The Dissector

The Dissector #57.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Come on, everybody! There's got to be an abandoned playing card factory around here somewhere." Joker leading his half of the prisoners of the penal planet, Salvation Run #3 of 8.

Still on the catch up, this is the column for the books published on 01/09... I'm still more than one month behind... I must start the column with a short remembrance for French penciller and colorist Stephane Peru, who passed away... he was only 27 years old. He deserved more time to make his mark.... but he was apparently as good a person as he was an artist (and he was pretty damn good).

This week's Dissector's Picks are gonna be short, as I've been doing in these catch up columns. The Best Book Of The Week was issue 4 of Atomic Robo, with clean art, great stories, excellent jokes (Robo's feud with Stephen Hawking cracked me up) and the final proof we needed that Robo is the Hellboy of this decade: he fights Rasputin! I close my case!!!!

The Worst Book Of The Week was Infinity Inc. V2, issue 5; the art in the backup story is slightly better than before, but the rest of the book (including both stories) is not worth your money, at all. I almost forgot about last week's Dissect This!; The Guvnor Paul C correctly guessed that Ra's al Ghul's eyes shouldn't be red, they should be green. Guvnor, you're hereby promoted to Lieutenant in the HDSC, as this is your sixth badge. Now, the dissections!
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"IT'S A BRAND NEW DAY, AFTER ALL..."

TITLE: Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 546.

CULPRIT: Morry Hollowell (colorist).

DISSECTION: So, this was the first Brand New Day issue. I like it, it's a good read; I can say that now that about 6 issues have passed... and I could have say so after this first issue. What makes it even better is that you know that, at some point, Pete's going to get back with MJ. You just know it.

But of course, there's also gotta be dissections, and the first one is that JJJ's hair is colored perfectly brown, as if he wasn't a day over 40... when he's probably pushing 60, if not 70.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"I CHANGED BETWEEN PAGES."

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 16.

CULPRIT: Pete Woods & Tom Derenick (pencillers, I'm not familiar enough with their art to know who did what).

DISSECTION: Power Ring's costume is different on page 11 than what it is on page 3.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"THEY WERE KILLING MY FEET!"

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 16.

CULPRIT: Pete Woods & Tom Derenick (pencillers, I'm not familiar enough with their art to know who did what).

DISSECTION: Jason Todd is wearing ankle boots, actually almost shoes, instead of the kick ass, knee-high combat boots he's been wearing so far.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"WHAT'S UP WITH THE 'DO, GUY?"

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Patrick Gleason & Carlos Magno (pencillers, same as before).

DISSECTION: Guy Gardner's haircut is wrong.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"AAAAK OR AKK?"

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer) and/or Steve Wands (letterer).

DISSECTION: Salaak again.... and again. Make that two dissections in this case...

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"I'LL CALL HIM ARTHUR, AND HE'LL LIKE IT."

TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).

ISSUE: 04.

CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).

DISSECTION: When Ollie's friends discuss what is being done to find Connor's attackers, Flash says that "Arthur is in the water.", talking about Aquaman. Problem is, they have no contact with think Aquaman, who's now the "Dweller of the Depths", and I doubt they'd refer to his most recent stand-in as "Arthur" so familiarly (who also has vowed to never use the name "Arthur" again, going just by "Joseph".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, Speedy's eyes are miscolored.
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"GAMMA DISSECTION."

TITLE: Hulk (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Ed McGuiness (penciller).

DISSECTION: Something's wrong with this picture...


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"A FLASH HAS DYED."

TITLE: JLA: Classified (DC).

ISSUE: 50.

CULPRIT: Allen Passalaqua (penciller).

DISSECTION: Good, some John Byrne art! But why is Wally West's hair is colored blonde?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"THEY ARE ITALIAN MEN WITH GUNS, WHO CARES?"

TITLE: Marvel Atlas (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Michael Hosking (head writer/coordinator), Anthony Flamini, Stuart Vandal, and Eric J. Moreels (writers).

DISSECTION: This is the best idea for a handbook in decades. It's full of information, very useful information (particularly for those of us who want to write, or that gamemaster Marvel roleplaying games)... but as you might have guessed, being chockfull of text, and having been made by the Marvel Handbooks team, it's also full of mistakes. I'll just highlight the more blatant or funny ones, and then I'll count the rest (behind the scenes). In case you're interested in knowing, it's got seven mistakes, that I could find, at least.

I am, however, happy because the world map shows Uruguay (although South America is covered in the next issue), and there's a fictitious country we neighbor with, apart from Brazil and Argentina, off the coast of the latter. The first error I'll be highlighting is that the writers consider the Carabinieri Corps of Italy as national defense; when they're the police force. They are also military police, and their Mobile Unit Division sometimes collaborates in the defense of national territory and in some military operations abroad, but the Carabinieri Corps as a whole is not part of the Italian national defense force.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"Ñ, PLEASE!"

