Do you know what the similarities are between Charon’s Ferry and King Yama’s Spirit Station from Dragon Ball Z? They are effectively portals to a domain that none of us want to enter, regardless of which religion or entertainment media we follow. Most devoted Christians could only envision what Hell might be like before Dante Alighieri published his literary masterwork in the 14th century.
Then came the publication of Inferno. Suddenly, imagination felt like a far better instrument for imagining damnation, because Dante wrote such a vivid picture. Sandro Botticelli immortalized his portrayal of Hell as a 9-rung funnel of grotesquery and torture in a fresco that went on to become the subject of a Dan Brown novel.
It is also most likely what prompted George Perez and Marv Wolfman to develop the demonic Conqueror of Worlds, who is so powerful that he can battle in Superman’s skeleton. The entity is known as Trigon first appeared in the DC Universe in 1980.
He first appeared in issue #2 of The New Teen Titans Vol. 1 and has since grown into one of the most powerful cosmic threats to ever confront the occupants of Titans Tower and the Hall of Justice. Let us look into the motivations of this demonic conqueror; this is Trigon’s backstory.
Who Is Trigon?
Everything in the Universe exists in order to maintain cosmic balance; life and death, salt and pepper, and the biggest one of them all, Good and Evil. Azarath was once a veritable paradise hidden away in another dimension with green-blue skies and beautiful, crimson clouds. A few millennia ago, a mysterious woman called Azar came to Earth and managed to convince a group of human beings to abandon the ways of man and embrace a life of true peace and prosperity.
She took them back to Azarath with her and guided them in the ways of peace and tranquillity for over 2 centuries. Eventually, they established a mystic society and created the Temple of Azarath. It was here that the society gathered to vanquish evil from their hearts; once and for all. Having learned the deepest secrets of divinity and peace, these former residents of Earth now had the power to truly expel “sin”.
With strange incantations, they exorcised their darkest passions and cast them beyond the Great Door of Azarath into the nether-realm of Limbo. Azar thought she’d finally succeeded in converting humanity’s sin into purity by ripping out what tainted them. Little did she know what would lay in Azarath’s future.
The leftover evil energy that was cast into Limbo with the hope that it will dissipate eventually, instead floated around in space for years before finally coalescing into a single physical form. This entity was summoned onto an alien planet by a cult when one of its female members ended up mating with who she thought was her God. The result of this coupling drew all the trapped evil energy in Limbo into her womb and 9 months later, the demon lord Trigon was born; sadistic, cruel, dangerous, and above all-powerful.
Trigon’s first act upon exiting his mother’s womb was to promptly kill her and anyone else present in the vicinity. At the age of one, he ruled his home planet, and at the age of six, he destroyed it. By the time Trigon had turned 30, he held dominion over millions of planets in his nether-realm and had sired countless children; 6 of his sons represented 6 out of the 7 Sins of Christianity.
Though Trigon was an all-powerful, omniscient being in his dimension, he was consumed by a burning desire for accumulating all evil in existence. Knowing that he couldn’t travel between dimensions, he decided to replicate the circumstances of his own birth in his quest to conquer the Earth.
When Angela Roth’s cult called upon a higher entity to empower them with mystic knowledge, Trigon appeared to her in a form exuding ethereal beauty. The result of their union is the Teen Titan known today as Raven; the Seventh Sin, Trigon’s greatest weapon and progeny.
Using Raven as his pawn, the ancient manifestation of evil hoped to eradicate all semblance of happiness from the Universe and replace it with torture and suffering. This is the version of Trigon comic book fans who knew for about 30 years. With 2011’s New 52 reboot, Trigon got a slightly altered version of his origin story which is somehow even more terrifying.
New 52 Origin of Trigon
During DC’s Villains Month, they released Teen Titans #23.1; a special issue that replaced the titular heroes with the Ruler of the Five Under Realms. A long time ago, in another universe, there existed a trio of alien beings who undertook the mission of scourging evil from their reality.
Known as the Divine, these cosmic beings traveled from world to world with a planet-sized object called The Heart of Darkness that sucks out evil from those it latches onto. They were able to “liberate” millions of worlds from the clutches of malevolence but on their way to fulfilling their goal, they made a peculiar observation. A world they had cleansed before had resumed to its prior state.
In fact, it had become eviler somehow; a savage land of debauchery where brutes fought each other till death to establish their dominance. The Divine visited this world and selected three beings they considered to be the pinnacle of this barbaric relapse. In their curiosity, they allowed them to feast on the Heart of Darkness, hoping that it would perform its functions as intended.
Instead, it was completely devoured by the strongest being on that planet; the demon we know as Trigon. This version of Trigon is different from his classic version; he has six eyes instead of four, and his horns are distinctly smoky. He has only 3 acknowledged sons in this continuity- Belial, Rushkoff, and Suge- whereas he previously had 6; Jared, Jesse, Jacob, Jack, James, and Gluttony.
