The Dissector

The Dissector #53.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"HHAAAAHH!! MAKES BALLS REVOLVE LIKE SPINNING DERVISHES...!" Vas, aka "Love Sausage", former Soviet superhero, after taking a drink of his homebrewn booze, which, appropriately, has a skull and crossbones for label.

Well, sort of time this week, and let's dive straight into this. Both Dominik and Miss Kitty Fantastico made the Dissect This! from last column, and it was of course the fact that the Wasp had wings at normal size; when she only has wings while shrunk. Badge for both of them! Rock-Me Amodeo added that 616 Wasp has experimented with retaining her wings as she grows back to full size, getting to keep them at some 54 inches tall, and also, her powers might work differently in the Ultimate universe, being a mutant, she could have also had a progression of her powers or a secondary mutation. That's why it had a relatively low rating.

The Autopsy Awards have plenty of votes now, but I'm still keeping the voting open until the end of the year. The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are the following: Best Book is for the oversized Green Lantern V4 #25, part of the final wave of the Sinestro Corps War, along with the also great Green Lantern Corps V2 #19, and the less-fantastic-but-still-good Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Ion (which were epilogues, actually). I've said time and again, Geoff Johns is the best thing to happen to the Green Lantern mythos since the mid-80s, and he still has more in store for us. The way he choreographs the action, and mixes it with the more personal moments (as you'll see in the Moments Of The Week), coupled with his great understanding of the characters, gives us a very solid and entertaining story.

His partners in crime, Ivan Reis and Ethan Van Sciver handle the pencilling duties, along with the inks of Oclair Albert, Julio Ferreira and Ivan Reis himself, and the colors of Moose Baumann and Rod Reis. The distinct style of both pencillers, and the separate work of the inkers and colorists does not make you feel you're reading one of those end-of-saga issues where one penciller wasn't enough and you can (painfully) see the differences in the artists' styles, no matter how good they're on their own. In fact, only George Pérez, the man himself for macro-scale superhero battles, gets better than this, and I dare say, that for a Green Lantern finale, Van Sciver and Ivan Reis are a better choice George Pérez. In fact, Ethan Van Sciver was born to pencil Green Lantern. As usual, not much to say about the lettering, but Rob Leigh does his usual good job.

Now, the Worst Book of the week, is not an entirely awful comic, but a disappointing second issue of a mini. I'm talking about Salvation Run #02. Bill Willingham's script is flat, there's no character development, and very little plot advancement, save for the end, when Lex Luthor finally shows up to take over. Sean Chen's art is good, but John Kalisz colors are too bright for a book comprised mostly of supervillains, and it just doesn't cut it for me. Not an awful book, but the worst I read this week.
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"I ATOM SMASHED MY HAIR AND EYES INTO ANOTHER COLOR."

TITLE: Black Adam: The Dark Age (DC).

ISSUE: 05 of 06.

CULPRIT: Nathan Eyring (colorist).

DISSECTION: Atom Smasher's hair is colored blonde, when it's red, and his eyes are almost grey, instead of blue (but I'm counting this as one dissection). Last issue he had black hair and black eyes, so Eyring can't even keep his own mistakes straight.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"DO SVIDANIA KOMRADE PRESIDENTSKY!"

TITLE: Countdown Presents: The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Son (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Alan Burnett (writer).

DISSECTION: Bob says about the history of this Earth-30 that "Superman became (...) after Stalin died, the new Soviet President." Problem is, at least in the real world, there was no such position until March, 1990 (and only until December, 1991), created specifically for Mikhail Gorbachev to occupy. Before that, the head of state of the USSR (commonly referred to in the West as "Premier") was the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1922-1938), Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1938-1989), and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet in (1989-1990).

Yes, this is an alternate Earth, and even the "regular" DC Earth is alternate to our own, but this doesn't stop me from believing that Burnett didn't bother doing some research on the USSR.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"YOU SURE HE'S HERE?"

TITLE: Countdown Presents: The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Son (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Alan Burnett (writer), or actually, Jeanine Schaefer (editor for this book) and Elisabeth V. Gherlein & Mike Carlin (assistant editor and editor for Countdown To Final Crisis).

DISSECTION: So, if in issue #20 of Countdown To Final Crisis Bob said he knew where Ray Palmer is, why are they in Earth-30, and Ray isn't, and why isn't there any mention of that in this issue?

