The Dissector

The Dissector #133.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"I feel like I've gone insane. Like I'm Bizarro World or something. Ra's al Ghul is my new Alfred. Butler of the Damned." Red Robin (Tim Drake), Red Robin #4.

Welcome to the Dissector #133! This is the column for comics released on 09/10, and yes, I know I'm late... I'm even late on my comic book reading; I haven't read all comics for last week... That, among other things, is why I've decided on a little change to the column to make it shorter to write, and more dynamic, more entertaining to read.

I have too many instances of "someone's eyes are colored incorrectly", "they made an accented letter smaller"; or even story errors that are just plain boring to write about. That's where the new section (The Rundown) comes in. I'll just mention the title and issue of the comic, and a brief description of the dissections in it. Those dissections will still have a score and a culprit; but I'll keep that out of the column.

I've been doing something like this for a time; writing up the most entertaining dissection in an issue; and counting the rest behind scenes; often mentioning those extra dissections briefly. It's also similar to what I did with the less interesting dissections a few months ago when I had to write one column for every month I was behind. With The Rundown (working name), however, some books won't even get a full entry on the column.

So, look for The Rundown below, right now we'll take a look at The Dissector's Picks Of The Week. Best Book Of The Week was Adventure Comics #505; the Superboy main feature is good; but it's the Legion second feature that makes this a must read for me. Worst Book Of The Week was Exo-1 & The Rock Solid Steelbots #0. You're asking yourself "Exo what?", aren't you? Exactly. PKD Media seems to be a webcomic venture that is starting out in print... and I don't want to say anything bad about them; but honestly... amateurish doesn't cover. Amateur, however, does. I mean, look at this:


And that's one of the best pages in the book... *sigh* At least the DT! from last column was cracked; by Donald313, from Germany, who catches correctly that Karnak has a boot on one foot, and a sneaker/slipper on the other in one of the panels. Badge for you, and welcome to the HDSC, Ensign... or should I say Fähnrich?

Now, before moving onto the dissections; let's have an appetizer with The Rundown: Adventure Comics #505 (a newspaper headline says "Krytonian), Booster Gold V2 #24 (hair and eye coloring mistakes), Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus (eye coloring mistakes), Dark Reign: Young Avengers #04 (eye coloring mistakes, including Norman), Doom Patrol V5 #02 (eye coloring mistakes), Green Lantern Corps V2 #40 (wrong badges), The Last Resort #02 (the Spanish word for "ladies" is "señoras", not "senoras"), Marvel Super Hero Squad #01 (an eye coloring mistake), Superman: World Of New Krypton #07 (Kal-El gets promoted to General, then he's called Commander again... but it could be an in-character mistake). Yeah, that was shorter than writing up all of those dissections.
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"TECHNICALITIES..."

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

ISSUE: 604.

CULPRIT: Fred Van Lente (writer).

DISSECTION: Michelle Gonzales says her brother Vin is in prison for "impersonating" a murderer. He's not, he's in prison for helping frame someone for murder, there's a big difference, and she's a lawyer.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Also, her eyes are colored blue instead of brown.
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"BLOCKADES KNOWN NO CLOCKS."

TITLE: Cisplatino Visiones (Apocalipta).

ISSUE: 04.

CULPRIT: Diego Tapié and/or Pablo Zignone (writers).

DISSECTION: A scene is captioned as happening at "12:44 PM", but it's obviously night, so they meant "12:44 AM". Thanks to new Ensign Peter Parker for pointing this out... this happens to be the same comic my story is in.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"THE BOYS ARE NOT ALRIGHT."

TITLE: The Boys (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 34.

CULPRIT: Garth Ennis (writer).

DISSECTION: Winning his second badge, Donald313 lets us know that when Stormfront says "Was der Hölle" when he should say "Was zur Hölle". Poor Donald also laments that since the cover has a Swastika, he can't get this book in Germany. I understand Germany is afraid of some things resurfacing, but there's Neo Nazis without this comic, and Stormfront is obviously the bad guy here... Dynamite should have foreseen this and edited a small run with a different cover, too.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"COLOR ME MISTAKEN."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 132.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Donald earns himself his third badge in a row by pointing out that I wrote "Rogue's eyes should be green, but they're colored green"; they had been colored brown.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"NOT SO ROCK SOLID WHEN IT COMES TO SPELLING."

