The Dissector

The Dissector #112.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"FOUL HOMUNCULUS. THY VERY EXISTENCE DOES INSULT TO THE TRUE GOD OF THUNDER." Thor, to Clor, Avengers: The Initiative #21.

With this column, we catch up... partially, as the month of January comes to an end. Granted, it was a "longer month", since the comics that should have been released one 08/12/31 came out on 09/01/02, adding a month to what are otherwise standard four-week months. The DT! from last column was cracked by DrSilent, who correctly spotted that Deathstroke's eyepatch was missing one of the strings holding it in place. Badge for you, Lieutenant. I still want to remind everyone that voting for the Autopsy Awards 2008 is open until the end of March.

Now, before the dissections, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week. Best Book Of The Week goes to Star Wars: Legacy #32; best Star Wars book being published... enough connections to the original mythos to be likeable, enough removal to be original. And no Clone Wars era, that's always a bonus. Worst Book Of The Week is Legion Of Super-Heroes #50 *draws breath* IT FUCKING SUCKED! DC Comics cancels the book, fucks up Jim Shooter's storyline (by ending the storyline in a hurry, getting an editor to wreck it), and releases a book with a creative team that doesn't match what was promised. "Justin Thyme" writes the book, possibly because Shooter wanted nothing to do wit this travesty, and Francis Manapul is pulled out of the project to work on something else, turning the art chores over Ramon Bachs, who ought to have his hands chopped off... or perhaps, it's already happened, the way he draws...

Not only do his characters look hideous, but they also change designs inside the same issue. Actually, I've seen stuff by him before, and it wasn't bad... so this means that he either drew this issue in 15 minutes, while drunk; or that he paid his ten year old nephew to draw it for him. How does DC top this? By saying goodbye with a "We greatly appreciate the support of our loyal readers!" Yeah, that's why you fucked them over with this comic. Thanks!
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"THESE HERE IS ARE COMIC!"

TITLE: The 3 Geeks: Slab Madness! (3 Finger Prints).

ISSUE: 01 of 03.

CULPRIT: Rich Koslowski (writer).

DISSECTION: One of the characters asks "Where'd we buy are books?" instead of "our books".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"TACAÑANDO EL TAMAÑO."

TITLE: Avengers: The Initiative (Marvel).

ISSUE: 21.

CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer) and/or VC's Joe Caramagna (letterer).

DISSECTION: Melee, who is Hispanic, uses the word "tacaños", "cheapskates", and as was to be expected, the "ñ" is smaller than it should be.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"IF ME COLUMN WRITE."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 111.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Snakebyte noted that I screwed up in a couple of senteces in the last column, for example, I wrote "Superman says that if he Ultraman touch", when I meant "Superman says that if he AND Ultraman touch".

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Two badges for Snakebyte. By the way, I decided that the amount of badges required for each ranks were too low, so I readjusted them as follows:

High Admiral 131-infinite
Admiral 101-130
Rear Admiral 81-100
Vice Admiral 66-80
Commodore 51-65
Captain 41-50
Commander 26-40
Lieutenant Commander 16-25
Lieutenant 6-15
Ensign 1-5

Those who have less badges than what's now required for a rank will not lose their rank, but they will have to reach the amount necessary for the next rank in order to rise. For example, Snakebyte holds the rank of Vice Admiral, which before required 36 badges to reach, and now requires 66. Even though he only has 39 badges, he still retains his Vice Admiral rank, but he'll need to reach 81 to be Rear Admiral. As before, there is no way to reach the rank of Grand Admiral, which is reserved for me. Snake, nothing personal, but you were rising through the ranks too fast, and so were others, and I noticed that the increase in badge requirements had to be sharper as ranks got higher. These are the current ranks of the Honorary Dissector Scout Corps:

Grand Admiral MaGnUs
High Admiral Nysie (Honorary)
Vice Admiral Snakebyte 39
Cmdr. Dominik B. 23
Lt. Cmdr. Miss Kitty Fantastico 16
Lt. Cmdr. Guvnor 16
Lieutenant DrSilent 10
Lieutenant Sully 9
Lieutenant Snarf5181 6
Ensign Roy 5
Ensign Bea 3
Ensign Bored 3
Ensign Lucas Siegel 3
Ensign Tylo 2
Ensign Shadz 2
Ensign Mato 2
Ensign Matt Brady 1
Ensign Paul O'Brien 1
Ensign Trasgo 1
Ensign Mean Jeff 1
Ensign Ilustr8r 1
Ensign leahcim 1
Ensign TokerTheKid 1
Ensign Teukro 1
Ensign Wolfie 1
Ensign Jordan 1
Ensign Gary Greenwood 1
Ensign J. Corbin 5
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"PROTECTED ACCENTS."

TITLE: Fantastic Four V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 563.

CULPRIT: VC's Rus Wooton (letterer).

DISSECTION: The accented letters in the word "protégé" are smaller than the rest.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"BEAR NAKED LADIES."

TITLE: Incredible Hercules (Marvel).

ISSUE: 125.

CULPRIT: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers).

