The Dissector #71.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

".... my keen deductive mind says that Arcade is behind this. That and he had his face and name scrawled on the big rock. That was a tip-off." Jamie Madrox, X-Factor V4 #30.

I tried to catch up almost a month ago, and failed, big time. But I'll keep on trying, here's the column for the week of 04/16, and nobody found the answer to the Dissect This! from last column, I'm a bit sad at that. The answer was simple: the writer makes a distinction between android and robot; saying that robots are simple automatons with no free will, and androids are distinguished by having ambition. WRONG! R2-D2 and Johnny 5 are not androids, yet they have free will and aren't simple automatons; while some androids (for example, the animatronics at Disneyworld) that lack free will, or even intelligence. Quickly, The Dissector's Pick Of The Week for Best Book is Hellblazer #243, which reads like classic Hellblazer, and the Worst Book was X-Factor V4 #30... not because it's bad, but because it's not up to par with the usual quality one expects from Peter David (although there's funny moments like this week's quote), and the art is not that much. On with the dissections!
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"KRAUT POLICE!"

TITLE: Avengers: The Initiative (Marvel).

ISSUE: 11.

CULPRIT: Dan Slott & Christos N. Gage (writers).

DISSECTION: Blitzschlag's German is wrong. And I didn't even need Dominik for this!

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"THAT'S NOT OLLIE!"

TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 06.

CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).

DISSECTION: I'm sorry, but there's no way Grace can make Green Arrow trip. Yes, she has superpowers (half-Bana Amazon), but Ollie has at least 10-15 years of combat experience on her, plus that time in the island during the missing year.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"MARKOVIAN LANGUAGE INSTITUTE."

TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 06.

CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).

DISSECTION: This one comes from good ICS.net editor Dominik B.: "When Geoforce escapes from the Chinese missiles, he swears in Markovian, which is a country close to the Russian border. He goes “Zürflackt” and “Våerzelph,“ both of which are supposed to be Markovian obscenities. However, those are, if you have as much as an inkling of knowledge about eastern Europe/Western Asia, you will know that the å is a Scandinavian letter, not used anywhere else in the world. And Z’ürflackt has the ü in it, which is only used in German or the translated versions of Chinese or Arabic languages. However, neither of those countries are anywhere near Russia and given the geographical and geopolitical situation of the area, it’s highly unlikely that the language made it that far. So, Z’ürflackt to you too, Mister Dixon!"

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Badge for you, Dom, two more and you make it to Lt. Cmdr.
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"BARRY, BACK SO SOON?"

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 02.

CULPRIT: Tom Chu (colorist).

DISSECTION: Wally West's eyes are colored blue, instead of green as they should.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"DYING YOUR HAIR AGAIN, OLD TIMERS?"

TITLE: DC/Wildstorm Dreamwar (DC/Wildstorm).

ISSUE: 01 of 06.

CULPRIT: Randy Mayor (colorist).

DISSECTION: Jay Garrick and Ted Grant's hair are colored incorrectly.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"JUSTICE LEAGUE OF DISSECTION."

TITLE: The Flash V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 239.

CULPRIT: Freddie E. Williams II (artist).

DISSECTION: Come on, this one is easy.


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"LEGACY OF A BROKEN KEYBOARD."

TITLE: Iron Man: Legacy Of Doom (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 04.

CULPRIT: David Michelinie (writer) and/or Artmonkeys Studios (letterer).

DISSECTION: Snakebyte spotted this one, there's a sentence that goes "You might have mentioned there was a war going on! Doom."; a random use of punctuation.

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"YOU CHEETER!"

TITLE: Salvation Run (DC).

ISSUE: 06 of 07.

CULPRIT: Sean Chen (penciller).

DISSECTION: Cheeta looks like a regular human, and last I heard, she couldn't transform back.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Coloring errors too; Joker's eyes and Mammoth's hair.
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"GALILEO! GALILEO! GALILEO FIGARO!"

TITLE: Star Trek Year Four: Enterprise Experiment (IDW Publishing).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: D.C. Fontana & Derek Chester (writers) and/or Gordon Purcell (penciller).

DISSECTION: The Galileo shuttle is shown here, but being the year 2269, it should be the Galileo II, as the first and second Galileo shuttles (with no numeration in their name) were lost in 2267 and 2268. Good art, and everyone has their department insignia.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"OH, I KNOW, HE'S A MUTANT!"

TITLE: Star Trek Year Four: Enterprise Experiment (IDW Publishing).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: D.C. Fontana & Derek Chester (writers).

