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THE HERO YOU LOVE TO HATE
triumph
One thing I wasn't prepared for was how deeply resented Triumph
was. Triumph was hated, deeply loathed, by a great many DC
staffers, some of whom would go postal at the mere mention of
the character's name. I'd kind of patiently look these folks in
the eye and, with some trepidation, remind them that Triumph is
a comic book character. That Triumph doesn't actually exist. I
mean, I'd hear things like, "That guy (Triumph) is such an
asshole." And I'd kind of shrug and go, "Yes. Yes, he is. That's
the idea."
This
was, perhaps the most poorly thought-out launch of a new hero
ever. I think most everyone associated with Triumph (who was
created by DC Comics Group Editor Brian Augustyn, Mark Waid and
Howard Porter) was taken a bit by surprise by the near-instant
backlash the character received from the fans. Triumph's basic
premise— that he was one of the charter members of the Justice
League from way back in The Brave & The Bold #52—
was deemed an apocryphal revision of beloved DC history,
especially considering Triumph himself looked so bland and
Silver Agey. Which, for those of us who worked on the premise,
seemed to be the point: Triumph was specifically designed to
look bland and Silver Agey because he was a guy who was there at
the formation (actually the pre-formation) of the Justice
League, but got swallowed up by some Big Thing and spent the
next decade or so in stasis. This was DC's version of the
Captain America bit, only with some real consequences to the
character, Will MacIntire, who hardly had Steve Rogers' strength
of character.
Fans
took an instant dislike to the character, and vented a
great deal of that dislike at me. Despite numerous attempts on
my part to explain that Triumph's origins was a creative
decision made by the company long before I had anything to do
with him, Triumph was savaged in the fan boards and I was burned
in effigy. Playing to that energy, I talked to editor Augustyn
and suggested we play to that resentment and suspicion by having
the characters— the JLA and others— regard Triumph
with resentment and suspicion. When Triumph vanished from our
time line, all knowledge of him vanished with him: no DC
character recalls ever having met him. So Triumph ends up being
a whiner who bellyaches repeatedly about how he was there, in
the beginning, and how he is due the same respect as Martian
Manhunter, Black Canary and Flash— claims absolutely no one
takes seriously. Triumph is relegated to the Justice League's
training team, their youthful
Task
Force, mentored by The Martian Manhunter, whom Triumph views
as a peer. Triumph's aggressive impatience causes friction
between him and The Manhunter, who beats the crap out of
Triumph, to the utter delight of most fans, and then fires him.
One
thing I wasn't prepared for was how deeply the Triumph
resentment pervaded the office environs of DC Comics. Triumph
was hated, deeply loathed, by a great many
DC staffers, some of whom would go postal at the mere mention of
the character's name. I'd kind of patiently look these
folks in the eye and, with some trepidation, remind them that Triumph
is a comic book character. That Triumph doesn't actually
exist. I mean, I'd hear things like, That guy (Triumph)
is such an asshole. and I'd kind of shrug and go, "Yes.
Yes, he is. That's the idea."
The
truth is, Triumph had two strikes going in: (1) he disturbed the
sacred ground of the JLA's origins and, (2) he was a little unlikable.
His shtick was: Triumph was always right. He was. It was that
simple, and it was what made him so annoying to his fellow
heroes (and DC staffers). Triumph was The Man With The Plan, a
gentle tuckerization of DC's Director of Creative Services, the
late Neal Pozner. Neal was, likely, the sharpest tool in the
shed. He dressed better and had better hair than anybody on the
floor, veeps included. He was aggressive, passionate about his
convictions, willing to stick his neck out for his ideals and
for the people he was charged with defending. Neal swung a
(political) bat at the major-major Powers That Be at DC on my
behalf once, a political move I didn't expect Neal to survive. I
marveled at his courage and his dignity, even as some braced
against him for being very direct and headstrong and for always
being right. Neal, write this down someplace, was always
right. He was. At the end of the day, Neal would be proven
right. That fact, more than anything else, annoyed many staffers
beyond reason. Not that Neal would rub your nose in it— you'd
rub your own nose. That's how right he was.
