could have seen that subtle distinction, because no one else has watched him so long with so much interest. Krul is doing some really subtle nuance work with these characters. On the art, we got some dynamic action sequences and some good layout work.

What’s Not So Good: Unzueta and Batista turned in some competent story art, but the draftsmanship left me cold. The figures seemed plastified and untextured, leaving me with very little visual motivation to pause over the pages like I might with Quitely, Cascioli or Manapul. Proportions and angles seemed to sometimes shift (check out the shot of Cyborg “recharging”); Kory’s face (if not the shape of her body) seemed to change from page to page. It seemed that the farther off a straight camera angle they went, the less real the art looked.

Editorially, Dan Didio said that Titans is going to be one of the eight pillars the DCU is going to be focusing on. The New Teen Titans was a giant for DC in the 1980s and could be again. If that’s so, then the editors are going to have to bring out their A-game on the art and they’re going to have to find some A-list characters for a core roster for the Titans. Right now, neither of these things make Titans a ‘must-buy’.

On flaws in the writing, I think that the only place the dialogue and character came off as tinny was with Donna Troy and Black Canary in the hospital. Whatever is going on in Donna Troy’s character is not clear, but this particular flaw was limited to a page and a half.

Conclusion: Despite the art, I recommend picking up this issue if you like fine character stories. For myself as a writer, in the same way that I might study Stephen Baxter or Greg Egan for examples of the hard physics in sci-fi, I think I’m going to start studying Krul and Bryan Q. Miller for their character work.

Grade: C+

-DS Arsenault

By Christopher Yost (writer), Angel Unzueta (artist), Wayne Faucher (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist)

The Story: The Titans book continues to examine its characters one by one. This issue is about Starfire talking to a therapist. As uninspiring as that sounds, Yost and Unzueta carry us through the logical fallout of what Starfire has suffered not only in pitched war with Darkseid, Trigon, Jericho and others, but much farther back, right to the basics.

What’s Good: As I said in my last Titans review, if you wanted to get into the Titans, now is the time to do it. These self-contained stories are very forgiving to the new reader. As they did with Cyborg and Tempest, DC carries us through a complete arc with Starfire. This is a good character study, starting from denial and moving to acceptance. Yost does a good at storytelling, making us feel the difficulty that Starfire goes experiences.

Deeper than that arc, though, is a win that I think is not easy to do in comics. Many writers have penned Starfire over the years, from her start as a young alien visitor to Earth, through revelations of her tragic past, through love and breakup from Dick Grayson, to control by Jericho and Darkseid. When you add it all up, it’s a lot of disjointed, disconnected suffering. Too few writers take the time to pull those different experiences together and say, “What does it mean to the hero who has gone through all this?” Yost does that here, and in fact, what is more compelling is that he resists the temptation to knit the fabric back together again. Starfire is broken and this issue is about getting from denial to broken; leaving future writers with a lot of scope for this character.

What’s Not So Good: I’m going to take a swing at the art here. First, Unzueta and Faucher have a bit of a plastic style that is effective enough. However, given that this is really a character story, I don’t think the command of expressions and poses and emotions was subtle enough for what Yost was trying to do. That being said, it might just be a mispairing of artist to story. I get the impression that Unzueta would draw a dynamic slugfest.

Secondly, while I like to look at pretty girls as much as the next guy, I think there’s an element of overdoing it with Starfire that goes qualitatively beyond what artists do with Powergirl. For the most part, Starfire’s costume doesn’t do as much clothing duty as teasing duty. While this is nothing new for her (her costume hasn’t changed since 1980), given the depth of the story Yost was trying to tell, the T&A was a creative hindrance. I know this art team didn’t design her costume, and that Titan books must be sold to pre-pubescent boys, but Wolfman and Perez put her in a sweater and jeans when she wasn’t adventuring, especially when they were striving for meaningful stories.

Conclusion: A fair book. I like what Yost is doing and hope to see where the writers take Starfire next.

Grade: C+

-DS Arsenault

By Peter J. Tomasi (writer), Fernando Pasarin & Jeremy Haun (artist), Prentis Rollins & Wayne Faucher & Jeremy Haun (inker)

The Story: A mysterious group of near-immortal acolytes starts the book off by pulling together enough pieces of an ancient immortality-granting meteorite to be able to gather the remaining pieces and thereby renew themselves. Switch then to the Outsiders trying to take down Deathstroke. This takes a lot of the book to resolve, but the fight takes an effective break to see Vandal Savage as he closes in on the acolytes.

What’s Good: There’s a lot of tension in this book: scheming immortals, a relentless Vandal Savage, a major fight scene and competing factions. It’s fast-paced and constantly building.

