The Dissector

RETRO NITPICKING:
The Nitpicker #03.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

NOTE FROM THE PRESENT: You’ve read it above, this is a Retro Nitpicking, meaning that I’m treating you to one of my older columns, #3, this week because I won’t be able to write my usual column (but worry not, next week’s will be double). This here column is from the last week of November, 2005 (wow, the Nitpicker nears it’s second birthday!), and was originally published in the CBEM (where this column was born), in its 551st issue. Enjoy it, and never mind the looser standards I held myself in earlier days, and don’t bother pointing out my own spelling mistakes and such.

Hey readers, welcome to this week's Nitpicker! I've been catching up with some titles, for example, I started reading Black Panther (which is very good). So, incidentally, it's been mostly Marvel stuff... so this is a three quarters Marvel column... it'll happen from time to time that I read more from one company than another, or that I find more nits in one publisher's output than in the others.

It's not the wee hours of the morning this time, since I started writing my column yesterday, and now I'm just adding in this intro and the other stuff.. That's called getting the hang of writing on a deadline. Well then, I'll let you go on to the nits:
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"HOPEFULLY, THEY'LL NEVER NOTICE..."

TITLE: X-Men.

ISSUE: 177.

CULPRIT: Peter Milligan (writer)

NIT-TO-PICK: No flavor text here, just straight to the nit: on page 2 Polaris reveals (in her thought balloons) that she's hiding the fact that she's lost her powers, like most of the mutants on the regular Marvel U. Riiiight... and nobody noticed yet? They did not use Cerebra to check who still has powers and who does? As we saw in other X-titles, they did. Can she hide her thoughts from Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world? Failing all that, did they not do a bloodwork on each and every single mutant in the mansion to gather information about what's happening?

NIT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, nothing that affects the story greatly, but a cheap plot trick.
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"HEY, I WAS JUST CAMPING NEARBY AND DECIDED TO SEE HOW THE SENTINELS ARE DOING..."

TITLE: X-Men.

ISSUE: 177.

CULPRIT: Peter Milligan (writer) or Salvador Larroca (penciller).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 22, Valerie Cooper is leading, or at least forming part of a military team that supports the sentinels that have invaded Xavier's. My problem? The team is in full assault gear, helmets, armor, etc... and Val is wearing sunglasses, a tanktop and a backpack... what is she, hiking?

NIT-O-METER: A measly 1 Bazzars, this is only strange, not an error per se. It just seems stupid, that is.
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"HEY SHIFT, IS THAT A MASK, OR YOUR REAL FACE?"

TITLE: Supergirl V5.

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Jeph Loeb (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: In page 10, Supergirl thinks about the Outsiders "... they won't take off their masks or tell me their real names?". Of all the Outsiders, only Nightwing hides his face behind a mask; and if you've had access to Superman's database in the Fortress of Solitude (as Kara most likely has), you know who he actually is. The rest of the Outsiders don't wear masks or take great efforts to hide their secrets identities, if they have one. Grace doesn't, Shift doesn't, Arsenal doesn't wear a mask, neither does Thunder and Supergirl knows who her father is, and Black Lightnings identity is public, as far as I remember.

NIT-O-METER: Just 2 Bazzars, it might be a figure of speech.
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"PARDON ME, MY UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR IS BROKEN."

TITLE: Supergirl V5.

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Jeph Loeb (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: The dark side of Supergirl starts speaking kryptonese, and Lex can't understand it. Please, according to the current version of Superman's origin, Birthright, Lex invented a machine to spy on Kryptonian past, and reversed-engineered many of his scientific advances from there... but he doesn't know how to speak their language? Please.

NIT-O-METER: This is kinda hard not to have avoided with some thinking, so it gets 7 Bazzars.
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"YOU'RE NOT REALLY MY DAD!

TITLE: X-Men: Deadly Genesis.

ISSUE: 01 Of 06.

CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: In page 9, Rachel Summers calls Cyclops "Scott", and on page 19, she calls Jean Grey "Jean"; she's always called them "mom" and "dad", even if she's their daughter from an alternate timeline.

NIT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars, not a big deal.
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"IF JIMAINE CAN BE AMANDA, I CAN CHANGE MY NAME TOO!"

TITLE: Nightcrawler V3.

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 3, Margali Zsardos says her deceased son is called "Stephen", when his name is Stefan.

NIT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, they keep repeating this mistake during the next issues, and his name has been said before in several other books, correctly.
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"WOLVERINE, ENGLISH TEACHER"

TITLE: Nightcrawler V3.

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: Okay, Aguirre-Sacasa is _this_ close to winning the prize of worst writer of the moment. Not only his storylines are dull, and unimaginative (I'm reading this ONLY because of Nightcrawler), but his dialogues are horrible as well. On page 6 Wolverine utters this line "I called Cyke, who's coming in the Black Bird." Has this Aguirre-Sacasa ever read Wolverine's dialogues? In fact, has he ever heard someone speak?

NIT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars... come on, a professional writer should know better than this. Also, not a nit, but a stupid retcon, what the hell is this crap about Kurt living in an American Circus? Only because it serves Aguirre-Sacasa's storyline, he invents that part of Nightcrawler's past? Lousy writing.
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"WHOSE EYE IS THIS?"

