DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"Ladies and gentlemen, God exists... and he's Latverian." News anchor, What If? Secret Wars.
Welcome to the column for comics issued on 01/02, and I'd remind you that you're still in time to vote in the Autopsy Awards, and if you speak Spanish, the latest episode of my internet radio show, Perdidos En El Eter, is out, with pieces on Secret Invasion. Final Crisis, Afro Samurai, and Cisplatino. Last column's DT! was spotted by Snakebyte, who correctly spotted that Revel used the word "hierological"; unless they're priests, the word Revel was looking for was "hierarchical". Congratulations Snake, this newest badge gets you the rank of Vice Admiral, again the first in the fleet to reach it (as founder, I automatically gave myself the rank of Grand Admiral, and I'll be the only one, and although Nysie has the rank of High Admiral, she's honorary and didn't go through the rest of the ranks).
The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are as follow. Best Book Of The Work was X-Men: Magneto Testament #4; it's a good portrayal of what concentration camp prisoners had to go through, even if it's a pretty "cheap shot". Worst Book Of The Week was Superman & Batman Vs. Vampires & Werewolves #6, awful last issue of an awful mini that shouldn't have existed. Off you go, the dissections are here:
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"BLE BEETL."
TITLE: Blue Beetle V8 (DC).
ISSUE: 34.
CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer).
DISSECTION: The word "versus" is spelled "verus".
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!!!"
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 102.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: In the course of my going over the columns of the past year for Autopsy Awards nomination-worthy dissections, quotes, and moments, I found twenty-two dissections of my own work. And that was only while giving the columns a cursory scan; imagine what an in-depth re-reading would find! They're all typos or similar mistakes, and the funniest one was in #102, when I wrote "Kingdong Come" instead of "Kingdom Come".
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"CAPACITY AT RING."
TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Rob Leigh (letterer).
DISSECTION: Hal Jordan's ring says "ring at capacity"... when it was before at more than 200% capacity, so it can't mean "ring at full capacity". It was probably meant to say "ring at maximum overload capacity" or something like that.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"DON'T MESS WITH ME, I GOT A POSSE!"
TITLE: Justice League Of America V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 28.
CULPRIT: Dwayne McDuffie (writer).
DISSECTION: John Stewart says he's one of four Green Lanterns in Sector 2814; when in truth, he's just one of two assigned to the sector, with Hal Jordan. Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner are assigned to Oa, they're part of the Corps Honor Guard.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars, it could be a figure of speech, since both Kyle and Guy are from Earth and former members of the League, so they have interest in the situation. Also, penciller José Luis makes Vixen's totem appear and disappear, while letterer Travis Lanham spelled the penciller's name as Jose' instead of José.
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"IT GETS BIGGER. NOT!"
TITLE: Legion Of Super-Heroes V5 (DC).
ISSUE: 49.
CULPRIT: Jim Shooter (writer).
DISSECTION: Colossal Boy's powers, for the Nth time... too bad (seriously) this book is being cancelled after next issue.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, penciller Manapul has equipment labeled in English instead of Interlac, but I didn't count it as a dissection, because it could be just a matter of the Legionnaires being retro.
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"YES, I KNOW THIS IS SOMEWHAT OF A CLICH"
TITLE: New Exiles (Marvel).
ISSUE: Annual 01.
CULPRIT: Ed Dukeshire (letterer).
DISSECTION: The word "clichéd" has a smaller "e", as a result of the letterer's misunderstanding of how a tilde works.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"SUPERNATURAL CREATURES? WHERE?"
TITLE: Superman & Batman Vs. Vampires & Werewolves (DC).
ISSUE: 06 of 06
CULPRIT: Kevin VanHook (writer).
DISSECTION: A caption about Superman says something to the effect of "He's fought alien invaders, superpowered enemies of the state... but vampires and werewolves?"... yes, he's never fought any kind of supernatural enemies, of course not.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"RED LIGHTNING!"
TITLE: Superman V1 (DC).
ISSUE: 683.
CULPRIT: James Robinson (writer).
DISSECTION: Black Lightning uses his powers against a Kryptonian by surrounding him with lightning and then... CHANGING THE LIGHTNING'S COLOR TO RED, THEREFORE RENDERING THE KRYPTONIAN POWERLES??!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Robinson, Kryptonians are powerless under RED SUNLIGHT, not RED ELECTRICITY!!! Black Lightning has ELECTRIC POWERS not SOLAR POWERS!!!
Robinson also has Starfire absorbing the yellow solar radiation from the Kryptonians to leave them powerless. This, while a stretch of her powers (she never had such control, her solar energy absorption is usually just passive), it's not absurd like what he does with Black Lightning's powers.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. No less.
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"I CALCULATE THIS IS WRONG."
TITLE: Teen Titans V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 66
CULPRIT: Rod Reis (colorist).
DISSECTION: A bit subtle.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"IT'S SO REMOTE, IT'S OUT OF CONTROL."
TITLE: The War That Time Forgot (DC).
ISSUE: 08 of 12.
CULPRIT: Al Barrionuevo (penciller).
