Spandex Is The Fabric Of The Future: DC’s SDCC 2013 Trinity War Panel

I have been hearing about DC Comics’s The Trinity War crossover for what feels like every week since DC launched the New 52 Reboot. God knows that DC wanted to tease the Goddamned thing right out of the gate, what with sticking Pandora (or, as we knew her at the time, “The Hooded Woman,” or perhaps, “The Obvious McGuffin,” and sometimes, “The Stalking Chick With Psoriasis Seriously What’s With The Hood Is She Hiding A Third Eye Or Some Kind Of Suppurating Nipple On Her Forehead” (at least in our Home Office).

Well, we are almost two years into the DC reboot, and now we finally have our war. It started in last week’s Justice League #22, with Shazam (nee: Captain Marvel) tossing half a beating on Superman before Superman apparently wiped out Doctor Light’s head with a stern gaze, and it will continue through just about all the main Justice League related titles, including the upcoming miniseries Trinity of Sin and then dealing with the fallout in September, during Villains’ Month, in the Forever Evil miniseries. That’s a lot of story considering how long its taken to kick the damn thing off.

But kicked off it has, and since it started one week before the San Diego Comic-Con, that means that DC was ready to talk about it. And talk about it they did, in a dedicated panel discussion yesterday, moderated by VP of Marketing John Cunningham, with writers Geoff Johns, Jeff Lemire, and Ray Fawkes, and Group Editor Brian Cunningham. And quite a panel it was, teasing that the Trinity War might tear the various Justice Leagues apart, allowing the villains to win, and for John Constantine to gain the powers, and costume, of Shazam.

Wait, what?

According to Johns, the reason that The Trinity War has taken so long to come to any kind of fruition was because even though the main story driver, Pandora, has not only been in place since August, 2011, but appeared at least 53 times during the month following her introduction, it took as while to figure out what the hell to do with her. “We always knew we would come to some story points with Pandora,” Johns said, but it took working with Justice League Dark writer Jeff Lemire to figure out just what those story points would be, and how it could include the Justice League.

“What’s the most devastating thing you could do to the Justice League?” Johns asked. “…lose faith in Superman.” And thus, the Gaze of Doom and the Head of Exploding in Justice League #21.

The panel talked about some of the crossovers and additional miniseries that will be accompanying the core crossover going on in Justice League, Justice League Dark and Justice League of America (and make no mistake: The Trinity War is an old-fashioned crossover; there is no core title until we see the aftermath when Forever Evil comes on September 4th, and we’ll get to that in a minute. However, the crossover will not be seen in almost any of the players’ core titles, so if you want no part of Trinity War, you can stick with the solo books), including Trinity of Sin, written by Fawkes, which will focus on, well, Trinity. “She’s been presented with an opportunity to get rid of all evil in the world… [which] puts her at cross purposes with the Justice League and The Secret Society.” And while dumping evil doesn’t sound like it would piss off the Justice League, let’s all remember that when Superman, who Pandora believed to be without evil, touched Pandora’s Box (heh), it nearly destroyed him.

The crossover will also run into The Phantom Stranger (since he is one of the “Trinity of Sin” of which we speak), and will also include some significant face time from The Question (Face time! Get it? Yeah, I been drinking, what’s your point?), who will be following his post-New 52 M. O.  of being presented with a question or puzzle by God that he must find the answer to. And when it comes to The Trinity War, Johns said that question will be: who compromised Superman?

And then there is the crossover into Constantine. Which somehow captures some of what any long-time Hellblazer reader would agree is the essence of John Constantine’s character, while simultaneously chucking most of that character right out the fucking window. “[Constantine] believes that Shazam may hold the key” to the actions of Pandora and the desecration of Superman, Fawkes said, so Constantine proactively seeks out Billy Batson to “take him out of play.”

Now that sounds like the amoral bastard that we all know and love! Attacking a child to remove a threat to humanity? That’s classic Constantine! And then stealing that child’s superpowers to become a superhero himself so he can participate in the greater battle using his fists? That’s classic…

Wait, what?