I
told Neal I was basing some of Triumph's energy on him, and
warned him that people wouldn't necessarily like Triumph. This
seemed to amuse Neal, though he tragically passed away before we
could make much of it. Triumph was gay, something probably only
Brian and I knew since we didn't have an appropriate storyline
to deal sensitively with that issue, but that was my subtext for
his emotional center: how out of place and out of sync Triumph
was with the DC Universe.
That
the fans didn't like him, I felt, was a function of my writing:
I deliberately made him less than heroic, a bit self-absorbed
and headstrong. I got permission, in a sense, to make Triumph unlikable,
to make him a kind of pushy spoiler character, like Dr, Smith on
the classic TV show Lost In Space. When I'd get hate mail
saying how much of an a-hole Triumph was, and how the fans
couldn't wait to see what shady thing he'd be up to next— I
actually took that as a compliment. Sure, Triumph was an a-hole,
but an a-hole that brought readers back to the pages of Task
Force to see what sneaky crap he'd be up to next month.
I
was more than taken aback, though, by many staffers' absolute
loathing of the character, which, honestly, shouldn't have
surprised me. DC, in those days at least, trended towards being
The Nice Guy Company. The Jay Leno of comics. All their heroes
pretty much knew each other's secret ID's, and all liked each
other (I presume DC has evolved a bit out of this). DC's
stationery had the characters, smiling and waving, standing on
one another's shoulders as Wonder Woman, at the very top, held
up the DC Comics logo. And that was the harmonious, Comics R For
Kids family-friendly environment most of us worked in at DC.
Marvel, meanwhile, was a more competitive environment where the
heroes were handled a bit more realistically, where the heroes routinely
kept secrets from and mistrusted the motives of one another. My
edge on Triumph— I called him The Hero You Love To Hate—
would have worked much better at Marvel, a place where cynicism
was the hallmark and where Stan Lee set the tone 40 years ago
with his irreverent take on super-heroing and his grounding of
the same in the people politics of The World Outside Your
Window.
DC
staffers simply loathed Triumph and actively plotted his death
(they got rid of him in some Persian Bazaar manner after Brian
left the company). And, for me, that was DC's greatest failure:
its inability to get out of its own way creatively. Killing off
or retro-retconning Triumph or whatever they did just because
they found the character annoying, jut because they didn't like
the shadow Triumph cast over The Grail, seemed completely
sophomoric and unprofessional. My eternal struggle over this
character was in reminding staffers that they were staff, not
fans, and that Triumph was a comic book character and not
an actual person. But, at DC, in those days anyway, if you wore
Spandex and looked like a hero, then, dammit, we expect
you to act like one. That Triumph's main concern was, well,
Triumph, was a violation of the Happy Pants code, wherein all DC
characters must, by law, join hands and sing— something
Triumph would never do unless there was something in it for him.
These
folks missed the point of Triumph completely, and, I am told,
couldn't wait for their earliest opportunity to remove
the character from the DCU in the least dignified manner
possible. Alas, poor MacIntire, we hardly knew ye.
In
1994, DC published Triumph, a four-issue miniseries
intended to flesh out the character's origins and status quo. My
vision for the Triumph book was a kind of ersatz Mission:
Impossible (Tom cruise version), where Triumph is the pushy,
headstrong leader of a freelance covert ops team. As usual, I
went for layers of complexity— too many, in hindsight. We assembled
a great creative team for the book that simply did not work well
together. I mean, individually, everybody on the book was quite
good at what they do. But, collectively, I dunno, something just
didn't work. I didn't like the overall look of the book, and I
didn't think the script's ambitions were well-served. In the
summer of 1998, Acclaim Comics sent me on a cross-country
signing tour for Quantum & Woody, and, in every city
I went to, I bought back copies of Triumph from fans
who'd bring them to signings, "Sorry, kid, here's your buck
back."
I've
archived the
script
to the miniseries here on the site. Following are excerpts from
my original 1994 series notes.