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"NAZILANDIA ÜBER ALL IS!"

TITLE: Countdown: Arena (DC).

ISSUE: 02 of 04.

CULPRIT: Keith Champagne (writer).

DISSECTION: Dominik B. reported a total of six dissections (yes Dom, six, I'm counting the Führer/Führerin one) in this book, all incorrect uses or spelling of German words and phrases used by a Nazi version of the Ray. Dominik says "I found another one… actually, quite a number. Lots of stupid Kraut in there. Can it hurt to actually ask one German person to do the Kraut for them? I mean, I’d gladly offer myself if they ask. For free, even."

At one point, to use one as example, wants to curse saying and says "I say verdammt noch Gott", which probably means "I say goddamnit". However, the phrase he uses isn't correct at all, it should be "Gottverdammt". Many of these errors can be explained a way by saying that the Ray is not German at all, but an American who wants to be in the Nazi regime's good side by trying to speak German. Still, some errors are lettering errors, like using "ä" instead of "a".

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars for this one. Just the one badge for Dom, though.... or not, let's give him two badges, which together with the one he got for the Dissect This! give him a total of 7, making him a Lieutenant in the HDSC. Congratulations!
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"WHAT WAS I SAYING?"

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Jared K. Fletcher (letterer)

DISSECTION: On page 10, third panel, second caption box from the bottom, the sentence reads "{Whew}... And I thought I" and there's nothing else, there's a blank line, and the next caption box implies there was more to that sentence. Plus, and not a dissection, why would they use braces "{ }", instead of regular parentheses? There's another lettering and/or writing dissection reported by Brecht, in page 8 they spell "Moinitors". Oh, and no Mary Marvel boot heels either, plus a problem with Una's costume.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars for the incomplete sentence.
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"SOMETIMES I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE HERE."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 51.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: In the "Welcome to Latveria" moment of the week I wrote "It's like Lee/Kirby villain team up!", when it should have been "It's like a..."

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
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"THE STRIPPER! AGAIN!"

TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Ivan Reis (penciller pages 1-7 and 12-47).

DISSECTION: As mentioned before, great ending to the Sinestro Corps War saga, and it's only the beginning. Starfire appears on a battle scene on page 15, with superpowers. No resolution has been given to the Countdown to Adventure storyline, so I'll still assume she has no powers.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"NO RING CHARGE? "LET'S JUST JOHN WAYNE OUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE!"

TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Again Geoff Johns insists on Green Lanterns not being able to recharge their rings because they don't have their lanterns with them. They can carry the lantern inside the ring. Geoff, just a couple of panels showing them losing the lanterns in mid-battle, or some mumbo-jumbo about too much yellow energy interference would have been enough for the hand-to-hand encounter with Sinestro.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"442 RINGS TO RULE THEM ALL!"

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 19.

CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer).

DISSECTION: The Green Lantern Corps lost 442 members, and our favorite picklehead is shown forging new rings. Thing is, the rings of the dead lanterns, at least many of them, were shown flying off to their respective sectors to look for replacement corps members. Also, as far as I know, the Guardians themselves forged rings, if things have changed, they should specify that.

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

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 19.

CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer) and/or Phil Balsman (letterer).

DISSECTION: Nice and easy, veeery easy. Look at the panel below, and find it.


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"OUT OF COSTUME."

TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Cliff Chiang (penciller/inker).

DISSECTION: Again, Speedy and Black Canary's costumes are wrong. Also, Speedy's eyes are colored brown instead of blue.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars on the costumes (each of them).
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"GREEK GODS CAN BE VENGEFUL."

TITLE: Hybrid Bastards (Archaia Studios Press).

ISSUE: 01 of 03.

CULPRIT: Tom Pinchuk (writer) and/or uncredited letterer.

DISSECTION: Zeus' name is spelled "Zues" on page five. I know you kind of pronounce it like that in English (or rather, like "zoos", although the correct Greek pronunciation would be "Zefs", with a strong "f"), but that doesn't mean you write it like you pronounce it.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"ANOTHER STAND-IN!"

TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).

ISSUE: 37.

CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist).