Yeah, you heard me. See that cover of lightning hitting John? Yeah, he becomes Shazam (or at least a version of him). The panel quickly showed an image of Constantine in a version of a Shazam costume (which, I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to get a photo of), punching some guy in the face. Which is so antithetical to the character that has been around for almost 30 years that it boggles the fucking mind. And sure, there were other interesting details about Constantine shared by the panel, such as that in the upcoming Forever Evil event, Constantine will be a major player because he is already so corrupt he can’t be affected by any further corruption going on around him (“He can’t be more corrupt. That’s his superpower,” Johns said), nothing will erase the image of John Constantine wearing what Warren Ellis would call an “underwear pervert” suit, punching a guy in the face. It was like seeing your dad in your mom’s lingerie; I wrote in my notebook, “So John Constantine is Captain Marvel now. I’m sure Alan Moore is thrilled. THIS should fix his feud with DC!”

Anyway.

The events of The Trinity War should wrap up in August, just in time for September and DC’s Villain’s Month, with what should be a predictable ending: “The bad guys win,” Johns said. That will bring us to Forever Evil, which gives us DCs supervillains in a position of power (except for The Joker; the panel announced that Joker won’t be around, and that Forever Evil #1 will give us an explanations). “Forever Evil really pits villain against villains,” Johns said, with some of the more megamaniacal ones wanting to seize control over the entire world, while others just want to do a little mild looting or something.

The main Forever Evil title will also give readers the strange and terrible “bromance” of Black Adam and Sinestro (thus spoiling that Black Adam wasn’t really killed in Justice League #20). A moment will come where a question is posed to the Secret Society, and both Black Adam and Sinestro agree simultaneously. “They both believe the people should rule,” Johns said, “[They] forge kind of a strange relationship.” And considering I’m writing this five minutes after coming up with the image of your dad in your mom’s underwear, I am going to simply move on from the concept of “strange relationships” now, okay? Thanks.

There will also be a couple of sister titles to Forever Evil: Forever Evil: Arkham War will be written by Peter Tomasi, accompanied by Forever Evil: A.R.G.U.S. and Forever Evil: Rogues’ Rebellion on October 3rd, which will show some tension in the ranks of the Secret Society. “When [the Rogues] are told to tear down a city, it’s just not something they do,” Johns said.

But the overall theme about both The Trinity War and Forever Evil is corruption, Lemire said. And given that a large part of that corruption comes from the actions of supernatural characters like Pandora and The Phantom Stranger, Justice League Dark will play a large part in the story. “If the Justice League is the world’s greatest heroes, and the Justice League of America is the world’s most dangerous heroes, then the Justice League Dark are the world’s most freakiest heroes,” Fawkes said.

And as the Justice League Dark is taking point against some of the most dangerous supervillains in the world, it means that Zatanna can finally show off some of her power, Lemire said. Because Zatanna can really do anything that she can say backwards, “I was constantly depowering her,” Lemire said. “Until in Trinity War she can finally let loose.”

A few more details came out during the panel; Firestorm will be playing a big role in the event because someone thinks that maybe he can use his atomic powers to synthesize Kryptonite, and Vibe will see that there’s something wrong with The Flash (“There’s everyone’s favorite here, Vibe, fighting The Flash,” Johns said dryly), but the key information was that these events will finally tell us what Pandora was doing in Flashpoint and in all the first issues of the New 52, lo these two years later. “She is the inspiration for a number of myths,” Fawkes said. “Some people believe that she is responsible for creating the universe.”

And further, this event is meant to be the closing curtain on the events of Justice League and Justice League Dark that have been going on since the September, 2011 reboot. “It’s meant to usher in the second phase of the New 52,” Johns said.

And I gotta admit, while it all sounds generally cool, and I am excited to see a big, universe spanning DC event for the first time in a while, it is also meant to put John Constantine in spandex pants. And so help me God, the first person to use the word “Trinity” to make a three-way joke…

Anyway, there are some additional images from the panel below. As usual, click through to see them full-sized, and if they get cut off on the first page, click again to get the whole magilla.