DISSECTION: What? Arex is a telepath? Since when? Yes, you can come up with this stuff, particularly if you're D.C. Fontana (we're not worthy!)... but never in his many animated series appearances, and handful of novel and comic book appearances has it ever been said that Arex is a telepath... so why start now, just for a cheap plot device, that could have easily been substituted with saying that his species has very sharp senses or something that wouldn't be as blatant as telepathy?

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"IF DADDY CLARK USES GLASSES AS A DISGUISE, I'LL DO THE SAME WITH CONTACT LENSES!"

TITLE: Superman V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 675.

CULPRIT: Comicraft (letterer).

DISSECTION: Artist Jorge Correa Jr. is credited as "Jorgé", which is atrocious.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Chris Kent's eyes are colored green instead of brown.
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"NO-EARTH."

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

ISSUE: 02 of 12.

CULPRIT: Dan Jurgens (writer).

DISSECTION: Again, New Earth is mislabeled "Earth-1".

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"WOLBERINE: ORIJINS."

TITLE: Wolverine: Origins (Marvel).

ISSUE: 24.

CULPRIT: Daniel Way (writer) and/or VC's Cory Petit (letterer).

DISSECTION: Snakebyte, who earns another badge, tells us that this comic uses 'hippocrite" instead of "hypocrite".

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"IT'S NOT M, IT'S N."

TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 30.

CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).

DISSECTION: Jeromy, Jeromy, Jeromy. M's skin should be dark, not as fair as Siryn's, and her eyes should be black, not light blue.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Twice. It's like he doesn't even know what character he's coloring. Also, Cannonball's accent in his story is gone.
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"LA WAKANDA, CUBA."

TITLE: X-Men: Divided We Stand (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Sana Takeda (artist, "Home").

DISSECTION: The streets of Wakanda's capital city look like a former European colony, including old, 1950s looking cars that make it seem more like Cuba.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Takeda draws a truck with a regular, fossil fuel burning exhaust, he obviously knows nothing about Wakanda.
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Twenty-one dissections, and an average of 7.0; not bad. Let's end this column with the Moments Of The Week, first up we've got one of Marvel's true heroes:


Then, Countdown To Final Crisis might not have been as good as 52, but it had cool moments like this fight between Darkseid and Orion:


Cool! Back to Marvel, we learn who that Captain America that the Red Skull and his buddies have in cold storage:


The Grand Director, aka Commie Smasher Captain America! More Marvel, Dum Dum Dugan does it Nick Fury style:


You'll be missed, Dugan. Speaking of old school, everyone knows that even a blind Deadshot is still deadly:


Look at those faces, priceless!!! And to end, it's Marvel's "Who's Killed More Mutants" ranking!


Oh, come on! Bolivar Trask shouldn't be allowed to compete, he's really in league of his own. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

The Dissector #70.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"We're going to burn it all down. Because this is not the future we were promised. And if we can't have that, then we shouldn't have anything at all." Doktor Sleepless, Doktor Sleepless #6.

Damn, that Doktor Sleepless quote is harsh, but it's a good example of the comics "philosophy", as it takes a definitely "punk-ier" turn. On another note, and before I go on with the rest of the column, I'd like to thank my new friend Julia, from Russia, who works for the same company I do; and gladly helped me with some Russian inquiries (yes, Mike Mignola did his homework for BRPD: 1946) when I contacted completely out of the blue. благодарю, Julia!

Thank you all for putting up with my delays, I've had some very busy weeks at work, and then I was sick, and then... then it makes it even harder to catch up, I'm way behind, but I've caught up before, I can catch up now, can't I? Speaking of catching up, let's get the introductory sections out of the way. The Dissect This! from last column (yes, almost a month ago, I know!) was that Morph is still not being acknowledged as Proteus in New Exiles. Both Snarf5181 (who's one badge from becoming a Lieutenant) and Snakebyte (who's just reached Lt. Cmdr.) found it.

Best book of the week was, without a doubt, Doktor Sleepless #6, as we get to learn more of Dok's plans and mindset; but Titans V2 #1 gets a special "I love cheesecake" mention, as you'll see in the Moments Of The Week. Worst Book Of The Week was the first issue of Number Of The Beast, it was just too generic for my taste. By the way, this is the column for comics published on the week of 04/09.
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"POPULAR BOOK."

TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 556.

CULPRIT: Zeb Wells (writer).

DISSECTION: The sacred Mayan text "Popol Vuh" is spelled incorrectly as "Popul Voh".

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"ONE OF HIS POWERS IS CHANGING BETWEEN PANELS."

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Freddie Williams II (artist).

DISSECTION: Jimmy Olsen is wearing different pants and shoes than all the previous issues.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Kyle Rayner's emblem and hair are colored incorrectly, and Black Canary's costume is wrong,
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"IF IT'S A ROBOT, THEN IT'S NOT A DISSECTION, IT'S MORE LIKE... I DON'T KNOW...."

TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Scott Beatty (writer, backup origin story).

DISSECTION: What's wrong in this panel's writing? There's two problems, so, you can win two badges.


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, both of them.
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"SHE'S A LIGHTHOUSE'S GIRL"

TITLE: Danger's Dozen Interlude (First Salvo).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Thad Branco (writer) and/or Norm Breyfogle (layouts) and/or Kevin Breyfogle (finishes).

DISSECTION: There's a book in the second-to-last panel of the story "Aman Ascendant", called "The Pharoh's Bride", and as far as I can find, "pharoh" is not an acceptable spelling for the title of the ancient Egypt ruler, but a common misspelling.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"GREEEN."

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 23.

CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer).

DISSECTION: Salaak. Ugh!

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"NEW COSTUME?"

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 14.

CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).

DISSECTION: Hawkman's (hairy) chest emblem is drawn incorrectly, as a talon, not a hawk head.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, Jay Garrick's boots are drawn incorrectly.
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"FLOWERS? YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BOTHERED!"

TITLE: Number Of The Beast (DC/Wildstorm).

ISSUE: 01 of 08.

CULPRIT: Scott Beatty (writer).

DISSECTION: Speedster Hotfoot runs through Tumbleweed (Wildstorm's Swamp Thing), and the former ends up in pain because "his body's natural fauna germinated" when he tried to vibrate through the latter. Oh no Scott Beatty, you didn't.... *sigh* First of all, it's called "flora", as "fauna" means "animal life". And second, as it's been previously established (remember this?), not just by me, but, oh, I don't know, THE WHOLE OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, that the so-called "gut flora" is not really made of plants; that's an old misconception. It's made of microbial life such as bacteria, and as such, someone with control over plants cannot affect it, and much less, make it GERMINATE.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, and it's a double, for calling it "fauna".
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"SU PERMAN."

TITLE: Superman Confidential (DC).

ISSUE: 14

CULPRIT: Rob Clark Jr. (letterer).

DISSECTION: Tiny, very small dissection: one of Supes' thought balloons says "Pla net", with a space in the middle.

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar, because there's no fractions.
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"CHEST, BUT NOT STARFIRE'S."

TITLE: Titans V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Ian Churchill (penciller).

DISSECTION: Like it happens all the time in Countdown, Kyle Rayner's emblem is drawn incorrectly.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. It's also colored incorrectly, as are Raven's eyes.
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"PROCEDURE? WHAT PROCEDURE?"

TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 19.

CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).

DISSECTION: Procanon Kaa, the Green Lantern from the Khund's sector takes on a Khund as his partner... just because Wonder Woman convinces him to do so. It doesn't work that way, partners are not chosen by individual Lanterns, they're chosen by the Guardians (or at least, by someone like Kilowog or Salakk), and they must go to Oa for training before they receive their "badge".

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, penciller Bernard Chang keeps drawing simply as muscular humans wiht pointy ears.
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We had a 6.5 Bazzar average, in eighteen dissections; not too bad. Now, the Moments Of The Week, first, we get Ian Churchill's lovely rendition of Starfire; who has definitely surpassed Jean Grey as "comics most hottest girl".


HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA!!! Cliff Baker is a lucky kid. Now, Mike Mignola's BRPD: 1946 is fun, it's got monsters, russians, and this scary demon in the shape of a porcelain doll, who also has a doll which, after this, is scary as hell:


Wear an apron. And why is BRPD cool, you ask, you need another reason? Well, this:


Nazi. Cyborg. Apes. Nuff said. Next, a simple superhero comic book moment, Superman pimp-punches Darkseid:


Dang! Also, from Countdown, they say a Green Lantern's ring is the most powerful weapon of the universe... then how about a Green Lantern himself?


Reminds me of some RPG sessions... Next, Doktor Sleepless' speech about love was too long for a "Quote Of The Week", but it's still great:


What do you think? Then we have the quote I ended up using, but the visuals are fantastic:


The Sleeplessignal! Then, things that can only happen in British comics (or TV):


Reminds me of a moment in the first Doctor Who Christmas Special (of this new era), where Rose, Ricky, and Jackie (plus the unconscious Doctor in his new body,) all hide inside the Tardis, and they start drinking tea, and Ricky says "Look at us, it's the end of the world and we're having tea. How British!" Next, Guy Gardner teaches us some poetry:


Heh, you tell that robot, Guy. Last, Cyborg tells the rest of the Titans why he's cooler than them.


Okay, he's not... but I love how oblivious the rest are to the fact that they are indeed sidekicks. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!