Fuelled by the evils of multiple universes, Trigon rampaged through the universe after universe, converting planets into versions of Hell to feed upon. No one could stand before his might. Till one day, he encountered Alazandria; the wielder of the Silent Armour. All of Trigon’s might wasn’t enough to break this warrior, and he vowed to return and destroy her planet with his army of children.
Many years later, his minions bring him a woman from Earth called Arella who goes on to give birth to Raven. Though she starts off as a normal teenager, she ends up as Rachel Roth giving in to her demonic half and joining her father.
Trigon starts shaping Raven for his throne, naming her Queen of the Under Realms and giving her vast authority in comparison to her siblings. Trigon was actually proud of his daughter, deeming her ability to feel love, compassion, and dispense justice as being the qualities necessary for intergalactic domination. Raven was his favorite offspring; a fact that pissed her brothers off to no end.
What Makes Trigon So Dangerous?
How about what doesn’t? We get that comic book characters are supposed to be make-believe, but even by that metric, Trigon is way too overpowered. He’s an ancient demonic entity that possesses vast mystical powers and is immune to all kinds of attacks, and we mean literally all of them. He’s responsible for giving Simon Jones the powers that turned him into the telepathic supervillain known as Psimon.
In an alternate reality where there was no one to stand in his way, Trigon was able to turn Superman, Hawkman, The Flash, and Hal Jordan into his personal war trophies. Superstrength, speed, reflexes, flight, laser eyes, regeneration; he’s got all that, and then some.
Trigon is one of the strongest cosmic forces in DC continuity. He’s omniscient and while he can’t easily traverse across universes, he sees everything that happens; everything. This prescience allows him to easily manipulate events to his advantage years before they even happen; he was able to swiftly overcome the forces of Azarath and get Raven back on his side after being banished back into the nether-realm thanks to his foresight (and his haxed abilities).
Trigon has complete control over the very fabric of reality, being able to control shape, size, and matter as freely as one might breathe. When he finally arrived on Earth, Trigon began his desecration of reality by turning Manhattan into a landscape of bone and ash; with its 4 million inhabitants sewn into a grotesque singularity that could only have been thought of by H.P. Lovecraft.
Using his primordial sorcery, he can cast powerful illusions, control the fundamental forces, and completely wipe the mind of a person and take control of their body. He can teleport to any location he can imagine in an instant and spews hellfire from his mouth. Since he is a creature fuelled by evil, Trigon gains strength by preying upon the souls of those who harbor even a hair’s breadth of evil in their hearts.
Oh and also, he’s immortal, so good luck dealing with that. Seriously, if this guy didn’t stay trapped in a quarantined dimension for 98% of his time, we’re pretty sure he’d have made the Multiverse collapse in on itself before The Batman Who Laughs ever showed up. The only time he was defeated was when he was shot with a beam of literal purity; and didn’t die, living long enough to get his energy siphoned off by his evil sons, a fact that made the crazy bastard smile. Talk about family problems.
Different Versions Of Trigon the Terrible Across Various Forms Of Media
Despite being a sort of a niche character, Trigon has found massive mainstream success. A bulk of the credit should go to the 2003 animated TV series Teen Titans. Trigon was the main antagonist for Season 4, with most of his original backstory and storylines being kept intact. In addition to that, in his quest to bring Raven to his side, Trigon resurrects Slade Wilson and turns him into his herald, giving us the crossover we didn’t know we needed before. He meets pretty much the same fate as his comic counterpart.
In Teen Titans Go! And DC Super Girls, Trigon isn’t as much as a universe-conquering tyrant as he is a doting father. Teen Titans Go! Depicts him as a bumbling dad who only wants what’s best for his daughter while encouraging her to “embrace her heritage”. In DC Super Girls, they start off on the wrong foot but are able to mend their bridges and eventually go to parent-teacher meetings together.
Trigon isn’t a prime candidate for live-action adaptations. The prosthetic demands themselves would be a nightmare for any costume designer, no matter how dedicated, they might be to their craft. So you can imagine our surprise when Seamus Dever turns up looking like something out of actual Hell in DC’s TV series Titans. The leader of a group called The Organization, he’s arrived on Earth to reclaim Rachel Roth, cleanse her human half, and unlock her full demonic potential to aid in his conquest.
While the rest of the show was what it was, we’re just gonna throw this out there; if Seamus Dever’s portrayal of Trigon didn’t give you nightmarish gooseflesh, then there’s something wrong with you. Trigon’s comic book story is the basis for a campaign in DC Universe Online, with his Sons being introduced as well via an expansion pack.
The Trigon of the Injustice Universe can say one thing that no other Trigon can; his daughter is actually interested in seeing his plans through. During Superman’s dictatorial rule over the entire planet, Raven ended up on his side. But really, she was serving her father all along, who planned to usurp the throne of Emperor from the deranged Kal-El.
Conclusion
If we weren’t clear before, you do not want to mess with Trigon even in your worst nightmares. He’s the friggin’ grandfather of Etrigan, and he almost attacked Heaven this one time, and…well, you get the point. There are a lot of demons populating the pages of comic books, but for some reason, there’s no one quite as unsettling as Trigon; or as overbearingly powerful, for that matter.