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Trinity was great this week. Mostly for the dialogue. Issue #47 gave us great lines like this:

• "Your hour of reckoning is at hand!"
  

• "I am three times the god you are!"

• "Ahh, but we'll see a battle now!"

• "Such a rich jest!"

• "You'll all rue this day!"

• "Answer me, you arrogant shade!"

• "Luthor has done enough."

And of course:

• "Smack 'em up!"

Or judgement, if you prefer:

I bet somebody's happy...

Know this: I am pleased. I am not entirely pleased, but by and large the comics this week featuring iterations of "Polaris" have pleased me.

The comics in question were Trinity -- which featured an alternate timeline where I, the true Doctor Polaris yet reign -- and Blue Beetle, starring "Doctor" Polaris M. B. A.. In Trinity audiences were thrilled by brilliant dialogue and a raw, emotional display of magnetic power. In this, I was pleased.

Blue Beetle, unfortunately, was not nearly as appealing. Is it possible that that M. B. A. could keep the color of his costume from changing from issue to issue? Perhaps even page to page? And know this, Mister Polaris: I do not need sympathy or tribute from the likes of you.

I will give my pathetic successor some due: his dialoguing is superb. He knows what to say and his word balloons outclass all others. He thinks big (in the aforementioned Green Lantern murdering). But nonetheless, Mr. Nichol, your appearance in Blue Beetle shows how much you pale in comparison to the true Polaris:

Yo hablo español.

Rejoice, my loyal allies! For Polaris has truly returned!

Consider: the most recent issue of the weekly series Trinity. There, we see the Anti-Trinity summon a cadre that consists of the most fearsome villains of all time. And who, you may ask, is front and center? It is I, Doctor Polaris.

Now, it is easy to assume that that is not me. After all, the coloring is shoddy and some pieces of the costume are just not quite right. But consider this: in a world where there is no Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman would Infinite Crisis have happened?

Seeing as that particular Crisis was precipitated in part by the Supermen of Earths 2 and Prime, I say no. And if Infinite Crisis never happened then I was never blown up by the Human Bomb (Human Bomb!) and therefore never replaced by an M. B. A.!

I approve, Mr. Busiek. I heartily approve.

Some things never change. The sun rises in the east, Ted Kord is dead, and Thursday means Thursday Night Thinking!

Those Controllers... Always thinking. I guess that's what it's like when you're telepathic...

A few thoughts on this week's Trinity. Here goes:

• I've suspected since the beginning that the mysterious "Enigma" is who he seems to be. But I'm wondering how the character got from what he was originally portrayed as -- a great hero -- to the villain he seems to have become.

• I absolutely loved Superman's explanation as to why he's capable of taking on the entire Anti-Trinity single-handedly. Just one more piece of evidence that Superman is the best there is at what he does.

• Oh, how great is the talisman the baddies are taking to represent Wonder Woman's enemy? I hope somebody does drop it and makes a complete and total mess of the contents. I hated that guy.
  

Last Thursday over at the Absorbascon Scipio asked the following regarding a villainous Anti-Trinity: "Whom do you choose and why?" I had an answer, but seeing as I was busy thinking, I didn't share it here. I will do so now.

For my Anti-Trinity I allowed the standard caveats to apply: each member of the Anti-Trinity must also be members of the actual Trinity's rogues galleries. Additionally, I followed with the idea one should be a crime boss (to represent the common Batman foe), one should be a science fiction villain (to represent the common Superman foe), and one should be supernatural/mythological (to represent the common Wonder Woman foe).

That being said, I did decide to turn things a bit to the side. Rather than having each of those common foe types fit exactly to the characters they are opposing, I decided to mix things up. Thus, my Anti-Trinity:

From Superman's rogues gallery I chose the Atomic Skull. In this, I chose the once seen Kurt Busiek version. That version of the Atomic Skull is the far cry from the mentally deranged villain seen in the recent issue of Manhunter. On the contrary, he is articulate, wealthy, and a schemer. He is a crime boss, and as such, fits the mold of a Batman villian.