TITLE: Exo-1 & The Rock Solid Steelbots (PKD Media).

ISSUE: 00.

CULPRIT: Shawn Pryor (writer).

DISSECTION: First of all, they need to decide whether it's “Rocksolid” or “Rock Solid, and "Steel Bots" or "Steelbots"; then they need to spell check better (“won't” and “systems”; not “wont and “stsyems”).

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars each.
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"FALL OUT KEYBOARD."

TITLE: Fall Out Toy Works (Image).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Brett Lewis (writer).

DISSECTION: So, I picked this up because it had a nice cover... and found out it was "inspired by the ideas & lyrics of Fall Out Boy"... and I shuddered. I've never listened to Fall Out Boy that I know of, but something inspired on a band's lyrics was kind of scary. And I was wrong, this was a fun read, with good art.

So, was there a dissection? Just a tiny one, it didn't get put in The Rundown because I wanted to mention how I'd liked the book, and it was a new one... they just wrote "sound bafrier".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"BE DISCRETE; SAID THE GUY WITH WINGS."

TITLE: Hulk Team-Up (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Marc Sumerak (writer).

DISSECTION: I could have done without this book... Can someone tell me what the big deal is with Iceman using his powers in public? Yes, they're in San Francisco and they don't want people to swarm them asking for autographs, instead of the usual mutant-hating-hysteria... but Bobby's sitting with Angel, who has his wings in plain view!!!

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars. There's also two letters with diacritics in the Dazzler story that are smaller than the rest.
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"OH! POOR TIMMY!"

TITLE: Red Robin (DC).

ISSUE: 04.

CULPRIT: Chris Yost (writer).

DISSECTION: Ooooookaaaay... Robin backs down from a fight because "A dozen armed gang members, I could take. Trained U.S. soldiers? Probably not." WHAT? This is TIM DRAKE. Red Robin, formerly Robin, trained by Batman, who's taken on SUPERPOWERED OPPONENTS and some of the deadliest human fighters (Lady Shiva, King Snake, League Of Assassins, etc), and he backs down from mere soldiers, that are not even special forces or anything?

No disrespect to the soldiers, but if Yost wanted to homage them or something, he should have Tim not wanting to hurt the soldiers or something... but nobody who's read a single comic with Tim Drake in it will believe that he can't fight a bunch of soldiers

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"TO BOLDLY DISSECT..."

TITLE: Star Trek: Nero (IDW).

ISSUE: 02 of 04.

CULPRIT: Unknown ad writer.

DISSECTION: This one's for the trekkies:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"A GIANT WHAT?"

TITLE: X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: When the X-Men have dealt with Sentinels, Celestials, and there's tons of giant-sized villains and creatures... why are they (and S.H.I.E.L.D.) so surprised about a giant footprint?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Xavier and Kitty Pryde's eyes are colored incorrectly, so is Gambit's hair, plus Beast's eyes are colored and drawn incorrectly.
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This week gives us a very low average, or lower than usual, of 5.9 Bazzars in thirty-four dissections. Very well... Cover Of The Week!


Not the most amazing cover ever; but trust me, it was the best I could find this week... Now, Moments Of The Week, por favor. First of all... let's start by telling the Titans that the stripper who impersonated Starfire has quit... and know there's a tranny in her place (2017 re-read: "tranny" was an unfortunate choice of word on my part, I am ashamed):


Wow! That's a man, baby! Next, Herc is a trekkie:


Hehe, funny. Then, first of a few dissections from the ending of Utopia. How do you stop a god?


Like that! Good move, I like writers who take advantage of the long history X-Men comics have. That, and Moonstar looks good in that outfit... Now, one of those speeches I like so much:


What can I say? I'm a sucker for those speeches. Now, who else gives speeches?


President Osborn! And speaking of heads of state:


Holy crap! I did not see that one coming! For our finale, people tell JJJ off.


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

THE DISSECTOR!