Triathalon and 3-D Man

Phoenixx9 · Post by **Phoenixx9** » 28 Feb 2010, 10:35

I don't know much about these heroes, or if they are the same person and my friends are in disagreement about the details. I searched the MPD including the Archives, but did not see these 2 characters listed and I have a few questions:

1) Are they the same person, just updated?
2) What 3 powers are enhanced (speed, strength, intelligence?) and to what degree?
3) Where do the enhanced powers come from?
4) If they are different people, who has superior abilities?

As always, thank you!

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 28 Feb 2010, 11:42

Triune characters. Archives, page 14.

Hal and Chuck Chandler were brothers who merged to become the first 3-D Man. Delroy Garrett Jr later inherited their power to become Triathlon. Triathlon later honored his mentors by adopted their codename, becoming 3-D Man II.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 25 Jul 2020, 12:49

Where did Chuck Chandler reside before being summoned by his brother? Was it a 2-D reality and of what nature?

What issues contained the storyline regarding the Chandlers, Triune, Triple-Evil, Tremont, etc.?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 25 Jul 2020, 14:52

The non-corporeal Chandler had no physical location when the other brother was active on Earth.

Avengers (3rd series) #8-55.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 25 Jul 2020, 15:49

Thank you, Mono!

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 29 Jul 2020, 23:29

He had no physical location, but he had awareness that he was on Hal’s glasses, he even mentioned it in Atlas and the Avengers Initiative series. And the old Handbook mentioned that it was a 2D reality where he spent most of his time in.

So given that he only became physical when Hal initiated an aperture through his glasses that brought Chuck from a 2D universe to 3D, was he just energy suspended in another plane?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 30 Jul 2020, 00:59

The glasses acted as a medium through which the brothers interacted, but it was more of a placebo than anything. I would characterize Chuck as a semi-dormant sentience inhabiting the Triad energy, which inhabited Hal. In other words, the power was inside him all along.

We saw something similar with Triathlon during Secret Invasion. At first he believed the old 3-D Man's goggles gave him special vision. Once the goggles were destroyed, however, he learned to manifest his vision powers without them.

And when Johnathon Tremont created Triathlon, he drained Triad energy from Hal Chandler's body, not the glasses. That energy, transferred into Delroy, was later revealed to contain the minds of both Hal and Chuck Chandler, both of whom were later physically reconstituted out of that energy.

My long way of saying...I don't think the glasses had any real power. They didn't contain Hal, or a dimension that contained Hal. They were, ultimately, a psychological crutch the brothers used because they didn't understand what had really happened to them.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 30 Jul 2020, 17:14

Thanks for that. Let me ask you this:

Did the three triad shards that empowered the 3-D Man, Jonathan Tremont, and the alien with the first shard absorbed by the Triple-Evil have specific capabilities that they bestowed on individuals or was it random?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 30 Jul 2020, 22:50

The three shards did not have individual identities like the Triforce of Power, Wisdom and Courage. I wouldn't use the word "random", though.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 01 Aug 2020, 12:46

One last question: Where is this image from?

: IMG_1169.JPG (355.37 KiB) Viewed 4123 times

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 01 Aug 2020, 13:04

Avengers Forever #4-5.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 29 Aug 2020, 19:31

Turns out I’m not through, lol.

I’m confused by Atlas #4-5:

1.) What’s the connection between the Trion shards and the Echo Worlders crystals? The series implied that the shards powering the 3-D Man came from them and not the Trion.

2.) If Delroy has all three Trion shards, why is he only powered with the 3-D Man’s abilities?

3.) The 3-D Man’s triangular chest symbol, what’s its significance?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 31 Aug 2020, 01:51

1) Maybe the other way around. I'd posit that the threefold world of our Earth, the 1950's Avengers Earth, and Echo World was created by the Trion (probably by accident) when they introduced the shards into the universe to prepare for the Triple Evil. The Echo crystals are a reflection of the Trion shards, somehow. It would be just like the Trions to have created such unintended consequences like the Triple Worlds while trying to fix the Triple Evil, their first unintended consequence.

2) The threefold three-ness of the Trion shards requires three people to wield them. The Ultimate Power only came when he, Chuck, and Hal were merged together AND wielding all three shards at once.

3) It means many things: The three members of the Trion, the threefold evil, the three worlds from the Atlas series, etc.

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 31 Aug 2020, 22:31

Isn't that 1950's Avengers Earth the same one from What If (Vol. 1) #9? The same one that was destroyed by Kang in Avengers Forever? Lemme guess...the Trion's meddling brought back that reality?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » 03 Sep 2020, 15:49

Figuratively, yes. Literally, who knows.

It is a reality where the 1950's Avengers existed. There's no way to tell if it is actually "Earth-9904" from Avengers Forever, somehow preserved and restored, or a DIFFERENT Earth-#### which is a What IF...Earth-9904 Was Not Wiped Out by the Forever Crystal?"

Dr House · Post by **Dr House** » 03 Sep 2020, 20:05

Thank you, Monolith. You're a wealth of knowledge.

unstable molecules