DISSECTION: The word "bares" is used instead of "bears".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, Invisible Woman's hair is short on the cover, and long inside.
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"SMASH THE COLORS!"

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 23.

CULPRIT: Hi-Fi (colorist).

DISSECTION: Atom Smasher's hair is colored brown, instead of red, as it should be.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"CHANGE, AS FAST AS A GAZELLE RUNS."

TITLE: Legion Of Super-Heroes V5 (DC).

ISSUE: 50.

CULPRIT: Ramon Bachs (penciller).

DISSECTION: Remember back in column #103, when I noted that Francis Manapul had radically changed Gazelle's design, from obviously alien, to slightly changed human (perhaps only cosmetically so)? Well, Bachs does one worse! Below, you can see in the upper left corner, Gazelle's first appearance in issue #37; and next to it, Manapul's rendition on issue #48. Then on the row below, Gazelle from the first pages of issue #50. Bach changes her hair, loses the markings on her face, and makes her features even more human (or what passes for human with Bach's art in this book). He also modifies her costume... but he doesn't stop there; because he even changes her appearance radically by the final pages of the book, and slightly in the same page:


My God, this is fucking outrageous! By the end of the book, she looks like a furry!!! Colorist JD Smith helps Bachs commit this crime, too.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"MARVLS."

TITLE: Marvels: Eye Of The Camera (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 06.

CULPRIT: Jay Anacleto (artist) or Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letterers).

DISSECTION: A newspaper says "retricts" instead of "restricts".

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"COMIC IS THE MEDIUM READ."

TITLE: Ms. Marvel V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 36.

CULPRIT: Brian Reed (writer).

DISSECTION: The phrase "Choking is the poison ingested..." doesn't make much sense. It was probably meant to be "Choking as the poison is ingested..."

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"NORTH LANDERS."

TITLE: Northlanders (DC/Vertigo).

ISSUE: 14.

CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer).

DISSECTION: The words "stress" and "of" are ran together in a caption box.

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"REIGN IN CZARNIA."

TITLE: Reign In Hell (DC).

ISSUE: 07 of 08.

CULPRIT: Keith Giffen (writer).

DISSECTION: Black Alice absorbs Lobo's powers, but her power is to absorb magical abilities; and Lobo is not magical.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, what does the word "selvage" mean in the books context? Nothing that makes sense.
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"MALARKY."

TITLE: She-Hulk V2 (Marvel)

ISSUE: 37.

CULPRIT: Peter David (writer) and/or Dave Sharpe (letterer).

DISSECTION: Mallory Book is called "Malloy" in this issue.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"IT'S IN YOUR HANDS."

TITLE: Star Wars: Legacy (Dark Horse).

ISSUE: 32.

CULPRIT: Omar Francia (artist).

DISSECTION: Mon Calamari hands are not depicted as they have been in canon (Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series), but I'll give Francia some leeway, since he probably drew this before the animated episode was aired, and nobody even told him about the new design.

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"PHANTOM POWERS."

TITLE: Superman V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 684.

CULPRIT: James Robinson (writer).

DISSECTION: While law enforcement officers at Metropolis extract criminals from the Phantom Zone, the Parasite absorbs Mon-El's powers, even if for just a moment... you mean Superman didn't tell them to watch out for that?

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"UMBROLLA ACADOMY."

TITLE: Umbrella Academy: Dallas (Dark Horse).

ISSUE: 03 of 06.

CULPRIT: Gerard Way (writer) and/or Blambot's Nate Piekos (letterer).

DISSECTION: I guess it should be "anomalies" instead of "anomolies".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"WONDER DISSECTION!"

TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 28.

CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer) and/or Steve Wands (letterer).

DISSECTION: Spot me this one:


DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars. Also, Wonder Girl's lasso and Vixen's Totem are missing.
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"X-FARCE."

TITLE: X-Force V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 11.

CULPRIT: Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost (writers) and/or VC's Cory Petit (letterer).

DISSECTION: These kind of dissections are boring... "sacred" instead of "scared".

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"COMPLEAT GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION."

TITLE: Young X-Men (Marvel).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Marc Guggenheim (writer).

DISSECTION: New character "Cipher" insists that her name is "Cipher" and not "Cypher"... while talking... both spellings of the word have the same pronounciation.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. I guess the writer meant to signify that Graymalkin (whose speech patterns are outdated) pronounces it the way the British spell it... but there's no difference in pronunciation, regardless of how you spell it. Also, Anole's regenerated arm is smaller than it should be.
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A more or less low average of 5.3 Bazzars in twenty-eight dissections... Now it's time for the Moments Of The Week. First up, Johnny Storm knows how to party:


Those are, obviously, not the real Storm and Scarlet Witch, but girls playing dress-up... good thing Johnny has his own apartment away from the rest of the FF, or else, this would be hard to explain to Franklin and Valeria Richards! Next up, and again from Fantastic Four, talk about engagement presents:


Thanks Black Panther! And for our grand finale, the New Avengers react to the Dark Avengers:


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

THE DISSECTOR!