DISSECTION: Colonel Jape's remote control appears and disappears from his hand, and changes shapes from page to page.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"A HOLE DIFFERENT THING."
TITLE: X-Force V3 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Mike Choi (penciller).
DISSECTION: X-23's boots don't have the holes for her claws, as they should.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"IT'S WRITTEN IN CIPHER."
TITLE: Young X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 09.
CULPRIT: Nick Lowe (editor) & Daniel Ketchum (assistant editor) and/or Dave Sharpe (letterer).
DISSECTION: In the cast of characters, Moonstar's picture has Cipher's name under it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, a Spanish name is wrong again.
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So, predictably, we got an average of 3.6 Bazzars on thirty-three dissections; most of the dissections (twenty-three, my own), were just typos, so not even the two 10s could offset that. Let's get on with those Moments Of The Week, shall we? The first one is a shock (and I know it's the same image as the DT!):
Okay, maybe not much of it... but finding out that DCU Marvin and Wendy are the son and daughter of the Calculator is a bit of a shock. Next one is better, I promise:
How's that, eh? Pregnant with a Skrull baby! Next, another shocker, one that was completely unexpected to me, despite some people's predictions:
Mutant X is Typhoid Mary? Typhoid Mary?!? Typhoid Frakking Mary?!?!? Mutant X was, according to Dan Slott "a mutant chick who’s been cover-worthy many times. This is not some obscure-o mutant dusted off just for this arc. (...) People who don’t even follow comics regularly will know who it is." Really? Typhoid Mary? Who had never had the source of her powers revealed before? Who's been on a few Daredevil covers? Who isn't known at all by people who don't read comics? Come on.... I do love the next one... did you guess who Doctor Who's opponent in "The Forgotten" was?
Yes, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor! Complete with a mandatory evil goatee! And last, be careful for what you wish...
... you hear me, Franklin Richards? Now, before we finish, remember to vote in the Autopsy Awards. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
5 comments:
Just a comment....In English the mark over the e in cliché is called an Acute Accent. The tilde in English is the little squiggle ~
I understand that in Spanish the squiggle (tilde in English) is called virgulilla, or tilde as well.
J. Corbin
You're right, I should use "accent", "accent mark", or "diacritic". The problem of thinking in Spanish while you write in English (it happens the other way around to me as well).
Thanks for your comment, and for reading.
Thanks for the recognition, MaGnUs.
A total aside....Is the dissection regarding the image from TT #66 regarding Calculator's hair?
I seem to recall that it was always brown (and receding at that).
Great Blog!
J. Corbin
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that... another badge for ya.
Comments originally posted on ICS.net, right after the column was posted:
Nick S.: He said 'who don't follow comics regularly' not 'who don't read comics'. She was in the Elektra movie, is a fairly major Daredevil character, and has shown up in Captain America and Deadpool quite a bit. We didn't know she was a mutant... which was a really clever play by Slott. But I've been claiming it was her since pretty close to the beginning. :)
Martín "MaGnUs" Pérez: Yes, you're one of the people I refer to in "despite some people's predictions"; we already had this discussion in a now defunct forum. Dan Slott decided she was a mutant, it was never said before (or maybe someone else did, but he chose to reveal it), and despite being in Captain America, Deadpool and Daredevil (and the Elektra movie, but frankly, it wasn't really the same character, just shared a name and some similarities), she is not a cover-worthy character at all... she's been in what? Half a dozen Daredevil covers, ten maybe if she was on a Deadpool or Cap cover or two?
If you run a poll between people who don't regularly read comics (not just who don't read comics), you'll be lucky if two or three out of ten know who you're talking about. Get real, she only barely fits the parameters Slott set, you are entitled to be happy to be right about who she was, but this is a real let down and a cheap trick by an otherwise good writer.
This is like saying (I know it's been announced already "the next Doctor Who will be played by a black actor who's main actor worthy and is known even by people who don't usually follow acting"... and then revealing that said actor is white (but has a black ancestor three generations back), has headlined small off-Broadway productions in a small theaters, and is known by people who don't usually follow acting... but are related to him...
Nick S.: I've gotta respectfully disagree. I didn't regularly read comics for years, but I knew of the character. A quick google search reveals at least 24 cover appearances, and 90-100 in-comic appearances. Also, Slott never said everyone knew she was a mutant... just that they knew who she was. They said... "She is a mutant." "You know who she is." Not "She is a mutant and you know who she is and that she is a mutant." She fits the parameters more than anyone else I've heard suggested, save maybe Psylocke. But Psylocke was Claremontfailed. I thought it was one of the best reveals of this sort in a while.
Martín "MaGnUs" Pérez: Your disagreement is noted, same as it was when we had this discussion a year ago or so in the forum. And I never said that "everyone knew she was a mutant". Again, disagreement noted, thanks for your views.
Nick S.: Just to clarify, I know you didn't say that. I made that point in response to you saying that you felt it was a cheap trick, whereas I don't feel that way in the slightest because he didn't specify that.
Martín "MaGnUs" Pérez: Clarification noted. I still think it's a cheap trick, because generating expectation on a mutant behind the mask, when it was a character not widely accepted as a mutant
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