TITLE: Nightcrawler V3.

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer) or Rus Wooton (letterer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 20, Margali Zsardos mentions "the eye of AGOMOTTO", when it's "Agamotto", with an "a". Who's Agomotto, Agamotto's brother?

NIT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars, not a big deal, probably a typo, although I'm leaning towards the fact that Aguirre-Sacasa is just a bad writer. In fact, the nit-o-meter scale might soon be graded in Ragsacs....
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"DON'T MIND THE FLIES, I"VE JUST HAVEN'T BATHED IN TWO YEARS..."

TITLE: Nightcrawler V3.

ISSUE: 11.

CULPRIT: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer) and/or Darick Robertson (penciller).

NIT-TO-PICK: I already said it, I'm not fond of this rehashing of Kurt's past, so I'll be direct: what's up with his brother, Stefan, having red eyes and all the flies buzzing around him? Okay, I can buy into the fact that he was demon-possesed, but not one of the previous telling of that episode of Nightcrawler's life showed him like that, all "lord of the flies" like. It's official, Aguirre-Sacasa just made my black list of writers... I might keep reading on, just because a Nightcrawler junkie...

NIT-O-METER: 5 Bazzar's, I hate continuity patches like this, done only to serve a meaningless story arc. I mean, Nightcrawler's one of my favorite characters, but he doesn't merit a solo book. Not even Wolverine does, story-wise, no matter what sales may show.
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”I’M NIGHTCRAWLER, NOT MOONLIGHTER!”

TITLE: Black Panther V4.

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: Reginald Hudlin (writer) and/or Trevor Hairsine (penciller).

NIT-TO-PICK: This issue is a House Of M tie-in, and in that reality, Kurt Wagner (aka Nightcrawler) is a member of the Red Guard, the elite shield team led by Wolverine. Then why is he here, attacking Africa, as one of Apocalypse's troops (maybe even a Horseman), wearing a different uniform than his Red Guard one (he wears a uniform almost like his regular 616 clothes), and with a different haircut (longer) than in his other House Of M appearances? Okay, that was a long sentence.

NIT-O-METER: 7 Bazzar's, this is something you could have avoided by asking the House Of M editor what mutants were available for use as Apocalypse troopers.
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"NO, NO, I'M DE COOL GUY OF DE TEAM, BUT I'M NOT THE ICEMAN!"

TITLE: Black Panther V4.

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Reginald Hudlin (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 3, Wolverine calls Gambit "Drake", which is of course, the last name of the Iceman.

NIT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars, Hudlin's Panther run has been nearly flawless, but this is just not paying attention.
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"ICE THIS THINGY FOR ME!"

TITLE: Black Panther V4.

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Reginald Hudlin (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 21, the Black Panther asks Iceman to put "this glove" on a block of ice until his medical team can arrive. Problem is, it's not a glove, it's a vial or container with a virus inside it... I've never seen that thing called a "glove".

NIT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars again, I guess this wasn't Hudlin's day...
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"NO HURRICANES, JUST A GALE"

TITLE: Wizard Magazine.

ISSUE: 169.

CULPRIT: Chris Ward (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: Yes, I know, this is not a comic book, it's about comic books. But this was funny, and I couldn´t let it pass... On page 61, in his article about Infinite Crisis, Chris Ward mentions Villains United writer, "Gale" Simone (her first name is "Gail").

NIT-O-METER: I'm giving this a 6, it's not big, but a long time member of Wizard's staff like Chris Ward should know the name of such prominent a writer as Simone is. Who's next, "Jeff" Loeb, "Gerry" Ordway and "Sean" Byrne?
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"THERE HASN'T BEEN ANY PREVIOUS ONES, AND THERE WILL BE A SECOND ONE!"

TITLE: DC Universe Golden Age Secret Files & Origins.

ISSUE: Single issue.

CULPRIT: John Ostrander (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 17, before WWII, Johnny Thunder refers to WWI as "The First War"... not only that wasn't the first war ever, but people referred to what we now call WWI as "The Great War".

NIT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, I expect more historic knowledge from a good writer as Mr. Ostrander.
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"MULTIPLE MAN-UFACTURER"

TITLE: Madrox.

ISSUE: 3.

CULPRIT: Peter A. David (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 13, Madrox is handcuffed, and doesn't want to make a duplicate of him, because it would appear handcuffed as well. WTF?!?! That has never been the case, as far as I can remember, with Madrox's power... if so, it would be easy to make money: just borrow a 50 karat diamond ring and start making dupes, you get several rings to sell, and return the original one.

Besides, PAD may be able to contradict his own writing, but it was himself who established in his X-Factor run that there's no "original" and "duplicate" Madroxes, they're all multiple bodies of the same person... and on this run of Madrox, he reverted to the original idea of the character. I must say, I like the fact that each Madrox has its own ideas and feelings, it makes for an interesting story, but I'd rather we stick to the "no original Jamie" thing.

NIT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, PAD should know better, he wrote this character for a long time, and this whole "handcuffed dupe" only served to show that Madrox had acquired escapist skills.
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This week we had a 5.1 average, lower than last week's 6.4. Am I reading more quality stuff? Or is it just that there's more nits, but lower ranking? I vote for option B. Until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more nits, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE NITPICKER!