The Dissector

The Dissector #47.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]

"I've got Nazi all over my suit! And I just had it cleaned..." Wildcat (Ted Grant), JSA: Classified 31.

Here I am trying to catch up, so I'll make the intro to this column (devoted to comics published on 10-13) short and sweet. Last week's Dissect This! was that Wolverine's eyes were colored brown, instead of blue. This week's Dissector's Pick for Best Book goes to Superman Confidential #8, in which Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning tell a story of Superman's first meeting with the New Gods, with excellent art by Chris Batista (inked by Cam Smith and colored by Jason Wright), which reminds of me of a good Jack Kirby yarn.

A special mention goes to New X-Men V2 #43, which has a nice original New Mutants vibe to it, including the new costumes for the kids. The worst book, surprisingly, is Countdown To Infinite Crisis #26... the whole issue is just a frakking recap. I hate that kind of thing. Time for the dissections, my friends.
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"RED, YELLOW, WHO CARES?"

TITLE: Action Comics.

ISSUE: 858.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Yeah, well... I can't make this the worst issue of the week, because it's got the classic LSH, and the story in itself it's not so bad. But I just can't take the stupid new continuity, with a (again) smoking Perry White, and worse, a clumsy Clark who's regarded as a klutz by everyone, and pitied by Perry. No, no, no, no. Clark Kent is a MAN, a real person, married to a beautiful woman, a successful reporter and novelist, while Superman is just a disguise.

FUCK YOU DC FOR TURNING HIM BACK INTO A SHADOW OF A MAN!!! *Sigh* Sorry about that... channeling my inner rage... The dissection in this case is that Superman arrives at the 30th Century and never, for a moment, until he's shot at, realizes that Earth's sun is red by then. He should have felt it immediately.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"SHIFTING GREEN."

TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.

ISSUE: 01 of 06.

CULPRIT: Dave Baron (colorist).

DISSECTION: On the last page, Kyle Rayner's gloves are colored green, when his new uniform has white gloves.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"JASON, YOU SHOT ME SO HARD YOU TURNED MY EYES WHITE!"

TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.

ISSUE: 01 of 06.

CULPRIT: Liam Sharp (penciller).

DISSECTION: Same page, Donna Troy's eyes are completely white.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"WHO'D WIN IN A FIGHT, AN ELEPHANT... OR A HORSE?"

TITLE: Countdown To Adventure.

ISSUE: 03 of 08.

CULPRIT: Adam Beechen (writer).

DISSECTION: This book's been good so far, and it's always a plus to have one of my favorite characters, Animal man, around. Problem is, I don't think Adam Beechen has much knowledge about Animal Man... Buddy is being piled upon by possessed people, and he tells Starfire that he's going to try to "switch from elephant to horse, so I can buck these sad sacks off..."

Uhm.... why switch to a less strong animal? I don't think "bucking like a bronco" is necessarily an animal power, but more of a chosen maneuver by the horse, which can be performed by Buddy in his human form, but with greater strength if he's using an elephant's abilities.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"WE KNOW EVERYTHING... HEY, WHAT'S THAT?"

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis.

ISSUE: 26.

CULPRIT: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers).

DISSECTION: So, the title finally changes to reflect the actual nature of the book... but this recap issue was a piece of crap. Still, it's just one issue, and the book has been getting better. And now Keith Giffen is a "story consultant"? Well, I like that, Giffen has a more solid grasp on comic book storytelling and DCU continuity than head writer Paul Dini, but I will miss his art breakdowns.

In this case, on page eleven, the monitor who killed Duela Dent (it's been assumed that he's the one for Earth-3) says "when we see everything"; yet mere lines above he says that Jimmy Olsen and Karate Kid ("the" Karate Kid, he says, oddly), but he doesn't know who!

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, I admit that on second reading, this might be stretching it, but I couldn't have an issue of Countdown without a dissection...
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"ECLIIPSO."

TITLE: Countdown To Mystery.

ISSUE: 02 of 04.

CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer) and/or Ken Lopez (letterer).

DISSECTION: On page 26, Eclipso says "lettiing" instead of "letting".

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
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"NOBODY'S PERFECT, CHARLIE BROWN."

TITLE: DC Infinite Halloween Special.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Ian Churchill (penciller, The Pumpkin Sinister).

DISSECTION: Hey, I just realized Jon Bogdanove teamed-up with his son, Kal-El for a story! Cool. But that's not the point... in this story where Dan DiDio does a parody of a grown-up Charlie Brown sacrificing Snoopy to summon a pumpkin monster, Churchill draws no zigzag stripe on Charlie's sweater on the first panel of page 58, but it's present on the following panels, seen from a distance.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"BLUE, YELLOW, SHE'S DEAD, WHO CARES ABOUT THE GLOVES?"

TITLE: Death Of The New Gods.

ISSUE: 02 of 08.

CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist)

DISSECTION: On page 24, good old Jeromy again colors Big Barda's gloves blue.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"I SHRINK DOWN IN HUMILITY."

TITLE: The Dissector.

ISSUE: 46.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Bored found these as soon as he saw I had posted the column. To my defense, I was up finishing my column after work (I get home at 7 AM, and stayed up writing up to 9.30 AM, and posting, as my computer is slow as hell, up to 11 AM). On the first part of the column I wrote the word "shrinked" instead of "shrunken", when referring to Titania.

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. No wonder the spell checker didn't recognize it, but in my sleepy state I just hit "ignore all".
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"THIS IS A COLUMN WHO'S AUTHOR MAKES MISTAKES, BUT IS NOT AFRAID OF CONFESSING TO THEM."

TITLE: The Dissector.

