Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Dissector #84.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Tch. We're gods, Hercules. Our ancestors mated with everything from animals to clouds to their own siblings." Snowbird, Incredible Hercules #119.

Well, still behind, but closer to catching up; here's the column for the week of 07/16. There was no need for me to resort to my vault, since one single issue had thirteen dissections. Nobody guessed the DT!, but then again, I'm posting a column a day almost, so I'm not giving enough time. Several readers said that Cap just took off his mask, or is about to put it on, and that the eyeholes are facing the wrong way. He was taking it off; but people turn hats or other items of clothing around in their hands after removing them...

Mato even theorized that the problem was that Cap's cowl should be part of the costume, and that was close enough... but no cigar. In the moment the scene is set (when Bucky discovers Steve Rogers is Captain America), the costume had a separate cowl... and his shield was the triangular one, not the round shield.

Dissector's Picks Of The Week! Best Book was War Is Hell: First Flight Phantom Eagle #5, a good conclusion to a fun miniseries; great job by Garth Ennis and Howard Chaykin. Worst Book Of The Week was Checkmate V2 #28, as boring and cliché as #27, and even less readable. Now, the dissections!
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"CIDADE MARAVILHOSA... NOT!""

TITLE: Casey Blue: Beyond Tomorrow (DC/Wildstorm).

ISSUE: 03 of 06.

CULPRIT: B. Clay Moore (writer) and/or Carlo Barbieri (penciller).

DISSECTION: Establishing shot of Sao Paulo... THE CRISTO REDENTOR STATUE WHICH IS ACTUALLY IN RIO DE JANEIRO!!!!!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. There's also a wrong German language newspaper headline.
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"FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!"

TITLE: Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 03.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Bart Allen is referred to as "Kid Flash"; but he was Flash when killed.

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, it could be figurative. Also, Linda Park-West refers to Jay Garrick as "Mr. Garrick" when talking to her kids, when they refer to him as "Uncle Jay".
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"SPEEDING DISSECTION."

TITLE: Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 03.

CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist) 7

DISSECTION: See what you can find here:

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO'S THAT GIRL?"

TITLE: Tangent: Superman's Reign (DC).

ISSUE: 05 of 12.

CULPRIT: Steve Wands (letterer).

DISSECTION: A caption meaning to identify Earth Tangent's Manhunter is actually next to Powergirl.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, there's a speech balloon in the wrong place on another page, and the word "worrying" replaced with "working". Not Wand's finest piece of work.
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"TUT TUT. TUT TUT."

TITLE: Ultimate Fantastic Four (Marvel).

ISSUE: 56.

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).

DISSECTION: Are we really supposed to believe that the Baxter Building, a top-notch government think tank has phones as the only means of communicating with the Triskelion, and they can't communicate because they get "a busy signal".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"I'M SO POOR, I HAD TO SELL MY TILDE."

TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 33.

CULPRIT: Peter David (writer) and/or VC's Cory Petit (letterer).

DISSECTION: Darwin's father says his name is "Hector Munoz"... the last name should be Muñoz.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Madrox's power doesn't allow him to duplicate an object in his hand. If this has changed, they should refer to it.
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"LO ZORRO."

TITLE: Zorro (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 05.

CULPRIT: Matt Wagner (writer).

DISSECTION: Yes, it's that time of the month already. This issue has twelve Spanish language errors... and one English language mistake, to boot. The one I choose to portray here is the fact that Zorro's fellow members in "La Justicia", this secret society of vigilantes have codenames such as his, and all in Spanish (at least in the Barcelona chapter). However, Wagner gets the Spanish grammar incorrect (using the wrong pronouns, I believe), calling a couple "La Águila" and "La Fantasma", when it should be "El" (male), not "La" (female); "águila" ("eagle") is always "El" (regardless of the animal's gender), and "La Fantasma" would be a female ghost; when all members of "La Justicia" present are implicitly male.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars for that one. Various ratings for the rest.
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This time the average went a little bit up, at 5.9 Bazzars in twenty four dissections (more than half in Zorro...). Moments Of The Week, just two, the first one from Hellblazer, Constantine has a sharp eye:

Not exactly what I'd be looking at if I ran into a demon dog/werewolf thing... Next, and last, Trigon's plans laid bare!

Uuh... not yet! Priceless! 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:

Anonymous said...

Dissect This! -- The middle Kid Flash Bart Allen costume should be yellow, not red.

MaGnUs said...

You got it; somebody else also posted it at the ICS.net; but since there's no timestamps there, you both get the badge.

MaGnUs said...

Comments originally posted on ICS.net, right after the column was posted:

Dominik B.: About that "Kid Flash" thing: If I remember correctly, they went something along the lines of "When we killed that kid Flash." And they're not calling him Kid Flash, they're saying he's a kid while being Flash. I remember them saying "But he's just a kid!" right after he was killed.

But seeing as they actually did call him "Kid Flash" in that panel (which also has a blond Bart Allen as Kid Flash, just to get the badge) my memory serves me wrong. But I'm pretty sure that's what the writer was gunning for.


DrSilent: Yeah, the colors are reversed on the Kid Flash costume. Where's the yellow!


Nick S.: CULPRIT: Steve Wands (letterer).

DISSECTION: A caption meaning to identify Earth Tangent's Manhunter is actually next to Powergirl.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, there's a speech balloon in the wrong place on another page, and the word "worrying" replaced with "working". Not Wand's finest piece of work.

Is it Wand, or Wands? Either "Steven Wands" or "Wand's" is incorrect. "Steven Wand" and "Wand's" or "Steven Wands" and "Wands'"

"Also, Madrox's power doesn't allow him to duplicate an object in his hand. If this has changed, they should refer to it."

Madrox has always been able to duplicate clothes he's wearing and things in his pockets or on those clothes. A small item in his hand is not a large stretch.


Martín "MaGnUs" Pérez: Dom: No, it's not Bart's hair.

DrSilent: Yes, it's Kid Flash's costume colors. Badge for you, although another reader posted on my blog... can't know what time this was, so you both get credit.

Snake: You're right on the first thing; his name is Wands, so it should have been "Wands'"; badge for you.. As for Madrox, Peter David himself said in an interview some time ago that Madrox can't duplicate things in his hands.