Pandora and The Phantom Stranger
News came this weekend in the rainy Pacific Northwest at Emerald City Con that DC Comics will be going all in with the “Trinity” concept in June when it launches Trinity of Sin: Pandora, a new on-going series starring the mysterious purple-hooded Pandora to be written by Ray Fawkes.
Also happening in June, The Phantom Stranger gets renamed Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger. No word yet on if the third member of the Trinity, The Question, will be getting his own book as well. There is also no word on when or if the long mentioned “Trinity War” series–supposedly the first even in The New 52–will actually happen. Though these announcements certainly seem to be bringing us a step closer.
The origin of the Trinity of Sin was first explored in DC Comics The New 52 FCBD Special #1, and then later in The Phantom Stranger #0, when the seven wizards of the Rock of Eternity brought the “three greatest sinners” before them–Judas Iscariot (The Phantom Stranger), Pandora, and an unidentified man who was transformed into The Question.
What this all means and how important these three are to the DC Universe are still open questions and we might finally start getting some answers in June.
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First Shazam, now Pandora. All we need is a Spotify ongoing.
I heard Stephanie Brown will come back in the wake of Damien’s death… her new code name is Twitter…
Oh, that’s good, heroville.
Hopefully we get a ‘Question’ ongoing soon considering he’s part of the Trinity as well.
Although he isn’t going to be the same as his usual self (in that he thinks everything is a government conspiracy) I’ve always wanted to read a series with him in it. Not that the Renee Montoya Question was bad; but I want to see Vic Sage in action…..If this new version is Vic Sage that is.
If you really want to read a series with Vic Sage as the Question; Ive heard the Denny O’Neil/Denys Cowen series is excellent. And most of his exchanges with Renee Montoya in “52” were hilarious.
I like this Trinity of Sin concept and bringing characters like this Pandora together with Phantom Stranger, The Question and The Spectre whom I hope is a part of this and possibly the third Trinity name but with The Question getting his/her, we’ll see, own title…Question seems more likely to be the 3rd but they didn’t announce the title of the book just that the character will be getting his/her own series. This stuff has potential for classic tales.
Dennis O’Neil’s Question is very uneven, though when its good, its awesome. I’d recommend Rick Veitch’s The Question. Its a mini-series that’s a lot easier to get into, and its not 30-something issues long.
As much as I’d love to see Renee Montoya back in the fedora and featureless mask, if they’re going to go with a new character, I might be game. The new guy needs to have something different about him, though. Maybe instead of seeing everything as a big government conspiracy, he sees everything from some twisted spiritual/religious point of view. I mean, he’s connected to Judas and Pandora. There’s got to be some magic hoodoo mixed up in whatever his story is or it doesn’t really make sense. Not to mention, if he is one of the three greatest sinners in the history of the world, they better come up with something MAJOR to earn him that title.
I want a Question ongoing ASAP.
Be careful what you wish for…
I don’t know who I miss more – Renee Montoya or Vic Sage. Either way, I share your fear.
I’d prefer Vic Sage (mainly for his portrayal in “Justice League Unlimited”). I’m trying to figure who he is in the Trinity of Sin, my first guess is Adam of “Adam and Eve”. Implausable I know, but are there any other figures in history/mythology that are known for a famous act motivated by excessive curiosity?
Actually, that idea makes a lot of sense. But very similar to Pandora’s story.
@PerplexedDCreader, it might be similar on the face of it but it could change once we see the story. I havent kept up on Pandora, but couldnt her “sin” be a desire for power or defiance of the gods/authority? Phantom Stranger’s could be greed, and the Question’s could be curiosity. Even if the Question isn’t Adam, he wouldn’t be the Question without a strong sense of curiosity.
I second both Sitara and IthoSapien. I would love a Question ongoing (specifically with Montoya) but not sure I really want to see a new 52 take on a character that I like so much. Or, I guess I should say another take on another character I like so much. It’s been a bit rough the last 18 months or so.
I’m alittle confused :”There is also no word on when or if the long mentioned “Trinity War” series–supposedly the first crossover in The New 52–will actually happen.” Wasn’t “Batman:Night of the Owls” the first crossover? It was spread out over like 7 series, after all.
Not really sure how I feel about Trinity War itself, I’ve enjoyed the fact that DC hasn’t been running stupid events that run all over every book that I need to buy 5-7 books to follow. I don’t see why a Pandora series is necessary tho, and I was underwelmed with Phantom Stranger’s 0 issue. Has anybody else noticed that DC seems to be pushing the New 52 to be more magic oriented?
“Night of the Owls” was batfamily exclusive. This appears to be company-wide, similar to the Crises, which we seem to be getting fed more frequently as DC Comics struggles with their fatal attraction to the RESET button.