The large art team delivers visuals that really drive the book along. The attractor machine plowing energy into molten earth was awesome, as were explosions and light effects throughout the book. And the walk of Vandal Savage, through desert, seashore, forest and snow-capped mountains showed a tireless, approaching menace. The level of detail in the people, especially in the faces (hair and teeth) was also great, even though I found some expressions and poses slightly awkward, in a Paul Gulacy sort of way. The colors suit the scenes perfectly and on many pages, panels had different, but logical color dominances and the effect on the page as a whole made it a delight for the eyes.

What’s Not So Good: Although the readers haven’t been let into the nature of the approaching menace, I’m ready to wait another issue for it. On the flip side, I think there are some serious problems around the credibility of the story in the writing.

Firstly, the acolytes especially are guilty of a lot of talking-head exposition, which is telling each other things that they already know, for the sole purpose of letting the reader know something. There are lots of ways to do exposition. A text box may seem old-fashioned, but it is still a useful tool and would have made the characters more believable by (a) giving them less dialogue and (b) making the dialogue more natural.

Secondly, nobody in the DC universe seems to understand teamwork. Deathstroke is holding a blade to Alfred’s neck. Fine. Five Outsiders (three of whom shoot some type of energy blast) stand still. Katana comes from behind. The hostage is out of the way. Do the other Outsiders help Katana? No. What about when Deathstroke runs for the bodies? No, although Geo-Force does tell Rex to get the body out of the way. It would have been faster to tell Rex to get Deathstroke. It also would have been faster for any of them to have blasted Deathstroke in the back, since he was right there with his back turned. The whole Deathtrap story in the Titans was full of ineffective superheroing like this, and I’m worried that I’m seeing more of the same in the Outsiders.

Lastly, some of the action makes me wonder about the age of the target audience of this book. On one hand, you’ve got Deathstroke cleaving a corpse in half, but at the same time, the whimsical, blasé way it was done really cheapens the effect and stains credibility (think B-movie Hollywood barbarians).

Conclusion: There’s great art here, but some pretty flawed story-telling that gets in the way of the story.

Grade: C-

-DS Arsenault

By Sean McKeever (writer), Angel Unzuera (artist), Wayne Faucher (inker)

Some Thoughts Before the Review: I’ve been following the Deathtrap storyline from the beginning. I’ve read the pre-deathtrap fights with Jericho too, and they were honestly starting to bleed together. This issue hasn’t changed much for me.

The Story: Jericho holds a bunch of rich people hostage to get the Titans and the Teen Titans to come to him so that he can kill them. The Titans arrive, stand around and don’t do anything. Ravager manages to grab onto Jericho, which inexplicably stops his plan…until she lets go. Then he gets away and blows them all up.

What’s Good: Not much. I’m really struggling here. Jericho’s getaway was clever?

What’s Not So Good: None of what’s going on seems meaningful. Jericho keeps trying to kill the Titans for no reason other than he’s crazy. Each time he fails, he keeps getting away.

Also, it’s increasingly straining credibility that a dozen Titans with all their powers can’t take Jericho out, or even try. I’m not keeping a running tab or anything, but their kid-gloving of Jericho in previous issues has allowed dozens of civilian deaths in this one. Hardly inspiring heroism. Most of them just stand around him and talk. The only person who’s using his brains seems to be Vigilante, but he’s not on the team and he keeps arriving late.

Art might have made this issue more palatable, but unfortunately, the pencils don’t pull this book out of its tailspin. The textures of faces and bodies come across as plastic and the posing and facial expressions are awkward. At one point, the art reminded me of Don Perlin, an artist who ruined the last 60 issues of the Defenders.

Conclusion: I think the Titans need Cyclops to be in charge. Put Scott Summers in charge of Power Pack, tie one hand behind his back, and he still would have outsmarted Jericho three issues ago. Batman could have done it by himself. So could Dr. Light, Shadow Lass , and pretty much anybody telepathic, or whose costume includes opaque goggles, or anyone who is willing to poke Jericho in the eye.

Grade: D

-DS Arsenault

By Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza (writers), Mark Bagley, Tom Derenick, Wayne Faucher (artists), Art Thibert (inker), Pete Pantazis, Allen Passalaqua (colors), Pat Brosseau, Ken Lopez (letters), Andy Kubert (cover)

For each glimmer of hope, there is a reminder of why Trinity is mediocre. Even with everything that’s happening I don’t feel any significant story movement. To progress any story you need a mix of action and information. They need to be working together harmoniously. Without that balance, Trinity will continue to be an unsatisfactory experience.