Christopher
J. Priest
12 April 2003
Will MacIntire spent the afternoon of his eighth birthday standing in the dirt road of the Cliffside Trailer Park straining for a glimpse of his father's ratty blue pick-up. He waited until dusk. Until it was so dark, Will's mom had to insist Will wait by their trailer so he wouldn't get run over. Until it began raining, and Will was soaked so thoroughly water pooled in his well-worn sneakers.
Until a police cruiser raced down the road and Will's mom yanked him inside. Police startled her, which in turn frightened Will. When the car sped by without incident, Will's mom spat out his father's name while fighting back tears. Will tried to comfort his mom, but she snapped at him, ordering him to go shower and change. Dad wasn't showing up. Again.
Will knew fairly little about his dad. His father worked a lot. He was gone for days at a time, and his work took them from town to town. Will learned not to make close friends because as soon as he did his family would leave town. Will became a loner. An introvert with an analytical mind, a creative imagination, and far too much time on his hands.
Will knew his father was a crook. Had to be. All the clues were there. He also knew his father made his mother cry. Again and again. Dad would vanish for months at a time, which probably meant he was in jail. When Dad was home, he was distant. Cold. Emotionally unavailable. Dad showed Will a face and personality Dad thought appropriate for an eight year-old, not realizing Will's emotional retreat honed his analytic abilities. Will was sharp. Will read between the lines.
Unfortunately, Will's deductive reasoning was governed by an eight
year-old's emotional disposition and sense of the fantastic. That's why, when Will discovered a black rubber costume in his dad's footlocker, he came to the conclusion that his father was a master criminal; a Super-Villain.
Which was completely wrong.
Nevertheless, it was that conclusion, that moment of discovery, that shaped Will's future.
Triumph is, well, kind of an asshole. Headstrong and overconfident, Triumph is The Man With The Plan. He's Tom Cruise's character from Top Gun, Cocktail, and A Few Good Men. He's young, handsome, smart, and powerful. Most of all, he's right. He knows it. He'll rub your face in it.
Triumph has terrible interpersonal skills, as if he'd learned how to relate to other people by reading about it- which is exactly what he did. Triumph approaches relationships as tactical challenges, analyzing and evaluating interpersonal situations with popular psychology. He comes across a bit cold and totally invented. There's fairly little about Triumph that is sincere. He's spent a lifetime guarding his emotions and doesn't know how to turn off his emotional defenses. It is precisely this lack of humanity that has cost Triumph ten years of his life.
A crossover arc in Justice League America #92, Justice League Task Force #16 and
Justice League International #68 introduces Triumph to the DC Universe. We learn that Will
MacIntire, in a turn on the Bruce Wayne legend, spent most of his life inventing Triumph. In fact, Triumph exists at the expense of Will
MacIntire, Will devolving into little more than a staging platform for Triumph's exploits.
While, to the observer, it is widely assumed Triumph has a variety of
Superman-esque powers, Triumph has a single ability drawn from a single power source which he can manifest in a variety of ways. A meta-human whose powers developed during puberty, Triumph draws electromagnetic energy from the Earth's core and channels it like a human transformer, creating a number of effects. Triumph is not Magneto or Dr. Polaris; the electromagnetic energy is only his power source. However, by channeling this energy, Triumph can create powerful energy fields around his person which create the illusion that he is invulnerable. He can negate gravity and create thrust which makes him appear to fly. He can also expand the energy field in a wide or narrow dispersion, making Triumph appear to be firing force or energy bolts. There will be subsequent applications of Triumph's power as he himself (and his writers) learn more about how to channel the earth's energy.
JLA #92 chronicles Triumph's first adventure. It was nearly his last. Like a fireman kept waiting too long for the alarm, Will was egregiously over-prepared for his first Big Emergency. When that emergency presented itself as a world threat, Will saw that as an omen. He gathered most of the known super-heroes together and appointed himself leader. After all, he was The Man With The Plan.
That plan succeeded at a terrible cost. Earth was spared, but Triumph was caught in a "rip" in the fabric of time and was wiped out of existence.