DISSECTION: Wolverine's eyes are colored brown again. And yes, it turns out that all the back-up the New Avengers had were part of an illusion cast by Dr. Strange; so I retract on all the dissections related to that in column #49, except for the one about Howard the Duck. So, I recalculated the average for that column... and it went up, from 6.0 to 6.3!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"BODY SNATCHER."

TITLE: Nightwing (DC).

ISSUE: 139.

CULPRIT: Carlos Rodríguez (penciller).

DISSECTION: In the last page, R'as al Ghul is depicted in his original body, when he had already "migrated" into one of Nanda Parbat's monks. He doesn't even show any sings of decay. Also, his skin is colored normally, instead of the sickly green it was, and his eyes are colored blue, when they've been usually shown as green lately.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars for the pencilling dissection.
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"THAT'S NOT THE METALLO I KNOW... IT'S HIS SURFING COUSIN, BOBBY "DUDE" CORBEN."

TITLE: Salvation Run (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 07.

CULPRIT: Bill Willingham (writer) and Sean Chen (penciller).

DISSECTION: I'm counting this as just one dissection, but since when does Metallo: 1) Have a new human-looking body (yes, this could be a recent development not shown "in camera"), 2) Mantain an "internal log" a la Star Trek, and 3) RIDE A HOVERING SURFBOARD?!??!?!?!?!!?!?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"IT'S THE SENILITY SPEAKING."

TITLE: Spider-Man Family (Marvel).

ISSUE: 06.

CULPRIT: Tom Belland (writer for "Endangered").

DISSECTION: Aunt May says that when she sees Peter, she can see his father, and it's like "having her brother in the room". However, as most people know (and a writer working on a Spider-Man story should definitely know), May's not blood-related to Peter, Ben Parker was the brother of Richard Parker, father to Peter.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"OH, THE PAIN!"

TITLE: Ultimate Iron-Man II (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 04.

CULPRIT: Orson Scott Card (writer).

DISSECTION: One of the characters, a villain, is called "Dolores", claiming that it means "pain". No, it means "pains", "pain" would be "dolor"; plus, Whiplash says that "In America, it's a girly name."; well, in Spanish, it's also a female name.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"RUNNING THE GAUNTLET."

TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 26.

CULPRIT: Scot Eaton (penciller).

DISSECTION: Surge's gauntlets don't look like they should; plus, as a separate dissection, her uniform doesn't look like it should.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars for the gauntlets.
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"EMPORER OF THE MARVEL MULTIVERSE!"

TITLE: X-Men: Die By The Sword (Marvel).

ISSUE: 05 of 05.

CULPRIT: Jordan D. White (assistant editor) and/or Mark Paniccia (senior editor).

DISSECTION: On the first page, where a recap and a cast of characters is presented, of the new members of the Exiles is a version of Rogue... but her name's spelled ROUGE.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Absolutely no less, no way.
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"QUILL BILL."

TITLE: X-Men: Die By The Sword (Marvel).

ISSUE: 05 of 05.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: On page 23, Blink says she had to use a "full quill of her lances", doesn't she mean "quiver"?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars
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The average sure went up this week, to a 6.8 Bazzars. Moments Of The Week, now, most of them are Green Lantern related, due to the great finale of the Sinestro Corps War. But first, a non-GL moment:


So, Captain Marvel kills?! Next up, Hal Jordan asks his family to evacuate Coast City when the Sinestro Corps take the battle to his town, but they refuse to leave, and so do the rest of the population. Not only that, but they show their support for the Corps:


Cool. Then, after the battle, the city gets nicknamed "The City Without Fear", and population starts to grow. You see what I said about those quiet, personal moments Johns knows how to handle? And now, look at a battle moment:


Guardians of the Universe directly attacking an enemy? Now that's something new. Peter Tomasi also knows how to write some nice non-action moments too, and his artists certainly capture it:


Too bad the reunion with Ice (after that kiss) didn't go as smooth as Guy Gardner planned. Now, the last of the GL moments, and it's even more incredible than the Guardians fighting:


It's the Guardians APOLOGIZING!!! Enough Green Lanterns for now (shya!), let's see how Darkseid deals with his underlings. Omega beams? Nope:


PIMPSLAPPING! Last, but not least, when your superhero costume doesn't fit, don't wear it:


That's "Love Sausage", from our Quote Of The Week. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

PS: Oh, right, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!