The writing for this series to come around remains an event amongst itself. Technically speaking, it’s better to show story than it is to tell it. Busiek’s choice to only show or tell depending on the issue really hurts the overall flow of the book. Even when we get a good chunk of information, it rarely sees an immediate payoff because the next week is all action. Busiek doesn’t need to pick one, but instead needs to find a way to balance the elements, otherwise the story will continue to be unbalanced and disappointing. I must admit, I feel bad for Fabian Nicieza. Ever since Rita popped up in Busiek’s story, Nicieza has felt like an afterthought. I’m sure his portion of the story is important, but right now it feels like supplemental material. At this point I’d rather have Busiek just write everything since each week Nicieza seems to have less pages and a less compelling story; Busiek’s story would most likely benefit from the extra room.

Artistically, things haven’t changed much. The characters are still drawn well up close, but the further you get from the action the worse and less detailed it looks. Superman looks like a kid in half of the panels because of this. Mark Bagley’s art is at its best when he’s drawing action, so issues like this one seem to suffer as a whole. Tom Derenick and Wayne Faucher get the short end of the stick. They have less pages, so they have to cram more information into less space. The compositions are nice, but each panel just feels claustrophobic.

Inconsistency continues with Trinity. Busiek can’t seem to decide if it’s an action story or something more cerebral. Sure the last five to ten issues may be incredible, but is anyone still going to be reading? We all know that a payoff is only as good as its setup. Someone should mention this to the creative team. (Grade: D)

- Ben Berger

By Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza (writer) Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton (pencils), Art Thibert, Andy Owens, Wayne Faucher, and Jerry Ordway (inks), Pete Pantazis, Allen Passalqua (colors)

Okay, here’s the gist of the story: The Justice League (B Squad) does battle with Konvikt while Enigma and Morgaine Le Fey watch from afar. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman show up to help as their half of the book ends. In the second half of the book we learn more about Marguerita Arroyo Covas, the tarot card reader somehow connected to the six. Half the book is all action, half is all information, but the change is so abrupt it makes for an awkward read.

Most of the dialogue in Busiek’s story comes from Graak (Konvikt’s little buddy) which is unfortunate, since he’s really annoying. When it’s not him talking, it’s The Justice League talking about how they’re getting whupped. It’s very “Death of Superman”, but not nearly as powerful since it happens so quickly and has been done before. The part of the story regarding Margurerita is equally disappointing since we only learn one or two useful bits of information over fifteen pages. This section doesn’t even have the benefit of a cool fight.

The battle scenes in this issue are the artistic highlight. Since it’s longer than the fights of issue #2, you get a better sense of what’s going on but, it still has its setbacks. First, too many close-ups. It’s so close, I feel like I’m missing half the action in favor of seeing gross little lumps on Graak’s fingers. The best panel shows the big three arriving on scene and no matter how many times I look at that image, it’s still awesome, even iconic.

While better than last week, Trinity #3 still fails to capture the promise of issue one. This issue has a lot of fighting and very little plot. It’s all flash, no substance. That being said, I still find myself hanging on, as there are a few points that peak my interest. My concern for the casual reader is they’ll have given up on the series by the time it gets really interesting and it’ll be too late to jump back on. (Grade: C-)

- Ben Berger

By Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick, Mike Norton (pencils), Art Thibert, Andy Owens, Wayne Faucher, and Jerry Ordway (inks), Pete Pantazis, Allen Passalaqua (colors)

“Trinity rolls on this week…” is what I would be saying to you if anything happened. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman experience a very real hallucination connected to their dream from the previous issue. Then, two seemingly unconnected characters show up and beat up Green Lantern. Sound thin? Well, you heard right. On one hand, it’s nice not to have an issue as dense with information as the first. At the same time, I’d like to feel like more than an hour has passed.

The dialogue itself is still written well. The introduction of Green Lantern seems out of place, mostly because nothing really happens. I’d just rather get some new information as to how he fits into this story than see a cameo. Issue #1 had two stories and we saw both the heroes and villains come together, then try to figure out what was going on. Issue #2, goes for the same idea, without any of the progress. It’s like reading a season of 24 in the sense that every episode is a short period of time. Unlike 24, there isn’t an obscene amount of action between each commercial. In issue #1, I had hope the creative team would be able to pay off everything set they set up. As of now, the returns are diminishing.

Mark Bagley’s art remains consistent, but I still feel like there could be more detail put into the faces of everyone involved. On the plus side, the battle scenes throughout depict a lot of realistic collateral damage. The bad news is that we get so few panels of it, it’s hard to really tell what’s going on.

The main problem I have with weekly comics is the pacing. More issues means more time in most people’s minds, so there’s a real tendency to “pace.” That’s why I prefer monthly titles, there’s just a larger sense of urgency to keep everything fresh and exciting. The hallucinations our heroes experience are really confusing, until you find out that the events aren’t really happening. Once you know that, it’s expected to force some progress (or answers) and none come! Instead of moving to the Batcave to analyze, we get a Green Lantern story. This many missteps (and we’re only at issue #2) isn’t a good sign. (Grade: C)

- Ben Berger