I really want to punch Tim Trench in the face. Sadly, he is fictional, so I cannot do this.
It’s not because of his association with the nonpowered era of Wonder Woman comics. Which, incidentally were bad comics, and the attempt in recent years to rehabilitate these bad comics as being good or at least decent kitsch amazes me; not only were these comics bad comics on the basis that Wonder Woman shouldn’t be a normal person being a swingin’ secret agent, but they were bad comics about a woman being a swingin’ secret agent period. Too many comics fans suffer from the delusion that the great creators were/are infallible, which is why people can actually say that Devil Dinosaur is a work of genius, rather than the far more obvious answer of “Jack Kirby having an off-day.” (And the “Diana Prince era” of Wonder Woman isn’t actually even by any great creators, so really it’s just the same old nostalgia for stupid old crap that motivates so much of modern comics fandom.)
But I digress.
No, that is not why I want to punch Tim Trench in the face. Why do I want to punch Tim Trench in the face? Because he is a fucking poser. He blathers about how Hollywood doesn’t make good movies any more and he names his gun “Lulu” and he spouts one-liners blatantly stolen from old Raymond Chandler novels. If he were a modern-day twentysomething, he’d be drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, wearing a trucker hat, and telling everybody how he loves Superchunk, but only their old albums. If you knew him in person, you would hate his fucking guts.
Even though he is fictional.
Seriously. Fuck this guy.
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He puts his faith in a right cross.
Meanwhile, the illustration shows him punching out a genetic Aryan Brotherhood knifeman with a left hook.
Come to that, he’s wearing his shoulder holster on the right.
Please don’t ask me why I’m getting so picky over this inconsistency; I just do.
I’m one of those people old enough to remember those bygone days of Wonder Woman. Remember those were the days of Women’s Lib and DC had this mandate that their female characters had to be able to go undercover (Look at Lois Lane during this same period).
BTW I’m one of those people who still doesn’t see why Kirby was called a ‘great artist’. It use to get me beat up in high school.
PBR is the least terrible of extremely cheap American beers. Other than that, I agree.
How the hell does he read on his his with the lamp positioned the way it is? Also FYI, not a shoulder holster, it is his purse.
I mean on his desk. stupid fingers
You’re just upset because there was that one morning during a stakeout of a Smallville anti-tax militia group that Trench caught a glimpse of Diana Prince coming out of the shower. That awkward minute of the two of them standing there before Diana reached for a towel…
Comics of the seventies were littered with Tim Trenches, with their faux-Chandler narration and their disdain for the modern and their “Forties tough guy” demeanor. Writers of the time loved that shit.
Twenty years later, the same urge, adjusted for era, led comics to be filled with trenchcoat-and-sunglasses-wearing, laconic shoot-em-up tough guys.
All of them need cock-punches. Stat.
Well, what do you expect from a St. Louisian-turned-New-Yorker? St. Louis’s got a gigantic “keeping up with the Joneses” complex.
On another note: does anyone read “[he]hooked up with Diana Prince…and I Ching, her mentor” and need brain bleach?
“I can resist everything but temptation.”
– Oscar Wilde
“One thing I never could resist is temptation.”
– Tim ‘Trenchmouth’ Trench: shitty plagiarist, dick, and private dick to boot.
Trucker hats? Way to be three years out of date, maaan.
I forgot to mention the the 70’s trend toward noir-ish comics did bring about one good thing.
The Manhunter. Super-elite, ninja, kung-fu assassin clones.
Those WW issues are bad, but cut them some slack, Mike Sekowsky’s art is really good and stylish.
The picture’s quite nice.
Really, though, if you’re going to reinvent yourself as a 40s private eye, lose the name “Tim”. Tim is only a tough name if followed by The Enchanter.
His name really isn’t helping him.
If his name was Dick Manly, P.I., I guarantee his score shoots up about 10 points.
The backwards-facing lamp isn’t the only thing wrong with the desk. Judging from the size of the wastebasket (mysteriously placed outside Trench’s line of sight, such that he needs to blindly lob his wadded-up paper over the far corner), it is very short. Possibly even child-sized. This would account for his bad posture.
Also, the desk’s wood veneer seems to be melting.
And the “Diana Prince era” of Wonder Woman isn’t actually even by any great creators, so really it’s just the same old nostalgia for stupid old crap that motivates so much of modern comics fandom.
Folks would argue over whether or not Denny O’Neil deserves this slur or not. I won’t be one of them though – his good work is overshadowed by some mighty powerful crap like his issues of the de-powered Wonder Woman which when I finally read them almost made my eyes bleed they were so goddamn bad.