Let me run that by you again: Triumph, Will MacIntire, never existed.
As a result of the rampant time anomalies unleashed by the Zero Hour stuff, Triumph was re-assimilated into our time stream. He'd spent nearly a decade adrift in stasis, aware of life passing him by. Seeing the other heroes go on to take their places in history while the world never knew Triumph even existed. Triumph's decade in purgatory was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He re-lived his first and only adventure over and again in his mind, re-analyzing his mistakes. By the time he was finally freed from his exile, Triumph was once again the over-prepared fireman. He realized that, if he'd been returned to real time, in all likelihood the aliens- the bad guys- had been restored as well. And he knew exactly how to deal with them.
Task Force #16 presents Triumph's second adventure, a virtual mirror image of his first. Once again The Man With The Plan, Triumph attempts to commandeer a ragged squad of demoralized leftover
JL'ers, a handful of people whom Triumph had an at best passing familiarity with. Reverting to type, ignoring the consequences of his first fiasco, Triumph marches in and barks orders, eventually coercing the team to mount an attack against an unseen enemy. Only, moments before the threat actually presents itself, the team falls apart. Triumph is abandoned, and falls victim to the deadly aliens.
Triumph's salvation arrives in Justice League Europe #68 where the lesson of his disastrous first mission hits home. He finally realizes he's put the Plan before the People. He acknowledges that it's possible he doesn't know everything, and opens himself up to influence from the other heroes. By burying his ego and tapping into his humanity. Triumph, well, triumphs.
Which brings us to our series.
Triumph, the invented person, will come to realize he has no soul. That he is out of touch with the humanity he's dedicated his life to serving. He is aware that he is headstrong, somewhat arrogant, impatient, stubborn, and overconfident. As a result of this awareness Triumph will make- at times comical- attempts to be a team player; to follow someone else's plan even when Triumph has found flaws in it. To Triumph, following someone else is like a visit to the dentist. It's painful and difficult, and Triumph finds himself flying off the rails when he simply can't stand taking orders any longer or when he feels the plan is heading south. Of course, this behavior tends to alienate Triumph from the other heroes, potential friends and allies. It leaves Triumph alone, cut off from all humanity.
Triumph ultimately decides he must regain his humanity. His rationale is that getting in touch will make him a better, more rounded person and ultimately a better hero. The truth is Triumph is lonely. Absent Bruce Wayne's fanatic drive, Triumph is chagrined by the price his dedication has exacted.
This series is about Triumph's search for his humanity, and the price he'll have to pay for it. His search begins on a dusty road in the Cliffside Trailer Park. It begins with Dad.
The focus of Triumph's anger, and the catalyst for his years-long preparation for a heroic career, is his father. The man whom eight year-old Will MacIntire was convinced was a deadly super-villain. Which, as I mentioned, was not true.
Triumph's dad was, in fact, a henchman. One of the faceless, generic goons hovering behind The Penguin or
Kobra. Dad actually worked for quite a few costumed criminals. Over the years, Dad amassed quite a wardrobe of silly rubber suits. But he was never The Man; never the master planner. He was, typically, the driver, propelling the FinMobile from heist to heist. It was a secret life, and the only real way Dad- an unskilled, uneducated day laborer- could support his family.
Triumph's mom wept not because Dad abused her, but because she worried about him constantly. Her husband's sacrifice weighed heavily on her, resulting in frayed nerves and declining health. She dutifully shielded her son from Dad's secret life, using her own colorful imagination to rationalize the sudden relocations, Dad's prolonged absences, and her own paranoid fear of police.
She never suspected her efforts were wasted. Eight year-old Will MacIntire had made up his mind about things. His parents' fairly transparent efforts to conceal Dad's secret life only confirmed things in Will's mind. Clearly, Dad was a very evil person, a malevolent master criminal. Perhaps a murderer. He made Will's mom cry. He forgot Will's birthday. Will knew in his heart Dad was bad news.
