The Dissector

The Dissector #58.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"I'm Donna Troy, bitch." New Earth Donna Troy to (I suppose) Earth-3 Donna Troy, Countdown To Final Crisis #15.

Welcome to yet another Dissector column, for the comics published on 01/16. Last week's Dissect This! was correctly guessed by Snakebyte over at the ICS.net forums, saying that Doc Samson's hair length is related to his strength, so it would be stupid of him to leave his hair short. A discussion ensued, and I while recognize that this is not the first time Doc is seen with shorter hair after WWH, until it is said, either on panel, or by somebody at Marvel that his strength level no longer depends on the length of his hair, I will consider this a dissection. Snakebyte, take a badge!

The Dissector Picks Of The Week will be, as we're still catching up, short and sweet. Best Book Of The Week Is Booster Gold V2 #6. Great story and dialogue by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, and eye-catching, (though not fantastic) art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund. Plus, the MOT you'll see at the end of the column.

Worse Book Of The Week is Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering #1. Lazy and uninspired plots, sloppy art, even when the writers and artists involved are capable of more (and I talk about all IDW's Star Trek comics so far, you know what I think of them), none of the IDW trek books have stood out so far. I've reached the conclusion that IDW, and the creators involved (my apologies if this not the case) have decided to give this half an effort at best, confident in the knowledge that, as a franchise comic, it will sell a given amount of issues.

On another matter, on this particular issue, even if I can't find a real flaw with the following concept, or I don't understand enough science to find such a flaw, I despise some of the technobabble they've used: "Storing all the Federation's data is an enormous task, essentially a giant data backup. For all the isolinear storage, we've used holodeck technology to construct and extradimensional tesseract. The tesseract-a four dimensional cube-allows us to exponentially increase the size of the archive within the tesseract (...)." Ew... however, I must say that this story did read like a TNG episode... even if it was a boring one.
<-------------------------------->
"MACKEY MOUSE."

TITLE: Checkmate V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 22.

CULPRIT: Greg Rucka (writer) and/or Travis Lanham (letterer).

DISSECTION: One of the Mademoiselle Maries is referred to as "Maqui", when it's "Maquis" or even "Maquisard", if you want to refer to a single member of the group. A "maqui" is an evergreen shrub, Aristotelia chilensis, from Chile.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Oh, and of course, Fire's name is spelled wrong again.
<-------------------------------->
"ANYONE HERE SPEAK FRENCH? OR KRAUT?"

TITLE: Checkmate V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 22.

CULPRIT: Eric Trautmann (penciller).

DISSECTION: If said Maquis was wanted by the Gestapo, why is the poster in English, instead of French (or even German)?

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"GLAMAZONS WITH HIGH HEELS."

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 15.

CULPRIT: Pete Woods and/or Tom Derenick (pencillers).

DISSECTION: I have no idea how tall Holly Robinson is supposed to be, but Harley Quinzel is 5'4", and Mary Batson is 5'6", yet both Holly and Harley are about a head taller than Mary. Even if she's barefoot (which I don't think so, not yet), and they're wearing combat boots (and I think they're just wearing Greek-style sandals), they can't be so tall in comparison with her.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, Jason Todd's clothes are different again.
<-------------------------------->
"I CAN'T SEE!!!"

TITLE: The Flash V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 236.

CULPRIT: Freddie E. Williams II (artist).

DISSECTION: John Stewart's eyes have no pupils or irises in some panels.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DOC SAMSON, "DOC" AS IN THE DWARF FROM SNOWHITE..."

TITLE: Hulk (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Ed McGuiness (penciller).

DISSECTION: From last week's column, in the Dissect This!, the Guvnor correctly spotted (although it wasn't what I was looking for) that the heights are wrong. She-Hulk is supposed to be 6`"7, and Samson 6`6", but she looks a good foot taller than him. Another badge for the Guvnor!

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'M HALF THE GOD I WAS."

TITLE: The Incredible Hercules (Marvel).

ISSUE: 113 (Gods, how I dislike renaming of books, even though I'm enjoying this one).

CULPRIT: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers).

DISSECTION: Ares says that after Hera killed Herc, Zeus made him a demigod. No, he made him a GOD, Herc was already a demigod, by virtue of his being Zeus son with a mortal woman.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Ares is drawn without pupils or irises, to boot.
<-------------------------------->
"THE WHATCHAMACALLIT FIELD."

TITLE: Justice League Of America V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 17.

CULPRIT: Dwayne McDuffie (writer).

DISSECTION: Vixen refers to her powers as originally coming from the "morphogenic" field, the correct word is "morphogenetic".

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, someone indirectly refers to Superman and Wonder Woman as human beings (they're not, or Superman at least is not).
<-------------------------------->
"PRISON DISSECTION."

TITLE: Marvel Comics Presents V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 05.

CULPRIT: Staz Johnson (penciller, Wrecking Crew story).

DISSECTION: Alright, this one is so easy it's embarrassing:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Oh, and of course, we get USAgent....
<-------------------------------->
"WIL-WHO?"

