Triple Helix #3

by John Byrne & Leonard O’Grady

Ever since John Byrne teamed up with IDW to exclusively publish any and all of his creator-owned work, he has cranked out some of the most entertaining work of his career. Triple Helix is no exception to that, although it is a semi-sequel to Trio, Triple Helix is still a strong series that helps build Byrne’s own universe.

So far Triple Helix has done a great job of picking up right where Trio left off. The only problem with that is since this is a different series some new readers might find it a bit confusing. Fortunately Triple Helix holds its own strong story that just happens to take place after the events in Trio. This still makes Triple Helix stand strong by itself but also encourages new readers to go back and check out Trio. Byrne does a great job of introducing all the members and giving them familiar characteristic in such a short amount of time. The villain, Marshall, so far seems more misunderstood and confused then your typical methodical scheming enemy. With only one issue left in this arc things are getting ready for a big conclusion in this issue.

Any fans of Byrne or Trio need to be reading this series. If you aren’t a Byrne fan then this isn’t the series to change your mind. This is for people who long for the days of old when Byrne was doing commercial work for the big two. This is for people who love Byrne’s unique and well established style of art that in engrained into so many people’s childhoods. You may not even know his name but you defiantly know the art. Even though his art is consistent, when compared to his older works from years ago you see that like a fine wine Byrne’s artistic talent gets better with age.

Of all Byrne’s recent work at IDW, Triple Helix has been the weakest but that doesn’t make it a bad series at all. Trio was a strong series and Triple Helix makes for a great sequel but it doesn’t hold up quite as well as its own stand alone series. The idea of having different titled books still centered on the same universe is a great idea for Byrne but Triple Helix and Trio might just be too closely involved with each other for new readers. In fact it seems the main character for both books would be Three, a member of Trio. Three actually gets more face time then all the members of Triple Helix aside from young speedster, Dart.  Maybe that’s the point, maybe he’s not making these for new readers so much as to satisfy his long time fans and using Triple Helix as an analog of the X-Men and Trio as the Fantastic Four, so he can still please his fans but also tell his stories without heavy involvement from editors.