Broken Trinity, a second look.

Sometimes, as a reviewer, I don’t feel I gave a comic a fair look or didn’t do it justice in my review of it. Though that doesn’t happen often, one of the few books I feel needs revisiting is Broken Trinity. As a now fan of these characters, I was pretty excited to see what this year’s story had in store for them, what epic event would take place, and who would be broken from the Trinity.

BT #1 was one of the first comics I reviewed way back in July, and for that, the book has a bit of a special place in my heart. So put on your Angel wings and strip on your shiny gauntlets, we’re about to get dark as we take a second look at Broken Trinity.

The overall story is simple, 2 new artifacts of the thirteen artifacts that will change the world (or something along those lines) has activated and found their hosts. The first being Finn, an Irish guy hired by Jackie Estacado to follow around and keep an eye on Sara Pezzini, bearer of the Witchblade. Sara, last year, gave birth to a child name Hope whom Jackie fathered. So Jackie wanted to make everything was okay, but Sara catches on to Finn, forcing him to turn down the job, only after the Curator gives him the Ice Stone. We also see a woman named Glorianna has collected the Ember stone, the Ice Stone’s opposite.

These set in motion the Darkness, Angelus, Witchblade, Ice guy and Fire chick (I’m improvising, here) all meeting outside the Curator’s shop. After a lengthy back and forth battle, with the help of Gleason and the Curator, the Angelus’ current host Celestine is behead and the Angelus force retreats. Fire Chick disappears and Finn goes off to discover what he was meant to do, for the moment, order returns and the storm is over.

That, in a nut-shell, is the plot of Broken Trinity. Now there is obviously more then that, as the Darkness tie-in explains why Jackie comes to New York, why he is so badly beaten and that the Angelus was after him which led them to the shop.

Now there are 2 more tie-ins I have yet to get, the Angelus one-shot, which I can only figure premiers later this week or soon, and the Witchblade tie-in, following the aftermath of Broke Trinity and having Sara think about Jackie, the father of her child and her feelings of him.

Addressing this for a moment, it would seem that, come BT #3, Sara has grown more attached to Jackie and fond of him, saving his life and seemingly enjoying his company. There’s obviously something Marz wants to go into with that, and it has some serious potential to be something that tugs at Sara and strengthens the emotional aspect to her character by building a stronger connection to Jackie.

Now really BT served as the launching pad for the characters of Fin and Glorianna, or as we will call them, Ice Guy and Fire Chick. Both characters have had some good moments, Marz giving them both enough time in the spot-light for them to be distinct characters, though really, where we go from here should be interesting. I’m far more interested in how the two seem to have a yin-yang thing going. Finn is good, not wanting to cause anyone harm, and Glorianna is more evil, wanting to change the world and make it over as she sees fit.

Their both done nicely, Finn being more comedic in his lack of knowing what to do and Glorianna seeming to have everything mapped out as to what she will do. Though the ending of Broken Trinity left me confused, it seems Angelus kills Glorianna, and then we see her at the end, in some lava filled area, just fine. I was a tad confused, is she dead or alive? I can only guess she’s alive.

Now as for my complaints about Angelus’ “death” this, as I explained in last week’s reviews, was not really a death. Sure, Celestine is dead, but Angelus will simply move on and get a new host. To but it simply, Angelus can go through hosts like sharks do teeth. Just because you break some of a shark’s jaw, it still had another row to bite you with.

I found Celestine’s death rather unimportant, and for how major the death was made out to be, and how epic it was all boasted, really, it’s not that big a deal. She wasn’t that well fleshed out for a character and she didn’t really do much besides be the Angelus’ host. No one was emotionally invested in this character, as she was an unimportant throwaway villain.

So, overall, the Trinity still isn’t broken, it’s just temporarily missing a member. But Angelus will be back so there’s no real point in calling it Broken.

Now I want to address Stjepan Sejic’s artwork, teaming up with Phil Hester who did the layouts for this book.

Hester does an amazing job here for layouts, as some of the scenes, though no doubt mostly great on Sejic’s part, have some great layouts in panel work and overall, it really looks great. The artwork here is as usual stunningly beautiful and while it didn’t make up for the frustrating delays and rather poor ending, it still really enhanced the reading experience and made every panel a beautiful sight to see.

The artwork is crisp, beautiful and Sejic’s best work yet, the explosive battle scenes really shine, but as always, he makes even the most calm and personal moments enjoyable to see. It’s truly a spectacular sight for artwork and Marz’ already solid script is beautifully brought to life.

While the ending was disappointing in how it doesn’t really accomplish breaking the Trinity, I still enjoyed the story as a whole. Characters where all great, even the new ones, and it’s always great to get more Witchblade. While I had hoped for more, at the same time, you can only do so much. So for what it is, and what it does, Broken Trinity is a great solid read when you read all 3 issues as a whole and I suggest you check out the HC or TPB when they come out later next year. I know I will, as I enjoyed the stories here and look forward, even more so, to War of the Witchblade next year.