The Dissector

The Dissector #73.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"I fucking hate writing speeches. I would rather suck green syphalitic donkey dicks! (filled with puss)." Mayor Mitchell Hundred, Ex Machina #36, speech draft complete with illustrations.

I'm trying to get back on the horse here, and I think I've never been so behind! But anyway, like Master Yoda said, there is no try... Last column was 20 days ago, and nobody got the Dissect This!, and I fear my lack of posting is making me loose readers, so I hope I can prevent that. The DT! was that the relative sizes of Darth Krayt and the stormtroopers around him were all screwed up, making him look twice the size of the stormies.

Picks Of The Week! Best Book (week of 04/30) was I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outerspace #1, which was a funny first issue, with a coloring method reminiscent of old, four color comics, but in the best way possible. And like my friend Chuck just said while he watched me write this "it's so tastefully done, for having such a title that could very well be used for the most lewd of jokes". Of course, he said it with a more colorful expression. Very ingenious book written, pencilled, inked, colored, lettered and possibly even stapled by Megan Rose Gedris, of whom I'd like to see more work. Worst Book was Blue Beetle V7 #26... all Spanish issue; but I reserve my rant for further down....

Now, you'll find a few dissections from old issues (early in this decade, or even from the 80s); that's because I mistakenly stored some of the dissections in a folder named 04/29, and worked with that, then added the older ones to reach the ten dissections quota... only to find after finishing most of it that there were a few more in the 04/30 folder! Yeah, like I actually needed MORE dissections for THIS column (see Blue Beetle rant later).
<-------------------------------->
"SUPER POWERS!"

TITLE: Action Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 864.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Geoff Johns still neglects to mention some of Superman's powers in the character intro; I can understand not mentioning heat vision, but invulnerability should be up there, even more than his sensory powers.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SPANISHATION DESENCADENATED!"

TITLE: Blue Beetle V7 (DC).

ISSUE: 26.

CULPRIT: Jai Nitz (writer) & Sergio Aragonés (translation terrorist).

DISSECTION: God. Where to start? Let me say this: for a book with Hispanic characters as a star and most of the supporting cast, Blue Beetle has been surprisingly low on Spanish language mistakes. Until now. I initially cringed when they announced a special Spanish language issue, however, the high quality the book has displayed so far came to my mind, and trusted whoever would be writing it to find a good translator.

Then all my hopes were shattered when I saw the book cover and I found that they MADE UP A WORD!!! The cover reads "¡EL PARÁSITO DESTRAILLÓ!", and "destrailló" is not a real word. I'm familiar with many Spanish regional dialects from all over America, to varying degrees, and even with Spanish as spoken in Spain itself (by the way, the correct name of the language is actually "Castillian"); and I've even checked with other people, and in the Royal Spanish Language Academy Dictionary (which includes even the most outrageous regional slang you can imagine): this word does not exist. All the places I find it on the web are translations that seem to be done with translating software, which thought it was the Spanish word for "unleashed" (where "destraillar" would be "to unleash"). It's even spread to Wiktionary, where I just left a message in the discussion page to have it deleted.

Then, if you keep reading the issue, I found more and more Spanish language mistakes, ranging from very slight ones (and even some I didn't even count, like forgetting an opening exclamation sign here or there, or an accent on a vowel somewhere), from very significant mistakes such as disastrous verb conjugations or sentences constructed in such a way that made absolutely no sense. By the end of the book, I had counted 57, yes, fifty seven Spanish language mistakes, not counting the cover. Together with one artistic error (a character missing a face), this book had 59 total dissections, beating Civil War: Battle Damage Report's 26 by more than double!

What was the worse (or funniest, you decide) thing about this book? That when I got to the end of it, writer Nitz thanked Sergio Aragonés for "keeping it "verdadero""... Was Aragonés (who was born in Spain and grew up in Mexico) drunk? Pulling a prank on Nitz? Getting revenge for Nitz boinking his granddaughter? Because no one who actually knows Spanish would ever translate the issue as this one was... Complete and utter garbage; and the story isn't even up to Blue Beetle standards.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars; and I gave the other 57 language dissections an average of 7 Bazzars each. Oh, I just noticed... the writer's last name is "Nitz".... hehehe.
<-------------------------------->
"LESS IS MORE."

TITLE: Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 55.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: In one of the entries I wrote "This one has a lot of them than say", which is missing the word "less"; it should be "This one has a lot less of them than say".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THE DINGSECTOR."

TITLE: Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 72.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: I dubbed Jim Starlin "Starling".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NOT AS BAD AS BLUE BEETLE."

TITLE: Flash V2 (DC).

ISSUE: Annual 13.

CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).

DISSECTION: So, this is one of the old dissections from my vault, from the year 2000. Alcatena, the Argentinian artist (great artist and great person) helped Chuck Dixon create Súper Malón, an Argentinian superhero team. However, one of the Argentinian characters says goodbye to the Flashes (Wally West and Jay Garrick) by saying "Ciao, mi amigos."; "ciao" is Italian, and "my friends" in Spanish should be "mis amigos".
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"STORMTROOPER BOOTS."

TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).

ISSUE: 30.

CULPRIT: Randy Mayor (colorist).

DISSECTION: Abin Sur's boots are colored white, when they were green (same exact uniform Hal Jordan would wear for most of his GL career).

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THREEBOOT BOOTS."

TITLE: The Legion of Super-Heroes V5 (DC).

ISSUE: 41.

CULPRIT: Aaron Lopresti (penciller).

DISSECTION: Ultra Boy's boots are drawn incorrectly.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S GOT A NICE RING TO IT."

TITLE: The Legion of Super-Heroes V5 (DC).

ISSUE: 41.

CULPRIT: Jim Shooter (writer).

DISSECTION: A nice write-up of the (threeboot) history of the flight rings is given, but it's main difference from previous versions is ignored: invisibility from the UFP surveillance network.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"COLORED DISCS."

TITLE: Marvel Comics Presents V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE:

CULPRIT: Laura Villari (colorist).

DISSECTION: U.S.Agent's shield is colored incorrectly. And of course, his name.... twice.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NEW YARK CITY."

TITLE: Suicide Squad V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 28.

CULPRIT: John Ostrander & Kim Yale (writers) and/or Todd Klein (letterer).

DISSECTION: Another one from the vault, this time from further back, 1989, part of The Janus Directive event. "Manhattan" is spelled "Manhattan" in one of General Wade Eiling's lines.

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"Y IS THIS A DISSECTION?"

TITLE: Y: The Last Man (DC/Vertigo).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Brian K. Vaughan (writer).

DISSECTION: Last one, and also from the vault, 2002 in this case. What's wrong with this sentence from the prologue? "This "gendercide" instantaneously exterminated 48% of the global population, or approximately 29 billion men." Easy, innit?

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
As bulky as columns can be, with 71 dissections, for an average of 6.9; pretty high. Let's get this show on the road then, with the Moments Of The Week! First up, Chameleon of the LSH creeps me out:

Ew... Next, the return of Barry Allen!


Hell yeah! And last, a sample of why "I Was Kidnapped..." is such a funny book:


Yeah, everyone knows those things only exist in comic books... or porn. At least the hot, lipstick lesbians. All the real life ones I've met are either trucker material or filthy hippies... That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!