Trinity—The Daughter of Wonder Woman #3 // Review
She’s the daughter of one of the most popular superheroes in history. There Cereberus. There’s a corgi dressed as Batman. There’s a younger version of her mother. She can’t save both her mom AND the corgi, but the good news is that she’s got a means of time travel and a helll of a lot of determination in Trinity—The Daughter of Wonder Woman #3. Writer Tom King and artist Belén Ortega and colorist Alejandro Sánchez deliver an endearing, little tale of courage and perseverance that serves to shed a little bit more light on the character and inner strength a relatively new hero.
So she kind of almost sort of brought out the death of her mother. And then she went back in time to change it and kind of almost sort of brought about the death of the corgi. And then she went back again. And again. And again. Of course, she was inevitably going to need a rest. And that’s when he showed up: her father. She never knew him, but he turns out to have been a nice guy. So he punched him in the face. (Things get really, really complicated where time travel is involved.)
King has a very clever premise for coming-of-age story, which feels very much inspired by the classic “save game and retry” video game narrative format. It’s been explored before in the past in comedy action fiction. King does a really good job of giving it more of a feeling of psycho emotional insight into the lead character than the format often manages. As always,King’s sense of humor really animated the whole thing. And the dialogue between the three versions of.Trinity is deliciously witty on a whole bunch of different levels. This is an extremely enjoyable standalone part of a larger plot arc.
Ortega finds the perfect balance between comedy and action. There’s even a little bit of horror thrown in. Cereberus looks particularly menacing. And then when.Trinity chastises it, it attempts to look cute in an effort to eliminate her anger. It’s a very clever bit of visual humor. That’s executed quite well.The manga-inspired art delivers some very clever bits of visual humor that move across the page with remarkable grace and poise. And then there are those dramatic moments. Father daughter moments that are kind of awkward by virtue of time, travel and things that aren’t known. There is great warmth in those scenes that adds emotional residence on a visual level.
There’s a lot to admire about the series as it progresses. It’s a sharp and poignant, adaptation of ideas that have been echoing around the superhero genre in general and the DC universe in particular for a long time. The legacy characters in the DC universe have been around for decades. It’s nice to see one of them handle in a way that feels like it is a thoughtful and intricate emotional progression from the themes explored by the adventures of her mother.
