Trigon #1

Being a 3D cover, it just looks like Trigon is trying to grab my boobies. (After reading it, I now understand why this cover looked like that to me!)

Trigger Warning (Man! I never do these except as horse jokes! Leave it to Marv Wolfman to write something so rapey!) This comic book is filled with rape (a lot of it) and my commentary, as usual, is very flippant and I don't denounce it every time it's mentioned. I assure you that I think it is a bad, bad thing though. See that? If that was too flippant for your tastes, just skip this shit. You can get the same information on Trigon here since it's virtually the same origin but without the, you know, other stuff.

Unclassified Comic Book Reader King Beauregard (Unclassified in that he hasn't taken the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Master Comic Book Reading Title Verification Course to gain his title. Partially because the course costs five thousand dollars. Partially because the course doesn't actually exist. Mostly because why would I want to share the title "Master Comic Book Reader" with somebody who's probably read more comics than me? What am I? Stupid?) left this comment on the Trigon Who's Who entry I put up:

The other day when I was bitching about Marv Wolfman's influence on DC ... ? This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Wolfman decided they needed yet another Darkseid ripoff, except this one would dress like a male stripper and his entire backstory is about freaky fucking.

I think Marv Wolfman should be celebrated for introducing a character whose backstory is freaky fucking and dresses like a male stripper! But I could do without the overpowering Darkseid aspect of his character. Especially since he was created to battle the Teen Titans, a team that has never had a roster that was really very overpowering. When one member of the team has all the tits power, it doesn't make for a very compelling battle against a super powerful mystic demon that rules lots and lots of dimensions. Sure, Cyborg could blast his white noise like a champ while Beast Boy Changeling goofed off telling jokes and transforming into either really unhelpful animals or a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Nightwing would tell Starfire how to most effectively channel her angry starbolts of anger (most of her anger caused by Nightwing telling her what to fucking do). But when Trigon forced his way into the Titan's dimension, it just seemed like a good time to pick up the phone and hit the speed dial for the JLA Watchtower.

Although even the Justice League generally avoids this magic ass satanic shit. And why would John Constantine want to help out a bunch of American teenagers? What could they possibly have that he would want? Oh, maybe a shit ton of ecstasy!

I don't know for sure if this issue is written by Scott Lobdell or not (I'm fairly certain it is!), but the first page will tell me soon enough! If it's a full splash page of Trigon with a Narration Box that says, "His name is Trigon," then I'll know! Although the first box might also say something stupid like, "His name is unpronounceable but he is known in many dimensions as Trigon."

Hey! Look at that! Not Scott Lobdell!

I decided to flip a few pages ahead to see who the writer was and it turns out to be Marv Wolfman! I thought he's been busy the last ten years trying to get the Elfquest animated movie made? So now is this issue just going to be a retelling of the Trigon Who's Who entry from 1986?

And that's just how the issue begins with a trio of pacifist aliens forcing their agenda on planets across the universe. They're cosmic janitors cleaning up the evil on every planet they observe, Hoovering it up into their great big disgusting Heart of Darkness. It's just such a concentration of evil that was born into the Preboot Trigon making him the most evil monster in creation. And now these aliens have brought a creature that resembles Trigon (but without horns) to their homeworld to drain it of its villainy. And since Trigon is born from "freaky fucking," I have a feeling this creature and the female alien of the trio are going to make a baby underneath the influence of the Heart of Darkness. Maybe all the aliens will join in which is why the offspring's name will be Trigon.

Instead of any awesome fucking happening, the creature manages to flip the switch on the Heart of Darkness from "suck" to "blow."

Of course! It was his plan all along! Everything is always some villain's plan! You can't make a choice without falling into the trap of doing what some villain wanted you to do!

Trigon kills the trio of aliens who may have been angels but were somehow his parents (because he wasn't really born until feeding on the evil they collected. Duh!). But then Trigon finds that he's trapped and so he does what any evil all-powerful male being that can't escape his divine prison does: he summons a female alien and rapes her.

It may have been a freaky fucking demon-worshiping ritual, but at least Preboot Trigon's conception was consensual.

The runespeak, by the way, simply says, "Alien Cursing Symbols". Because that really conveys the horrors that this female is suffering at the hands of Trigon. Couldn't they at least throw in a Runespeak exclamation point?

The original origin of Trigon's origin continues as he, like previously, precedes to kill everybody as he's born. He then goes on to rape entire universes trying to sire a child that will make him proud. For some reason. I don't know why he's so concerned with an heir when he's probably immortal. He does manage to have three boys but he hates them all. As do I. They've been some of the most annoying characters in the DC Universe so far. Especially since none of them knew the rules to Poker. They're as dumb as Hugo Strange's son, Eli.

Eventually Trigon finds a woman that he cannot rape because she wears The Silent Armor. Needless to say, Trigon and Alan Moore are a bit upset that the raping has to end so suddenly.

But he'll be back to try again later! Or at least he'll get a rematch when Cassie is wearing the armor.

Once Trigon is almost killed, he decides to cut his rape tour of the universe short and instead puts out a call to all bounty hunters to bring his victims to him for a reward. I'm pretty sure Marv Wolfman wanted to have the vilest villain in Villains Month and he must have taken Marc Millar's words to heart (which I'll reprint here for the very, very few who haven't seen them):

“The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don’t really think it matters. It’s the same as, like, a decapitation. It’s just a horrible act to show that somebody’s a bad guy.” -- Marc Millar

Which makes Trigon the baddest bad guy in Rapeville (Rapeville being the alternate name of "Mainstream Comics Villa"). But Marv Wolfman goes even further! Not only does he have Trigon impregnate females through rape, Wolfman makes sure we all know that these women mostly killed themselves from either the trauma or to avoid having Trigon's child. And then after years and years and years, galaxy after galaxy after universe after dimension, a woman finally agrees to have sex with him.

But mostly just because she's afraid of him. So it might not actually count. By the way, is that Lobo bringing her to Trigon?

And the person telling this tale is Arella, Raven's mother. She's pleading with whomever she is telling the story to that they need to defeat Trigon because he's coming back to destroy the world. So maybe she's asking the Crime Syndicate to stop him. Who knows?!

Trigon #1 Rating: Well, it gets the point across that Trigon is evil, I guess. It feels like Wolfman threw out all of Lobdell's weird Trigon history to revert Trigon back to exactly his old origin plus a heaping helping of nearly infinite instances of rape. Is it weird that I finally prefer a Scott Lobdell version of things? This issue was pretty fucking ridiculous.