ISSUE: 46.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Another sleepy-head mistake, when mentioning that I'd like Lewis Black's routines, I wrote "who's" instead of "whose". That's two badges for you, Bored.

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"MISSING REPORTS."

TITLE: The Invincible Iron Man (Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D.) V2.

ISSUE: 23.

CULPRIT: Daniel & Charles Knauf (writers).

DISSECTION: On page 7, Iron Man finds out that the state of Nebraska has a yearly average of missing people from 1996 to 2006 of 329 people, and a total in the last 12 months of 864. However, some quick research tells me that the NCIC had 834,536 entries for missing persons during 2005. Dividing that by 50, that's more than 16000 people per state per year, and even if Nebraska just gets 10% of that, it's still 1600.

Even if you only take into account the active missing person records at the end of a year, which according to the US Department of justice were 109,531by the end of 2005, that's still more than 2000 per state.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, it COULD be different in the Marvel Universe, I guess.
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"LIGHTNING, EVER CHANGING."

TITLE: JSA: Classified.

ISSUE: 31.

CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).

DISSECTION: My god, look at this panel, somebody please break Alex Sanchez hands so he can never draw again!!! Oh, wait, looking at his art, it looks like his hands are already broken!


Anyhoo, he still hasn't got Jay Garrick's chest emblem right, and not only that, but he draws it differently each panel Jay appears:


DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"NINJA NAZIS!"

TITLE: JSA: Classified.

ISSUE: 31.

CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).

DISSECTION: Are you trying to tell me that all the years the JLA had a moon base, not to mention all the years they had a motherfricking satellite, they never, ever, spotted the Nazi base?

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"KRANG, IZZAT YOU?"

TITLE: JSA: Classified.

ISSUE: 31.

CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).

DISSECTION: The tank holding Heinrich Himmler's brain breaks, and HIS BRAIN SCREAMS. Not through speakers, but the brain itself, and it continues to talk as it's a puddle of gray (fuchsia, actually) matter on the floor.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, brains can't scream!
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"DISSECT THIS MESS!"

TITLE: JSA: Classified.

ISSUE: 31.

CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).

DISSECTION: See if you can see what's wrong with these panels (except for Sanchez's horrible art, this is a straight out mistake, and it's not Jay's emblem, and it's not any coloring mistake or anything, it's something Sanchez did wrong:


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"FAIR PLAY MY ASS!"

TITLE: JSA: Classified.

ISSUE: 31.

CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).

DISSECTION: See above too, I'm pretty sure Mr. Terrific wouldn't execute a prisoner.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"I BORROWED THESE FROM VICTOR. YEAH, THE CAPE TOO."

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).

DISSECTION: Man, I'm loving this book, Johns' story is great, and Eaglesham's art is wonderful, not to mention the painted covers by Alex Ross (and some inner pages in this issue). However, as discussed in the comments section a few columns ago (and on some columns proper), Eaglesham takes certain liberties with the characters costumes. In this case, he draws gigantic, Dr. Doom sized cape clasps for Alan Scott.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"FLUID LIGHTNING."

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).

DISSECTION: Eaglesham still draws Jay Garrick's chest lighting however he pleases. Still not as bad as Sanchez.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"YOU'RE NOT MY SON!"

TITLE: Sub-Mariner.

ISSUE: 05 of 06.

CULPRIT: Phil Briones (penciller).

DISSECTION: One of the Vulc.... I mean Atlantean rebels (Spo... Namor's son, Kamar) has rounded ears on page 30. If anything, since he's three quarters Atlantean, his ears should be even pointier than Namor's.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN WORLD."

TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Marc Silvestri (penciller).

DISSECTION: Good start for a much anticipated storyline, but not except of dissections. On page 2, Professor X is in Cerebra with Beast, and the map of the world just looks funky. Not as horrible as that Australia map on the Batman annual some time ago, but when you compare it with an actual map, little details don't really match.

Incidentally, I only found this dissection while trying to match the piece of the map showing South America to a real map, to see if one of the lights indicating a mutant was in Uruguay. And it very well might be! Given the map's deformity, it might be in the Uruguay/Brazil border near the Atlantic Ocean. To my Uruguay readers, it means that we've got ourselves a Chuy mutant who uses his powers to do bagayo! (Bagayo is a word for the petty smuggling of food and clothing goods between the cheaper Brazil and Uruguay for resale.)

Now, to Brubaker's credit (not ignoring Silvestri's pencils, which are much welcomed back to the mutants), he does say that the number of mutants the world is now "a few hundred", therefore reinforcing the fact that "198" is merely a moniker for those mutants identified by the US government, and than there's more mutants all over the world. And despite the map thing, I'd like to commend Marc Silvestri for drawing Beast's correctly, if a little skinny.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Yes, the fictitious countries that exist in Marvel might make the map slightly different, but I'm not talking about political divisions, but the physical outlines of the continents. That could still be different, I admit it, but it's still a dissection to me. In any case, I've lowered from a 6, to a 4 as I considered these things.
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"IT SEEMS LIKE IT HAPPENED YEARS AGO."

TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).

DISSECTION: Cyclops refers to, on page 32, "the first mutant birth in years", when it's in fact the first mutant birth since M-Day, which definitely wasn't years ago.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!"

TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Marko Djurdjevic (artist, X-Men "file" pinup).

DISSECTION: Djurdjevic does a wonderful pin-up, but he shows what appears to be Psylocke as part of the X-Men, when she's not with the team these days.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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Alright, as quick as I started, I'll finish, this column was even shorter than usual, with just 22 dissections, and not much text for most of them. The average was a regular 5.7 Bazzars, and here we go with the Moment Of The Week, not very much, but I liked it: Namor pimp slaps a rebel!


That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!