TITLE: New Exiles (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer) and/or Tom Orzechowski (letterer).

DISSECTION: Yes, because we so much needed a "New" Exiles book.... by the way, the Wright brothers were Orville and WilbUr, not WilbEr...

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars, it might be a typo, but it's an important historical figure.
<-------------------------------->
"I WENT TO MICHAEL JACKSON'S PLASTIC SURGEON."

TITLE: New Warriors V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 08.

CULPRIT: Jon Malin (penciller) and Marte Gracia (colorist).

DISSECTION: I can accept that Beak can look "hunkier" after his de-mutation, but Angel, his wife, was definitely of African descent, for God's sake! Now she's barely even mestizo in skin tone, and not remotely African in features!

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, increasing from last time, as it's gotten worse. Some of her kids are still showing signs of being part black. Not that I use "African descent" and "black", because I'm not sure if her black ancestry is from the US, or another part of the world.
<-------------------------------->
"YOUR COSTUME ROCKS!"

TITLE: New X-Men V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 46.

CULPRIT: Humberto Ramos (penciller).

DISSECTION: Rockslide's costume is again drawn incorrectly.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Anole's eyes are also miscolored.
<-------------------------------->
"DOOM-STATUS!"

TITLE: Penance: Relentless (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 06.

CULPRIT: Paul Jenkins (writer).

DISSECTION: Really, so Iron Man knows that Namor is "in cahoots" with Doom again, and no big deal was made of it in none of the ten bazillion books Tony appears in? Hell, when did they learn Nitro was in Latveria? For that matter, this book presents yet a new flag of Latveria (see below). How many different flags does Latveria have? I can't consider this a dissection, because Latveria probably has a flag for the country (not counting the one from before Doom's rule, and the one from Lucia von Bardas' interim rule), one for the "House of Doom", one for Doom's army, one personal flag for Doom, etc, etc, etc...

But still, in that link above, you can see at the bottom the flag with the fist and the lightning bolts, which was presented as the flag of the country in Marvel Atlas, and while the handbooks are hardly perfect, they must be regarded as Marvel's official information. Personally, I think it should have the armored fist and lightning bolts motif, but a green, red and black design as the one presented in this book, or the first one in the link above.


DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DOOMTV."

TITLE: Penance: Relentless (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 05.

CULPRIT: Paul Jenkins (writer) and/or Paul Gulacy (artist).

DISSECTION: Does Dr. Doom really need to speak to Reed Richards (who's using a state of the art visual phone, like a Star Trek communications screen) with a full TV studio apparatus? I know they want to emphasize that Eastern Europe former communist block to Latveria, but not inside Doom's castle, not in what's supposed to be his private communications suite!

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DOOMBOOM!"

TITLE: Penance: Relentless (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 05.

CULPRIT: Paul Jenkins (writer).

DISSECTION: Doom is warned by one of his underlings that "the American spy satellite" will "detect the presence of fissionable materials" and that if they "lose containment, the Americans will know for certain we are on the verge of developing a full-fledged nuclear facility!". Are we supposed to believe that Dr. Doom did not have nuclear weapons? And that he even needs them?

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. Not an error per se, but just poor writing. I expect more of Jenkins, and I miss his Newsarama column.
<-------------------------------->
"THE QUESTION IN THE FINAL FRONTIER."

TITLE: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering (IDW).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: David Messina (artist).

DISSECTION: Why, why must these Star Trek comics come without character faces!!! I understand a faceless figure here and there, if it's lost in the background? But for the only character speaking in a panel?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HUH?"

TITLE: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering (IDW).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: Scott & David Tipton (writers).

DISSECTION: Now, even if they're inside of a tesseract, why does "the interdimensional nature of the tesseract" cut off "all conventional communications"? Just because it suited the writers? They're inside of a holodeck representation of a data storage array, something that, by definition, requires communication methods to store such data...and why is the tesseract's nature "interdimensional", when at first it was described as "extradimensional"? Make up your minds...

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"LIKE XAVIER."

TITLE: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering (IDW).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: Ilaria Traversi (colorist).

DISSECTION: Why are Picard's eyes colored green??!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Come on Ilaria, he's based off a real person!!!!!
<-------------------------------->
"I'M BADASS LIKE THAT, THAT'S WHY I HAVE A BEARD. AND SOME FACIAL HAIR TOO."

TITLE: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Intelligence Gathering (IDW).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: Scott & David Tipton (writers).

DISSECTION: Riker (and presumably Data) goes armed to a mission on board of a Federation space station; where no hostile beings were expected. Now, landing parties or away teams are supposed to be armed, but Riker and Data only go to this station for Data to act as an expert in positronic matrix artificial intelligences, and Riker goes with him because... well, he's the first officer or some other reason like that. There's no reason why they should be armed.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
There we go... the average for this week was 6.4 Bazzars, just a regular one... First Moment Of The Week, the Blue & Gold are back together:


Oh yeah! Next up, and not so much of a shocker after a month and half of published, but the secret is out, Angel is now mortal!


Well, it was to be expected if Gunn is a vamp now... That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!