Even if Night of the Owls was Bat-family exclusive, it was still a crossover. The Culling, the multiple Green Lantern crossovers, Throne of Atlantis, Rotworld, those are all crossovers. I think the author meant “event.”
In any event (no pun intended), I don’t care anymore.
Right, DC has had a handful of crossovers already, so Trinity War isn’t the first and is most likely an event (which DC said wouldn’t happen for at least a year after the New 52). I don’t know why everyone keeps making a big deal about DC and the reset button, its not like it hasn’t been used before or even that individual characters in the DCU haven’t been rebooted as well. If you think about it, the New 52 shouldn’t be that alien of a concept. DC has done this before in the past and they’ll do it again in the future, there’s pros and cons to it.
@IthoSapien: It’s nowhere near an alien concept. It’s an all too familiar and exhausted concept. That’s the point. In my opinion, there are far more cons than there are pros. Recently, each time they do a company-wide reboot, it causes more problems than it fixes, and the quality of the storytelling suffers as a result. Myself and many others feel that the New 52 was a creative failure, and the least neccessary or effective of the reboots. I’m a 20+ year DC reader, and I’m reading the least amount of DC books that I’ve read since I was getting them off spinner racks at 7-11.
Like any big-time event, the primary objective for the publisher is to sell books. Nothing wrong with that. The New 52 was the most financially successful move they’ve made in years. For about six months. Tops. Now, many fans seem completely turned off by the editorial decisions being made and the quality of stories being told. Another reboot is not the answer. If you want to sell books, the first thing you should do is publish good books.
Just because something has been done over and over again doesn’t mean it’s the only answer. It also doesn’t mean that we all have to like it. In all reality, “event fatigue” isn’t the publishers’ fault. It’s the readers who buy every tie-in out of compulsion that propel the trend. Some of us vote with our wallets. If more people did the same, we might see some of these events replaced by better ongoing comics.
@Wheelhands, I know you and alot of people feel that way. However I distinctly remember when the New 52 was starting out, everyone was raving about it and complaining that Marvel wasn’t doing “anything”. I don’t know what flipped the tables but now everyone seems to love Marvel. I was against the New 52 when it was announced, now I’m reading more DC books than ever and I’m this close to swearing off Marvel for awhile. I think it’s great DC has a way to steamline their books and make them more accessible (not saying it’s always been used effectively). Let me ask you, when was the last time “Aquaman” and “Wonder Woman” were some of DC’s top books? I can’t remember it. Ironically it seems like everytime DC comes up someone posts “Reboot the reboot!”. If people are sick of DC doing pointless reboots, why is the solution to get rid of the New Universe with a reboot? DC is putting out good books, I wish I had the money to buy more of them (Pandora won’t be among them tho). I don’t know why you bought up event fatigue with DC, Marvel’s much worse and does one every single year. “Age of Ultron” is up next, and it seems incredibly pointless. “Night of the Owls”,”Death of the Family”, and “Thone of Atlantis” might have been events, but at least they didn’t overflow into every other book in the line (or publish pointless mini-series in addition to the regular series).
You seem to be interested in making it a Marvel vs. DC thing. I don’t wanna have that discussion. I’m talking about DC using reboots as a solution every time the line isn’t working. I’m not crying for a reboot. I could go the rest of my friggin life without witnessing another reboot, even from the sidelines. I want them to just shake it off and tell good stories. I don’t want to think about how Batman’s worked with five Robins in five years. That’d be nice.
Yeah, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are great right now. So are Earth 2 and Batman. Green Arrow looks like it’s picking up, and JLA shows some promise. That’s 6 books out of 36. Forgive me for expecting a little more.
Ok I goofed, I assumed if you were so sick of DC you’d be reading mostly Marvel. I really don’t know what to tell you on the reboots, if the line is murky/confusing/messed up what do you want DC to do? Keep going anyone so that the continuity is protected? The last one was “Flashpoint” more than a year ago, and as far as I know “Infinite Crisis” was the last in 2004 (also Im unaware if “Final Crisis” rebooted anything).
I think we both know that there’s more than 6 good books in the New 52, at a certain point tho it will all come down to personnel tastes. I tried looking it up, Marvel publishes between 34-40 titles (nobody was able to just give me a number, and I’m not going thru a list and counting every title). I know you said you don’t want to have a Marvel vs DC debate, I just want to highlight the similarities between them. If DC is only publishing 6/36 good books (which shouldn’t be true, it’s called the new 52), then if Marvel is publishing more the quality should be equal to or less than DC even if Marvel has the bigger/better talent pool.
Literally could not care less.
Agree!!!
But you could have saved the time and energy and NOT posted at all. That would have been caring a lot less.
zing!
That said though, I do agree with @xoman — I’m having a hard enough time maintaining interest in the surface aspects of the few New 52 books i still read (I’m actually considering dropping Batman before the next year-long arc!). A series dedicated to the mysterious mythology behind the whole universe all just doesn’t appeal to me.
