Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Dissector #120.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"(...) Would it kill them to wear the same uniforms?" Cyclops, about the All-New, All-Different X-Men, Uncanny X-Men: First Class Giant-Size Special #1.

Alright, here we are with the column for comics released on 06/10. The Dissector's Picks For The Week are as follow: Best Book Of The Week is X-Factor V3 #44. Peter David delivers a solid book month after month. Worst Book Of The Week was Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2... horrible art, and a wannabe "The Prisoner" plot. Off you go!
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"CAN YOU READ THOSE FROM HERE?"

TITLE: Action Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 878.

CULPRIT: Diego Olmos (artist).

DISSECTION: General Lane and his staff member have GINORMOUS name tags on their uniforms; readable at several meters.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"SUMMER UNIFORM, AGAIN?"

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

ISSUE: 597.

CULPRIT: Marco Chechetto (artist).

DISSECTION: Wolverine (Daken) is again wearing his uniform with short sleeves, then with long sleeves, etc.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. As usual, Norman's eyes are colored incorrectly.
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"CONTROL GROUND TO TOM MAJOR."

TITLE: Anna Mercury 2 (Avatar).

ISSUE: 01 of 05.

CULPRIT: Warren Ellis (writer).

DISSECTION: Again, Ellis has Mercury get in touch with her control by saying "Mercury, Launchpad."; when it should be the other way around. Communication protocols require the initiating party to announce who she's addressing first, then identify herself.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"THE NEW BATMAN DISSECTION."

TITLE: Batman (DC).

ISSUE: 687.

CULPRIT: Ed Benes (penciller) and/or Ian Hannin & JD Smith (colorists).

DISSECTION: See if you can spot this one.


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"ME JAMIE, YOU JANE."

TITLE: Booster Gold V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 21.

CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer).

DISSECTION: Jamie Reyes says that "you have to pay henchman", instead of "henchmen".

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"SONT DES MOTS QUI VONT TRES BIEN ENSEMBLE, TRES BIEN ENSEMBLE."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 119.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Last column I wrote "Also, can we remember that John Stewart's chest emblem is MOT the same as Hal's?"; instead of "NOT." Thanks to Emerre for noticing this; he gets a badge.

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. Also, I just noticed I wrote "quarts" instead of "quartz" in another column.
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"DOCTRO WHO."

TITLE: Doctor Who: Autopia (IDW).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: John Ostrander (writer).

DISSECTION: Donna uses the word "eaisly" instead of "easily".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"HEY, YOUR ARIAN-NES IS FAILING!"

TITLE: Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 06.

CULPRIT: The Hories (colorist).

DISSECTION: Captain Nazi's hair turns, inexplicably, black for a panel, then goes back to his regular blond.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"THIS BOOK IS CLICHÉ."

TITLE: GeNeXt United (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 05.

CULPRIT: Ed Dukeshire (letterer).

DISSECTION: Cliché, with a smaller "é". I'm tired of this particular error; I mean, even not speaking any language other than English, can't you see how wrong this looks?!?!? I mean, you're a letterer, your entire job revolves about lettering... or are you just someone slapping words on pictures?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"MISS AMERICA-CCENT."

TITLE: Miss America 70th Anniversary Special (Marvel)

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Dave Lanphear (letterer).

DISSECTION: Two more accented letters smaller than the rest of the word.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each.
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"WHO NEEDS PUNCTUATION?"

TITLE: Sherlock Holmes (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 02.

CULPRIT: Leah Moore & John Reppion (writers).

DISSECTION: The sentence "Sherlock Holmes stands accused of murder gentlemen." could use a comma before the word "gentlemen".

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
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"I GOT DRESSED IN A HURRY?"

TITLE: The Flash: Rebirth (DC).

ISSUE: 02 of 05.

CULPRIT: Ethan Van Sciver (artist).

DISSECTION: Kid Flash's costume, particularly his boots, is incorrect. Thanks to Kal for letting me know, he gets a badge for this even if I would have noticed it on my own.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"¡OH NO, UN MONSTRUO!"

TITLE: Titans V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 14.

CULPRIT: Eric Wallace (writer).

DISSECTION: There's a couple of other errors (Beast Boy's eyes colored blue, an accented letter smaller than the rest of the word); but there's one writing gaffe I can't help but mention: Cyborg walks around his own neighborhood; and someone (in the "appropriately" clichéd Spanish) calls him a demon and is scared of him. Did Wallace miss the fact that Cyborg is a member of the second or third better known hero team in the DC Universe? A team that has PUBLICLY saved the world a few times, and helped save it several dozen times?