Things came to a head shortly after that ill-fated eighth birthday, when Mom was forced to reveal at least a part of Dad's secret life to Will. Then a wheel man for The Rattler, Dad was drawn into the battle between the Rattler and the semi-retired
Hourman. Hourman won, Dad was arrested. Again. For potentially his third felony conviction, the one that could land him in jail for life.
Dad's defense attorney insisted Mom and Will appear in court, hoping their presence would play on the sympathy of the jury. The ploy didn't work. The judge threw the book at Dad. Will didn't say good-bye.
Unknown to Will, Hourman was in court that day, in his secret identity of Barney
Whatsisname. The stoic, disaffected little boy struck a cord in
Whatsisname, and that night Hourman paid Will a clandestine visit.
The hero's appearance was the turning point in Will's life. Here was the antithesis to everything Will's father stood for. Hourman urged Will not to blame his father, but to learn from Dad's mistakes and make a better life for himself. The visit lasted all of thirty seconds before Hourman vanished into the night, but it changed Will's life forever. From that moment forward, Will knew his life would be the opposite of his father's.
Will knew that someday he would become a hero.
As the series opens, Triumph sees his father's face in every crook he bashes. Hears Dad's voice in every adversary he faces. Reflecting on his own emptiness and lack of humanity, Triumph conveniently blames Dad for it all. He figures confronting Dad would be the logical place to begin his self-healing.
He discovers Dad is gone, broken out of prison by the Rattler over a year ago. This discovery enrages Triumph, cementing his conviction that Dad is the root of all evil- an eight
year-old's deduction that has not matured in him. Triumph determines to find his father, deal with his personal crap, and slap Dad back in jail where he belongs.
Triumph's first move is to find the man who put Dad behind bars in the first place-
Hourman. In much the same way eight year-old Will created Dad The Villain, he also created Hourman the Hero. The surrogate father. Based on a thirty-second encounter, Triumph all but deified
Hourman, creating in his child's eye the perfect father figure.
Triumph discovers Hourman is dead, a victim of Zero Hour. Hourman's son, from Infinity Inc., is carrying on his name and career. Hourman Jr. deflates Triumph's glorified ideal of Hourman as The Perfect Dad. He tells Triumph Hourman was a good dad, but not a perfect one. He was human. He made mistakes.
This reality adjustment on Hourman foreshadows the far more difficult task ahead of Triumph: dismantling the lifelong convictions that created him. Coming to terms with the fact that, had Dad not been a crook, Triumph would not be a hero.
Triumph, the invented, soulless person, will complete a painful, dangerous journey to reclaim the humanity he sacrificed on that dusty road all those years ago.
He may not survive the trip.
Triumph's Team
Triumph's team is a pseudo revenge squad. Their clients are typically victims of violent crime. If Triumph accepts a case, he will charge whatever the client is able to
pay— even if that's nothing at all. Triumph and his team will, through various intelligence channels and in cooperation with a variety of law enforcement agencies, go after even the most fearsome mobsters. They won't back off until the mobster's organization is destroyed and/or the bad guy is jailed. Actually, destroying the organization is the priority.
Triumph's stock and trade is Probable Cause. He traffics in it like a dope dealer. In exchange for Probable Cause, most law enforcement agencies will cooperate with Triumph as he needs them to. In exchange for such cooperation, Triumph typically pledges (a lá The Godfather) a favor. One mission, any time the law enforcement agency needs him.
Triumph finances most of the operation personally. They have no headquarters, and Triumph lives out of a suitcase. He doesn't necessarily keep the existence of his team a secret from J'Onn and the TF, but he doesn't talk about it much.
The team travels via typical commercial flights, although they may charter a jet as necessary. They
rarely— if ever— travel together, as that's too obvious. They use a high tech jet helicopter called The RotoJet for missions.
The team is outfitted in sleek boy suits. These suits are energy dampening, bullet proof, and provide a built-in, microphone-less comm system. Only Triumph's comm system has a Channel Two on it, which Triumph and Wilma call their "private line." When he's on private, only Wilma can hear his broadcast. The comm system is built off typical local repeater systems, scrambled and bounced of a satellite. Thus, the range is fairly unlimited, and Triumph's people can effortlessly check in with from anywhere on the globe.
