DC Just Brought Back Their Most Tragic Character And It’s Weirdly Hilarious

DC Comics has done a great job of building up the Wonder Woman side of the DC Multiverse, and Trinity: Daughter of Wonder Woman #1 is a fun little ride that pays homage to one of DC’s greatest stories. The book’s first pages show a DC character that fans haven’t seen since Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths — Pariah. Pariah is an interesting character in the pantheon of DC Comics. He was a character created for one reason, becoming a stormcrow for the infinite worlds of the multiverse as Anti-Monitor destroyed everything. It’s pretty interesting to see him in this book, because while it definitely seems to fit the time traveling motif of this book and previous Trinity stories, it could also mean that the changes to the timeline made by three different Trinitys from three different times are just as destructive as those of the Anti-Monitor’s attack.

Pariah was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. While he’s changed a lot over the years, especially with his villain turn in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, the version we see in Trinity is much more like older conceptions of the character. Trinity is a hilarious book, and Pariah is one of the book’s funnier parts, as writer Tom King takes a tragic character and makes him a joke in the best possible way.

King Shows the Cracks in the Character of Pariah

So, Pariah first appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, drawn to Earth-Three and witnessing he death of the Crime Syndicate as an anti-matter wave ate their planet away. Pariah was cursed to travel ahead of the Anti-Monitor’s anti-matter waves, watching universe after universe die. Pariah believed that the whole thing was his fault because he learned of the existence of the Anti-Monitor, and ended up paying a key role in the battle against the villain. Pariah watched the deaths of countless beings, and it would have drove him completely mad if he never would have found the heroes of the DC Multiverse. The Pariah who appears in Trinity looks to be the same one from Crisis #1, as we also see the Crime Syndicate’s Power Ring and Ultraman in this issue. However, Tom King doesn’t play the character like previous versions of the character. Instead, King takes the core of Pariah — a tortured young man cursed to an eternity of following death — and dials it up to a thousand for comic purposes. Pariah’s overwrought dialogue in Trinity is honestly hilarious, as the tortured character is forced to deal with Trinity, as she decides to tell him the story of what she’s doing in order cheer him up.

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The three Trinitys are on the hunt for the Damian Wayne and Jon Kent of their times, who the girls accidentally transformed into corgis. This has brought the youngest Trinity back to the days of Crisis #1, which is interesting because it shows that the old pre-Crisis DC Multiverse can be reached with time travel. This is actually a pretty big change; usually, events that change the multiverse rewrite time as well. Trinity keeps calling Pariah Piranha, which sees the tortured soul try to correct her. Even this is pretty funny, as it implies that his anguished monologues are somewhat contrived. All in all, it’s a very funny appearance by a character that readers never thought they’d ever see again.

Pariah’s Appearance Is the Best the Character Has Ever Been

Pariah appearing in this issue is a perfect little twist. To begin with, it links this situation to the original Crisis, to give the readers the idea of how dangerous the changes to time that the Trinitys have wrought can be. I don’t think it’s meant to imply that there are multiversal stakes to this story, but it does feel like a way to show that this situation is pretty dangerous. King’s Pariah is definitely meant to be a joke character, and his dialogue is some of the funniest dialogue in the entire issue. Pariah isn’t a very popular character, but getting to see him in this book is definitely a treat.

Once Pariah finds out about Trinity’s time machine, he begs her to take him with her to the future, where he can escape the terrible fate he’s trapped him. Trinity refuses, not wanting to accidentally destroy the “time cream”, as she calls it. However, readers learn the real reason why she’s traveling through time — young Trinity and middle Trinity have decided to find their father Steve Trevor — as she leaves Pariah behind to deal with his own problems.

Trinity: Daughter of Wonder Woman #1 is on sale now.