The later stuff written by Mike Sekowsky was far less terrible than O’Neil’s initial outings. Still not the kind of classic superhero stuff that a lot of folks want it to be, but tolerable 70s-era DC that doesn’t make me want to commit physical violence on random strangers or gouge my own eyeballs out with a spoon.
A hook often follows a cross, doesn’t it?
To illustrate just how bad they could get, I thought of asking if “THEM!” had a “Who’s Who” entry. Of course, what can you say about that particular team of stereotypes-born-of-homophobia-and-hippiephobia that hasn’t already been said?
I’ll note that apparently, DC writers after that time had about as much respect for the guy as you. First he joined Hero Hotline, got a costume, and missed out on an adventure because he was stuck in traffic. (Yeah. He was incompetent even by Hero Hotline standards.)
Overcoming that embarassment, he was turned into water as part of a complicated plan by Felix Faust. Turned into water. By Felix Faust. I guess his first name should have been … /slips on sunglasses/ Marianas. *yaaaaaaaahhh*
Sorry, that was bad.
I like how loving the description gets. “He’s a tough guy, with sinewy, taunt, well-muscled arms..Oh Timmy…”
Ah, Flesh, my number two source of childhood nightmares. Right behind that Warren Ellis story in which a guy gets half-eaten by mutants, and then finished off by his hungry ex-wife.
2000 AD. For kids!
His partner was named Archie Miles? Seriously? That’s the name they went with? That’s not even an homage, that’s something a 7th-grade boy named his fanfic character.
Devil Dinosaur is the best comic about a dinosaur kicking other dinosaurs to death ever made, and you know it.
Warren Ellis’s Devil Dinosaur, on the other hand, was amazing. 🙂
Too many comics fans suffer from the delusion that the great creators were/are infallible, which is why people can actually say that Devil Dinosaur is a work of genius, rather than the far more obvious answer of “Jack Kirby having an off-day.”
Pistols sir. Pistols at dawn.
(All right, yeah, so it’s no Mister Miracle but c’mon. . .it’s a big red dinosaur stomping the hell out of other dinosaurs and aliens. May we all have off-days that epic)
“Moon-Boy hated me. Moon-Boy had to die. Moon-Boy tasted bad and gave me considerable rectal distress.” 😀
So your idea of a Devil Dinosaur crimelord for a Gambit series was what? Trying to polish a turd into a diamond?
Actually, there’s a better kicking dinosaur story. And it has time-travelling cowboys.
Considering what Jack Kirby did in the ’70s, it would be more accurate to say he had an off decade.
And Geoff Johns probably has an idea to bring this storyline back, continuity be damned.
Aw, come on. The issue where Diana Prince travelled into a different universe to hang out with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser for a while was TOTALLY good comics!
Well, okay, I guess it wasn’t actually.
Well, actually it was taking what Warren Ellis did with Devil Dinosaur and using it a little more extensively, but yeah, basically.
I like dinosaurs, but Devil Dinosaur is just a dinosaur who beats up other dinosaurs and really, that’s kind of boring after one issue, much in the same way that a comic about ANYTHING doing what it would normally do gets boring after one issue. (This is why, for example, most of the great war comics have really awesome story hooks. This is also why Man-Thing is only really entertaining in a cameo.)
Give me a dinosaur who does something non-dinosaury. Preferably with lasers and explosions. Or, if not lasers and explosions, intrigue and daring. But not STOMP STOMP STOMP. That gets old fast, even if it is Jack Kirby drawing it.
Denny O’Neil is one of those comics writers who started out kind of crappy and then got really good in a hurry. This is fine; almost nobody is really great right off the bat.
Well, IMO Kirby was completely fallible. He couldn’t draw a decent female costume to save his life. I cry inside every time I see an artist revert a modernized Kirby woman back to her original look.
If Big Barda had really been alive she’d have killed Kirby a week after he invented her in retaliation and she’s one of the good guys. Could you imagine what the Enchantress would have done?
Give me a dinosaur who does something non-dinosaury.
REX SAURUS: DINOSAUR ATTORNEY.
Here is my non-Nextwave related defense of Devil Dinosaur: he fought Godzilla to a standstill.
It still goes without saying that DinoRiders is still the best thing dinosaur related ever. Yes, even Jurassic Park.
So Tim is a real douche and an asshat and he still gets 12%? What does a guy need to do to get 1%?
MGK Said:
“Denny O’Neil is one of those comics writers who started out kind of crappy and then got really good in a hurry. This is fine; almost nobody is really great right off the bat.”
“Off the bat” totally rocking pun.
I love the fact that he’s a gritty, tough guy noir type character and he fought a guy named Dr Cyber. Kind of like sending Sam Spade against Modok.
So he’s kind of a PI version of James Robinson, then?
Thousand Sons: Dr. Cyber is a chick, not a guy.