Yes, we get it, Cyborg is weird; he's shunned because of his appearance... but not to that extent. Maybe someone doesn't look him in the eye when talking to him, or something like that... but fear, like this? No.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"BLASTED GOGGLES!"

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).

ISSUE: 511.

CULPRIT: Greg Land & Terry Dodson (pencillers).

DISSECTION: Again, Cyclops sleeping with any kind of eyewear?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. What's worse, colorist Justin Ponsor decides to color Cyclops' eyes red, when he's not wearing his glasses... his eyes are open and he's not blasting? What?
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"IN POST-COMMUNIST RUSSIA..."

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men: First Class Giant Size (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Jeff Parker (writer).

DISSECTION: So, a mid or late nineties Colossus is plowing the Xavier estate to grow crops because "How are we to eat if we do not farm?" Again, what?

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, there's crap German, and one pencilling dissection.
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"PICARD FOREVER."

TITLE: X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: Well, this was pretty good; except for "Remy Picard"... pretty good as long as you keep it within the context of the early nineties, I guess. There were only a few dissections, none too major. One of them was that the X-Men go to "Avilla" in Spain; when the place is actually named "Ávila".

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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So, we had twenty-eight dissections, with an average of 6.1 Bazzars. The usual, I guess. Now, two Moments Of The Week, the first one because of its lameness:


SOPHIE von Doom? SOPHIE?!?!?! SOPHIE?!?!?!?!? Okay... Claremont... okay... Next up, something cool:


Having fun as a secret agent in parallel universes! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi MaGnUs,

Great dissections this week! I even saw that you and Kal caught the issue with Kid Flash's costume (even the coloring is weird, but passable).

The only comment I have is that in your Titans V2 #14 dissection, you state "There's a couple of other errors"

It should say "There're" or "There are" without the contraction, since the subject/s of the statement is/are multiple errors.

BTW, I took some advice/recommendation that you gave in one of your columns and tried Amazing Spider-Man, and WOW!! Awesome book! Great writing and great art!

Thanks,

J. Corbin

Anonymous said...

MaGnUs,

Does the DT! this week have to do with Nightwing's boots? I don't remember them having those.....top-ends?? I have no idea what to call them....

J.Corbin

MaGnUs said...

Oh, bloody hell! I did the "there is" for plural AGAIN?!?!?! GAK!!! I do that all the time!!!

Glad you liked the column; and nice to see you took my advice. ASM is the best Marvel is putting out right now, and one of the best all-around.

Nope, the boots are not it.

MaGnUs said...

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

Nick S.: It's Aryan, not Arian. :P

Also, the Cyclops thing could be a holdover from Whedon's last arc where Cyclops controlled his powers for some time.

'Mid or late 90s'? No, dude, Uncanny X-Men: First Class Giant-Size Special takes place right in the vicinity of GSXM1, post-Proudstar and Sunfire. This is Colossus just after he came over from a life as a Russian peasant. It's comedically exaggerated, but it fits.

There was something about X-Men Forever that threw me off, but I forget, so... whatever.

OH. WOLVERINE'S COSTUME IS WRONG! He was wearing yellow and blue then, dammit! I FINALLY GOT A COSTUME DISSECTION HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!! *falls over*


Martín "MaGnUs" Pérez: 1) While "aryan" is the usual spelling, and "arian" normally refers to the Christian heresy of Arius; "arian" is also an acceptable, if less common, spelling of the Nazi concept. See here where it says "Also: Arian". While I did fuck up; I have a small out here, like a lot of dissections I let go because there's an out, even if I don't agree.

2) I know he controlled his powers for a time; but if he doesn't run around without a visor or glasses when awake, much less when he's asleep.

2) First Class, as with all Marvel comics, is on a sliding timescale; Colossus no longer was a Soviet Union citizen; since it's been only 14 years or less since Peter Parker became Spider-Man, if Colossus joined the X-Men 12 years ago, he was already a Russian Federation citizen, since the USSR had fallen.

3) Wolverine alternated the blue and yellow and the brown and orange one during that era. See the cover to X-Men #1 from 1991, the era on which X-Men Forever is based on.

Thanks for your comments, as usual, you're a loyal reader. Not taking a stab at the DT!?