Yes, this might as well be called, The Trinity of Whatever for all the difference it makes to me.
Why? Because I feel like it’s incredibly forced already.
Here we go. This is it.
Trinity War will end with the universe being reset. Again. Although what it can be reset back to at this point escapes me.
Remember when there were decades between continuity-altering Crises?
Neither do I. But I think it happened once. Somewhere between COIE, Zero Hour, and Infinite Crisis.
Reboot the reboot!!
I had this very conversation with my LCS owner and a far-more-disgruntled-than-I DC reader last week.
General consensus? If they attempt another reboot, they will likely lose whatever new readers they have managed to bring in through the newly squandered 52… and further enrage the old fanbase who probably won’t come back. I too would likely drop a lot on the basis of feeling – for lack of a more eloquent phrase – “jerked around.”
All it would show, IMO, is the complete lack of vision many have already accused DC of having going into the new 52.
New 52 Squared.
How about, “New 52: Electric Boogaloo”?
I just hope Superman doesn’t become a dictator so that the comics match up with the video games. They did it with Harley Quinn and I’m sure they’ll do it again.
What on Earth are you referring to? “Injustice:Gods Among Us”?
I was re-reading the free comic book day DC offering, where we see the Question, Pandora and Phanton Stranger being sentenced. That ended with the “expect big things and trinity war in 2012″…and neither happened last year. Makes me wonder what the heck happened. I know I’m not alone in that unfortunately…
You should read it again, it actually says “Coming Next Year… Trinity War!”.
Oh yea….nevermind.
Well, I’m going to take this news with an open mind. Perhaps Trinity War has been pushed back in order to give Johns and company more time to get all the pieces in place? Maybe building the groundwork for their story took longer than expected? If that’s the case, would it necessarily be that bad a thing? Remember how much we all (myself included) griped about how Fear Itself and Avengers vs X-men seemed to come out of nowhere with very little exposition(the former especially)? As I said, I’m giving DC the benefit of the doubt until I learn more. After all, it beats Marvel’s current belief that every season needs a new “event.”
Not sure about Pandora being able to carry her own title though . . . I keep picking up Phantom Stranger from time to time, and wishing that I could enjoy it more than I do. It’s not bad, but I wish it was better . . .
Yea I agree with you Cosmo, if DC is taking its time to get things ready…I’m all for it.
Remember in Blackest Night when they made Genesis from the Bible into the story of the Green Lantern entities? That was like, bananas.
I’m guess I am one of the few who are excited by this. Almost all of my pull list are DC books and I love them. The only 2 Marvel books I get are Daredevil and Hawkeye. I pick up occasional Marvel books in trade though. A company wide crossover sounds kinda cool to me. Just like A v X was in Marvel. That was a company wide crossover wasn’t it? And before that Civil War? I’m guessing company wide events are going to be around for quite a while. And they aren’t forcing anybody to buy anything. You can always not buy it.
You’re forgetting “Secret Invasion”, “Fear Itself”, and maybe “Siege”. The problem with events is if they’re either terrible, pointless, or both. Frankly the last good Marvel event to me was “Civil War”. Another problem is when the focus is so much on the event, the individual books suffer from over-arching story. People complain about the events because they hate having to buy multiple books to follow them or see their favorite books get sucked in to the event. And publishers keep doing events because there’s a group of people that keep buying them, so it perpetuates the cycle.
True, I see that point. But I guess the positive is this is the first line wide crossover event since the New 52. Even way before that I think. So they don’t do it that often. Somebody pointed out that Snyder had the Night of Owls crossover and the Death of the Family crossover. Those were just in the Batman Family of books. And they weren’t a crossover, they just had tie ins with the other books that you didn’t have to read to get the main story, all you had to read was Batman. Like in Night of the Owls the tie ins happened in the #9 issues. That was the night that the Talons attacked. So all the Bat books told the story of how each of the Bat Family members dealt with the Talons in their own story. The same thing with the Death of the Family. All you had to read of that storyline was Batman. The story in the other Bat Family of titles was a Joker story dealing with that character only, like Batgirl or Nightwing. It had to deal with the Joker but totally separate stories. I think Snyder does that on purpose so that everyone doesn’t have to buy all the titles to get the story. I’m not sure how the Green Lantern or Superman crossovers worked but they have so few titles anyway it’s not that big a deal if they cross over.
I haven’t heard how Trinity War will work but I’m guessing this will be the first time we are forced to buy titles we might not collect to get the entire story. Being as it’s the first one we have had in DC in a long time I’m cool with it.