From Wonder Woman's rogues gallery I chose Doctor Cyber. Though she hasn't often been seen, when she has appeared she has been portrayed as a brilliant scientist who employs high technology. She is quite clearly a science fiction villain, fitting the mold of your typical Superman nemesis.

Finally, from Batman's rogues gallery I chose The Monk. For those unfamiliar with this character, I point you back Detective Comics #31 in the year 1939. As one of Batman's oldest foes, the Monk is an insidious vampire -- a supernatural entity, which fits the mold of your usual Wonder Woman enemy.

Thus, my Anti-Trinity is revealed: The Atomic Skull, Doctor Cyber, and The Monk. That's who I'd use if I were writing Trinity...

Further proof that Trinity is going to be the rockingest thing since sliced bread: next week's issue is titled "A Personal Best At Giant Robot Smashing."

It's gonna be a fun year...

Okay, so Trinity starts tomorrow (or today, depending on how you look at it; the time zone change always befuddles me). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Trinity will be better than 52. Way better. I did not make a similar prediction about Countdown. Thank Highfather I didn't!

Anyway, here's why Trinity will be better than 52 (and by extension Countdown): Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley.

Now what exactly do I mean by that? Am I saying that Mr. Busiek and Mr. Bagley are better at what they do than the people who worked on 52 and Countdown? Not all all. The reason why Trinity is going to be so good is continuity. And not the kind that tells us the history of the DC Universe.

Week in, week out, we're going to get a comic written and drawn by the same two storytellers. Every single week. That's like getting a monthly comic weekly. That's going to have a very different feel to me than 52 and Countdown -- both of which were primarily "events."

Everything points to Trinity being different. All the signs say that this comic is not going to be about events. It's going to be about one solid story. It's not going to have crossovers. It's not leading up to anything. It's just going to be solid, beautiful superhero storytelling starring three of the greatest fictional characters ever conceived.

What more could we ask for?

I had planned to write a scathing postmortem of DC's Countdown series tonight.

But I decided I didn't want to do that. There are a lot of things in comics that I don't like. Generally, I don't bother complaining about them (unless they involve Cassandra Cain). Doctor Polaris and Azrael do more than enough complaining (and whining in the latter's case) for the three of us.

By most objective metrics Countdown was a failure. But I'm not going to talk about that. As with all missteps, the only thing that can be done is to reflect, and then look to the future.

And so! To me the future of DC looks bright. I believe that they have learned from their recent failures (Countdown) as well as recent successes (Sinestro Corps War).

The two big coming things are of course Final Crisis and Trinity. With Final Crisis, DC has taken a cue from the successes of Sinestro Corps. They've made clear again and again that though there are tie-in miniseries, readers can pick and choose which ones they want to read. They won't be like the myriad of Infinite Crisis or Countdown tie-ins. Whatever else there is, Final Crisis can stand alone.

With Trinity, DC is taking a step back and looking at what worked and didn't work in 52 and Countdown. One problem with Countdown was that the stories seemed to jump all over with no clear goal in sight. Trinity will not suffer from that. Rather than different writers working on different issues, everything will be done by one core team.

Still, it's hard to say to what degree Trinity will tie-in to other projects. I have a feeling that like Sinestro Corps and Final Crisis, Trinity will be largely self-contained. I hope so.

For my part, I'm more excited right now about DC than I have been in a long time. The countdown is nearly ended. The next number is zero. Than all hell breaks loose.

It's going to be a grand time...

Okay, so I'm going to engage in some crazy speculation here. I'm undoubtedly wrong, but I'm going to lay it out just in case I'm right so I can point to this post and say: "I was right!" Because I'm petty that way.