TITLE: Marvel Atlas (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Michael Hosking (head writer/coordinator), Anthony Flamini, Stuart Vandal, and Eric J. Moreels (writers).

DISSECTION: Yet another one I want to call attention to, is that they're capable of writing "España" correctly, with an "ñ", in the first part of Spain's entry, but for the rest of the entry, they forget all the "ñ"s....

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"IT'S COMMUNISTS, WITH MAKE-UP!"

TITLE: Marvel Atlas (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Michael Hosking (head writer/coordinator), Anthony Flamini, Stuart Vandal, and Eric J. Moreels (writers).

DISSECTION: Want another one? Well, you know how dumb fanboys write "Rouge" instead of "Rogue"? And even Marvel's done it in the past? This time they wrote Khmer "Rogue" instead of "Rouge" (as in red, in French), in Cambodia's entry.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"NAMES PEOPLE, NAMES."

TITLE: Marvel Atlas (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Michael Hosking (head writer/coordinator), Anthony Flamini, Stuart Vandal, and Eric J. Moreels (writers).

DISSECTION: Last one, Uluru in Australia is referred to as still being called "Ayers Rock".

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, yes, its name might have remained unchanged in this reality...
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"DYE GODS!"

TITLE: The Mighty Avengers (Marvel).

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: Justin Ponsor (colorist).

DISSECTION: Ares' hair is colored black, when it's been shown to be brown.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"A MATTER OF CHEMISTRY..."

TITLE: Salvation Run (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 08.

CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer).

DISSECTION: Chemo? Chemo is on the prison planet? Oh, no. Waller kept Chemo, and is using it, or at least a portion of it... but in any case, Chemo is a thing, not a sentient being, it wouldn't get sent to this place.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. There are some other dissections, mostly wrong character designs, not worth mentioning.
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"MEA CULPA."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 56.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: In my haste for posting last week's column, I forgot to run it through the spell checker... don't bother to look for them, because it was just about two hours after I'd posted the thing, so I decided to correct all mistakes. Still, for not running the spellchecker, I give myself this vicious dissection, and to Snakebyte, for calling me on them, a Honorary Dissector Scout Corps badge!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"AS DAYZ GO BY..."

TITLE: Superman V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 672.

CULPRIT: Comicraft (letterer).

DISSECTION: On the cover, Wellington Diaz (the inker), is credited as "Dias". And yes, it should be "Días" or "Díaz", but I'm letting that slide.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"GOODB YE."

TITLE: The Boys (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 14.

CULPRIT: Garth Ennis (writer) and/or Simon Bowland (letterer).

DISSECTION: Love Sausage says "dosvidanya", when Russian for goodbye is actually to words, "do svidanya".

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"I TOOK THE KENTS' ADVICE AND WENT TO THAT SPA..."

TITLE: Wonder Girl (DC).

ISSUE: 05 of 05.

CULPRIT: Sanford Greene (penciller).

DISSECTION: Wonder Girl's mother looks like she's the same age as her, nothing like she's supposed to look.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"I'M NOT WEARING IT WHERE I'M SUPPOSED TO..."

TITLE: Wonder Girl (DC).

ISSUE: 05 of 05.

CULPRIT: Sanford Greene (penciller).

DISSECTION: Helena Sandsmark says she's wearing "the gauntlet of Atlas and sandals of Hermes", but she's drawn without the first object.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"HE'S NOT FAMILY!"

TITLE: Wonder Girl (DC).

ISSUE: 05 of 05.

CULPRIT: J. Torres (writer).

DISSECTION: Wonder Girl refers to her half-brother, Hercules, as her mother's "nephew"... Zeus is Hercules' father, and also Wonder Girl's (which makes Helena and Hercules no relationship).

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

TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 27.

CULPRIT: Scot Eaton (penciller).

DISSECTION: Rockslide's costume is drawn incorrectly.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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There, column almost over. Now, here are the moments of this week. First, from Teen Titans: The Lost Annual, we learn that JFK did not really die, but he actually leads the Starjammers!


Case closed! Then, from The Boys, we discover Love Sausage's weakness (he says "big titties are my Kryptonite"):


Hmm, I guess his power does lay in his Love Sausage. More from The Boys, Billy Butcher strikes out a lot of supertypes in one press of a button:


Messy... And finally, a sight you don't see often... Salakk laughs!


And Guy is opening a bar on Oa... sounds like sitcom gold to me! Back to the dissections, we had twenty-nine of them this column, with a (very usual) average of 6.3 Bazzars. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!