TRIUMPH
Triumph is virtually every Tom Cruise character since Top
Gun. He's very young, 21-ish. Handsome. Cocky, Very sure of himself. The Cruise characters in
Gun and A Few Good Men walked a fine line between maverick and asshole, but came off more maverick. The common thread is Triumph (and the Cruise characters)' terrible interpersonal skills. Being a completely invented person, Triumph doesn't relate to people very well. Triumph comes across a little cold and maybe a bit unreasonable. But he's usually right. And he's damned good at what he does.
WILMA
Wilma is dad. He almost never works in the field, but is chained to a console, monitoring everything. Triumph is in constant
contact (even when he's on duty in the Task Force) with Wilma. Wilma is the only team member who actually knows Triumph's name (and Triumph knows Wilma's). Wilma is the voice of reason, the one Triumph confides in. The one whose advice Triumph takes. Sometimes. Wilma is the oldest member of the group, pushing fifty. Bill Cosby-esque, you wouldn't think he'd be much use in a fight. But
Wilma— like everyone else— is weapons qualified and combat ready. He just prefers cardigans and tea. Wilma rarely if ever wears the bodysuit. He really doesn't need it, and he really thinks they're stupid.
FANG
22-ish white girl from the mid-west. Her name might be "Camille." All of these people are far too wounded to be capable of normal human relations. Fang is still trying to please her father, so she's always pursuing the hard challenges and bristles at Triumph's condescension. She misses the point that Triumph talks to
everyone like they're stupid, not just to her. She's anxious to prove she's not just a girl, even though no one treats her that way. Fang is typically the RotoJet pilot. She's also medically trained (she's a dentist).
FATHER ROCKO
Father Rocko is 42-ish. A hulking sonovabitch modeled after James Cann's role in
Thief. If he wasn't an Episcopal priest, Father Rocko would be a mob leg breaker. Six foot six, two hundred seventy-ish pounds,
15% body fat. Father Rocko is the guy you want on your side in a brawl. Very intelligent, Father Rocko's thing is urban street doctoring. He has keen instincts and tremendous powers of deduction. He has very little patience for crooks and is not at all above slapping them around to get what he wants.
EDDIE X
The anti-Ray. 19 years old, under six feet, slim, expensive haircut, lots of swagger. Eddie X is very violent. He has trouble capping the terrible rage living inside him. He's a Latino gangsta from South Central LA, probably a former
gang member. Completely lawless by nature, Triumph's team is just a new gang for him. He's reformed of his old gang-banging due to a tragedy (his whole family wiped out), but he's no law-and-order freak. No, he's more Judge Dredd.
Eff the crooks. He's only changed victims; instead of attacking innocents, now he attacks crooks.
Eddie admires Triumph very much (although he thinks the man's a little too white). In his own way, he's every bit the asshole- excuse me, the maverick- Triumph is. They're virtually the same person, except Eddie X has less hypocrisy about the whole thing.
He's already made his personal journey and come to terms with his past. He's consciously decided to dispense with the heroic facade and pretense to higher values.
Eff The Crooks. He figures Triumph himself will arrive at that emotional place sooner or later, and Eddie X wants to be Triumph's partner in mayhem. Eddie X is a purer form of vigilante than any on the team.
Triumph's Secret Identity:
He doesn't really have one. I mean, even when he's Will MacIntire, he's still Triumph. Triumph stopped being Will when, at age eight, he realized (erroneously) his dad was a super villain. Completely lacking any social life, and living out of a suitcase (except for his Task Force quarters), Triumph assumes the Will MacIntire identity out of either a need for privacy or anonymity.
Will MacIntire looks like Tony Stark with slicked-back hair. Triumph accomplishes this look with a greaseless gel made up of charged particles. By running his hands through his hair, and energizing the gel with his power, his hair turns black and straightens out. It's just as simple to reverse the process. The mustache is accomplished by a far more conventional method- it's a paste-on.
Christopher J. Priest
May 27, 1994
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