I think (me personally) that Snyder comes up with these grand stories that allow the other Bat-books to join in on. There’s only two instances to go on, but I don’t think Snyder just comes up with stuff for just “Batman” anymore, it’s plots that bring the other books together. With “Green Lantern”, I imagine stuff will happen in one that will affect the other 2(+) titles so just reading one would tell an incomplete story (that’s how it happened for “Blackest Night”). I don’t know how the Superman books do it, probably something similar to the Bat-books method. For Trinity War, I doubt it will affect EVERY DC book. For instance, aside from the costume “Justice League” doesn’t affect “Batman” nor has “Throne of Atlantis”. I think each book might feel reverberations from Trinity War but not that every single book will do it at the same time in the same way.
I’m a little confused by your phrasing; are Tie-ins, Crossovers, and Events totally separate things in your book? Does a tie-in not happen for Events but happen for Crossovers? I’ve never really thought about it, I just assumed… Well that Tie-ins only applied to Events I guess.
I guess I’ve always though of tie ins as not essential to the story. For example the story in Batman during night of the owls…you can just read Batman to get the whole story. Yeah, the Birds of Prey fought a Talon in Birds of Prey #9, and that Talon was there because of the story that was going on in Batman. But it wouldn’t matter at all if you were reading Batman and didn’t know the Birds of Prey were also fighting a Talon. Whereas a crossover goes like for example “Part 1 of the story is in Batman #1, Part 2 of the story is in Nightwing #1, Part 3 of the story is in Batgirl #1, Part 4 is in Batman #2, Part 5 is in Nightwing #2, Part 6 is in Batgirl #2”. If you were just reading Batman you would be completely lost come Batman #2 as you had missed 2 crucial parts to the story. So crossovers almost make you buy extra titles if you aren’t getting them already to know the main story. Whereas tie ins do not. I think a lot of people confuse the two.
Makes sense I guess. The only time that really irratated me was “Blackest Night”. One minute its about the Black Lanterns attacking everyone and the next it’s GL and the other lantern Corps trying to stop Nekron. I don’t think I’ve ever given into buying other titles to get the whole story tho, just not worth the cost to me.
I’ve never read ‘Blackest Night’ but yeah that does sound frustrating. I admit, I am a sucker for getting the ‘whole story’ so I’m a good consumer target when they do the events/crossovers/tie ins etc. So I am partially to blame for the reason they keep doing it. 😉
Why have you never read “Blackest Night”?! I lent that book to a friend of mine that doesn’t read comics and he loved it. I know I complained about the plot shift but I still loved the book.
Blackest Night or GTFO.
Just kidding, but you really should read it, it’s great.
Cool, I will have to check it out.
I think one thing that needs to happen is that everyone has the same definition of Comic Book Terms, because there seems to be some confusion. And please feel free to say if you disagree.
To quote IthoSapien, “I’m a little confused by your phrasing; are Tie-ins, Crossovers, and Events totally separate things in your book?”
To me here are the definitions:
Event: A big, overarching storyline that effects most of, or a good chunk of, the Universe and has long lasting effects. Recent Events: AVX (while only a few titles were involved, almost every major Marvel Character belongs to either the Avengers or the X-Men and had some play in the outcome.) Also Flashpoint, the repercussions of that rebooted the entire universe are still being debated, for better or for worse.
Crossover: A storyline that directly continues from one book to the next. In other words you must read one part before you read another part, or else the story doesn’t make sense. A current crossover going on is Wrath of the First Lantern. Part One was in Green Lantern 17, Part Two was in Green Lantern Corps 17, Part Three in Green Lantern: New Guardians 17, Part 4 in Red Lanterns 17, etc. Throne of Atlantis was also a crossover.
Tie-Ins: Tie-Ins are stories that take place within an event, however are not necessary to be read in order to understand the greater story. Night of the Owls and Death of the Family had tie-ins. You could just read Batman and not read Nightwing, Red Hood, Teen Titans, etc. and you could understand the story. AVX and Flashpoint also had Tie-Ins. The tied-in material may be dependent on the main story (see Death of the Family Tie Ins 16) however the main story is not dependent on the tie-ins.
And I am going to add one of my own, which is a subcategory technically and that is:
Mini (or Micro) Event: A Mini Event is something that does not effect an entire universe, but effects a subcategory of a Universe. Night of the Owls, Death of the Family, H’el on Earth, Rise of the Third Army and Wrath of the First Lantern, X-Men Schism, X-Men Regenisis, those were all mini-events. They affected all/most of their related titles, but didn’t go outside of that (Death of the Family didn’t effect Superman or Green Lantern.)
Can these overlap? Yes. AVX was an event with Tie-Ins. Flashpoint was an event with Tie-Ins. Death of the Family was an Mini-event with tie-ins. Notice that all of these are (mini)events with tie-ins. Crossovers, due to the continuing storyline between books, typically do not have tie-ins, although some people would classify the books that the storyline crosses between as tie-ins. The only reason I disagree is because the tie-ins are not necessary to the main story.
Hope this helps clarify the meaning and stops some confusion.