My train of thought began when I read an interview with Kurt Busiek on the upcoming Trinity. There, Mr. Busiek talks about the villains that he intends to put up against Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman:

"We wanted to build a counter-trinity on grounds other than "the most famous enemies," and use some characters that we could do striking and different things with. So our villains come from the world of myth, the world of SF adventure and the world of crime, but they're not the guys the heroes would immediately see coming, and what they appear to be up to isn't necessarily how things will turn out."

This immediately intrigued me, as Kurt Busiek is one of those writers who likes to "adopt" minor, third-string characters that have been in limbo for a while and then reimagine them. This annoys some people, but I love it when he does that. So I figured that that's what he'd do here: take some old villains of the Big Three that haven't been used in a while and reinvigorate them.

Without mentioning any specifics, he goes on to say that Luthor and the Joker will be featured. Then he says what -- to me -- is the money quote:

"I will say that the skull of Maxwell Lord plays a part..."

That certainly threw me for a loop. The skull of Maxwell Lord? How exactly could Max Lord's cranium play into things?

Then I got to thinking... What did happen to Max Lord's body after Wonder Woman killed him? For the life of me, I couldn't remember. And nobody I asked seemed to know either. So where is Max Lord's skull?

From there, my mind turned to Mr. Busiek's Superman run. I began to think about some of the other third-stringers that Mr. Busiek has adopted and modified. The one that immediately popped into my head was the Atomic Skull.

Now, I'm sure you all see where I'm going with this... But bear with me. Busiek first mentions this new Atomic Skull in his "Camelot Falls" story arc. In the dystopian future it's mentioned that various villains have seized control of huge chunks of the Earth's territory. And one of them was the Atomic Skull.

The original Atomic Skulls (there have been Pre- and Post-Crisis versions) aren't the sort that would be capable of that. Neither have been particularly impressive as villains. So it was safe to assume at the time that this was a new Atomic Skull.

This was borne out by a later Busiek penned comic, Action #852. Here, we get our first glimpse of the new Atomic Skull when an escaped Kryptonite Man contacts a group of major figures in the criminal world:

In the company of movers and shakers like Tobias Whale and the Calculator (as well as rarely used Busiek adoptee Doctor Cyber) we see the new Atomic Skull. His look bears little resemblance to the old ones, and to be in such storied company this Atomic Skull has to be much more than simply a thug with delusions of grandeur.

And the Kryptonite Man treats him as such. This new Atomic Skull is undoubtedly someone of stature and prestige in the criminal underworld. He clearly has resources as well, as the Kryptonite Man has gone to him and the others for financial backing.

So who the hell is this new Atomic Skull? He comes out of nowhere and appears right off the bat to be a major player in supervillainy. Still, when I originally read that comic I didn't give it much thought. The Atomic Skull vanished from my mind. Until I read that Trinity interview.

You see, when Kurt Busiek "adopts" characters they tend to recur in his comic books. Sometimes years later. So when I heard that Mr. Busiek was going to be using lesser villains in his "counter-trinity" the image of the Atomic Skull briefly flitted through my mind. And when I saw "the skull of Maxwell Lord" my eyes bugged out of my head.

Is it possible that the Atomic Skull will be one of the villains that opposes the Big Three in Trinity? And is it also possible that the Atomic Skull is none other than the villainous Maxwell Lord, returned from the grave?

In comics, anything is possible...

So, DC has announced their next weekly as Trinity. Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman. Here's the thing, though: I knew this was what it was going to be.

You can believe me or not, but I guessed quite a while ago that this is what we were going to get. In fact, I bet a lot of you out there guessed the same thing. The signs weren't exactly subtle. Hell, I even managed to guess the title.

There are bigger questions, of course, that we don't have answers to. What sort of comic is Trinity really going to be? How connected to the DCU? And of course, how will it be related to the next inevitable event that DC does?

My hope is that Trinity will be more or less a stand alone story. I think there's a lot that can be done with the Big Three as a team. Keith Giffen gave us a taste of that in Four Horsemen.

But me? More than anything I'm looking forward to the backups that'll introduce new characters. I love that sort of stuff.