Review: Trinity of Sin: The Wages of Sin
Quick Summary
Pros: The book’s conclusion is rather interesting and will be satisfying for those who have experience with these characters.
Cons: The beginning of the book is a bit boring. Narration is long and overused. Fans with little connection to the three main characters will find little enjoyment here.
Overall: This is a book for those who truly enjoy reading about the members of the Trinity of Sin, and is something not many others will like. Though the storyline starts out rough, it eventually turns into something interesting and provides a solid portrayal of these characters. However, if you are not well versed in the current history of these characters or simply haven’t enjoyed their latest adventures, the book’s only positives will fall flat and the whole volume will feel pointless. Read this if you are a big fan of the Trinity of Sin and stay away if you are not.
Story
Trinity of Sin: The Wages of Sin, by J.M. Dematteis, is a story that isn’t great but isn’t bad either. It falls in a nebulous middle ground where fans of the Trinity of Sin might appreciate what is going on, while those with no connection to the characters will not care at all. The story starts out weak but becomes more involved as it progresses. The ending is then something that fans will enjoy because it really dives into the aspects of these characters that make them interesting. Overall this not a book to jump into randomly; this is a book for people who have read the previous Trinity of Sin titles and really enjoyed the characters and storylines there.
(spoilers start here)
This book started out rather boring. The Trinity of Sin are assembled in a alternate universe and face off against a creature with total control of the realm. Any progress made by the Trinity is instantly negated by the creature’s powers. This heavy mismatch in strength makes it clear that the Trinity have no chance of escape or progress, yet the book keeps trying to maintain a level of suspense. It ultimately feels boring until the Trinity are finally beaten and the book moves on to the next step.
Once the Trinity have been beaten, they regroup and chart out a plan. The creature has morphed the entire universe to a dark version of its former self, and the Trinity are now stuck in it. They make their way to a box with the power to change things back to normal but are trapped within it before they are able to use it.
This is the pinnacle of the book and is where the metaphysical aspects of the narrative are at the most potent. Dematteis is skilled in writing about trippy dives into the human brain and does exactly that when the Trinity are trapped in their prison. He then delivers a conclusion that work well with everything that has happened thus far and also helps build on each member of the Trinity’s character. This is the part of the book that makes it worth it to fans who have been reading about these characters for a while.
Outside of the actual storyline though, I had a problem with the way narration was used throughout the book. This entire comic is extremely heavy handed when it comes to narration and feels the need to explain everything and anything that is going on. The narration is so long that it ends up feeling like a novel that just happens to have pictures in it rather than a good comic book, where the art and words work in harmony with each other. It is not a huge complaint but is definitely something that took away from the overall enjoyment of my reading experience.
(spoilers end here)
Art
The artwork in this book is a bit below average and also underused. Yvel Guichet’s pencils and Jason Gorder’s inks provide the base for a book that lacks in detail when detail would be nice to have. Most pages feel as if they could be done better and the majority of the action sequences feel static. The excessive narration doesn’t help with this and makes these sequences of events feel like pages in a picture book rather than the interactive pages of a good comic book. Overall this is a collection that does not look terrible but is definitely below average.
Continuity
Trinity of Sin: The Wages of Sin is a new comic book series from DC Comics. However, it has its origins in both the Trinity of Sin: Pandora and the Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger series.
The series ends with this volume and most of the characters do not appear in any other comics for a long time. The exception to this is that Pandora appears in DC Universe: Rebirth (Review).
This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:
- The most recent adventures of both Pandora and the Phantom Stranger are brought up in a minor way. These occur in Trinity of Sin: Pandora Vol. 2: Choices (Review) and Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger Vol. 3: The Crack in Creation (Review).
- The Phantom Stranger brings up the time when the Question tried to kill him. This happened in Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger Vol. 2: Breach of Faith (Review).