Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Dissector #61.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"I'm Starman. I'm from the future. WEEEOOOOEEEE!" Starman (Thom Kallor), Justice Society Of America V3 #12.

Wow, this was fast; here's another installment of my catch-up, this time for the comics released on the week of 02/06; first week of February. In fact, I could have released this column a bit earlier; but I was waiting on the confirmation of one piece of data. Also, I thought it best to let you guys breath a bit. That quote up there just cracked me up, and it also got to be one of the Moments Of The Week. Now, on to the preliminary part of the column, last time's Dissect This! was spotted by Snakebyte, and it was the fact that the civilian who was asking about his pants had his legs painted blue... badge for ya, Snakebyte!

As it has become horribly usual, we have bad news; Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer, passed away today, from leukemia, at the age of 52. May he be rocketing through the sky. But, I have to move on with this column, so the Dissector's Picks Of The Week are up next: Best Book Of The Week goes to All-New Atom #20; a perfect ending for Gail Simone's run on the book. Action packed, funny, intelligent, all she had has used to. It almost was Doktor Sleepless #5, but as fun as that issue was, it wasn't as shocking as other Dok issues are.

The Worst Book Of The Week is, without a doubt, Speed Racer: Chronicles Of The Racer #1, in which writer Arie Kaplan wants us to get behind the idea that the "Racer" in the character's name is actually a title, handed down for generations, including a Roman charioteer named "Swiftus Maximus" with supporting cast members like "Sparkus" and "Popadopalus"? Also, the art by Robby Musso and German Torres is amateurish, belonging in a low quality webcomic. I hope I'm strong enough to not read the next issue.... A little note before we start with the dissections; last column I recommended a blog called "Profiles In Villainy"; it's actually called "Comic Coverage", you can find the right link (and not just to one tag, as I gave before) in the links section of my blog.
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"WE'RE SHORT-STAFFED."

TITLE: Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 549.

CULPRIT: Marc Guggenheim (writer).

DISSECTION: Dexter Bennett, the new publisher/owner of the Daily Bugle (sorry, "DB") says that the newspaper's building houses "32 editors, 16 reporters, 8 photographers"; which I find hard to believe. The Washington Post has 784 news and editorial employees, and only if 10% of those work in their building, that's almost double what the DB seems to have. The New York Times, which The Daily Bugle is supposed to be an equivalent of sorts, has 350 staff writers... see where I'm heading? Furthermore, I've been to El PaĆ­s, one of the national newspapers here in my country (we're barely more than 3.5 million people in Uruguay), and I saw, just in one of the floors, well over sixteen reporters.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"I USE BEAUTY CREAMS."

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 12.

CULPRIT: Jesus Saiz & Tom Derenick (pencillers).

DISSECTION: Granny Goodness is drawn looking too young.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, Harley's sandal's change between pages.
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"BATMAN'S A BIT WUSSY THESE DAYS..."

TITLE: Detective Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 841.

CULPRIT: Paul Dini (writer).

DISSECTION: Are we really supposed to believe that Batman considers some hired goons from the "Wonderland Gang" (lead, apparently, by the Mad Hatter), who don't even have metahuman powers, "formidable threats"??!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"WHAT'S IN A NAM?"

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 60.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Sully caught me, I wrote "Tome Derenick", instead of "Tom..."

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
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"JUSTICE SOCIETY OF DISSECTIONS."

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 12.

CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).

DISSECTION: I complain about this regularly.


DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, it's reached that point.
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"IT'S BEEN SOOLONG..."

TITLE: Metal Men V4 (DC).

ISSUE: 06 of 08.

CULPRIT: Duncan Roleau (writer).

DISSECTION: Chemo (who's apparently sentient now, and the CEO of the evil corporation the MM face, don't get me started), says that Oolong has been liberated of its human overlords.... uhm.... last time we saw it, Dr. Cale was the head of state there...

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, Lead is called "Led".
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"SHOW SOME INITIATIVE, SCOTTY BOY."

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).

ISSUE: 495.

CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).

DISSECTION: Tony Stark says that the government is pushing him to get the X-Men to register; to what Cyclops says that they're not "joining your Initiative. We're not working for the government." Seems to me that Brubaker does not understand what the Registration Acts entails; you don't have to work for the government, you just have to register if you have powers. If you want to be a superhero (regardless of whether you have powers or not); you have to register as one, and receive training and/or certification, but you don't have to work for the government if you don't want to.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"WHERE'S WULVERINE AND NIGHTCRUWLER?"

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).

ISSUE: 495.

CULPRIT: VC's Joe Caramagna (letterer).

DISSECTION: Pfft.... look below.


Hahahaha!!!! COLUSSUS!!!!!

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars
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This week we had just 10 dissections, and an equally low average: 5.3 Bazzars. Ah, never mind, let's enjoy the Moments Of The Week, shall we? First up, we have our quote of the week (or part of it)... it made me laugh hard:


Starman just wanted to make us laugh this week, and he went on to make out with himself:


Next, Spidey sings a variation to the lyrics of his theme song:


Uh-oh! Almost at the end, we get Ryan "Atom" Choi's fantasies:


He has the best super-villain induced hallucinations! And lastly, Doktor Sleepless blatantly lies to the authorities:


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

THE DISSECTOR!

3 comments:

MaGnUs said...

Snakebyte's on a roll, he got the DT!, it's Jay Garrick's chest emblem.

Anonymous said...

Starman exists to make us laugh - I still think his best one is "We need a map of the multiverse - anyone got one?!?" delivered right into the 'camera' from a few issues back.

Costume nit in that issue, featuring - yep - Cyclone. The page where she babbles at the girl they're recruiting, in the bottom left panel it looks like her tank top is missing again. Her hair's covering the shoulder, but where there's a gap there definitely should be material there, not bare skin.

Something to look out for in #13 too, between the panel where Power Girl and Supes turn up, and the one a couple of pages later where they're talking about Gog, PG's costume develops an extra border around the chest window. Granted the lines indicating stitching are vagued up a bit in the first panel, but there's no trace at all of that extra border - it seems a bit weird, I thought maybe you'd want to take a look at it.

Not that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time gazing at Power Girl and Cyclone, of course. (Issue #13 escapes the Cyclone Costume Curse, but only because she's not in it.)

MaGnUs said...

MKF said "Starman exists to make us laugh - I still think his best one is "We need a map of the multiverse - anyone got one?!?" delivered right into the 'camera' from a few issues back."

That one was fantastic! (read the word "fantastic" with a Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who accent.)

MKF said "PG's costume develops an extra border around the chest window."

Missed that one, but I'm inclined to let it pass, mostly because I'm too behind on my column.

MKF said "Not that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time gazing at Power Girl and Cyclone, of course."

Yes, you are. But we all are.

MKF said "(Issue #13 escapes the Cyclone Costume Curse, but only because she's not in it.)"

Only way of avoiding it. Thanks for the comments MKF, it's good to have you back.