The Dissector

The Dissector #138.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Welcome, readers, to the universe forming event known as the Big Bang... or as it's called in the DC Universe, the Big BIFF! BAM! POW! Much punchier." Narrator, Ambush Bug: Year None #7 (of 6).

Welcome to the column for books released on 10/28; last week of October, and the year comes to an end very soon. Wow, am I a master of stating the obvious, or what? Last week's DT! was cracked by Donald313 (one more badge and you make Lieutenant): Barry Allen's Flash mask never hid his eyes.

What were The Dissector's Picks Of The Week? I'll start by saying that Hulk #16 was the worst book of the week, that book sucks, and I should drop it. Best Book Of The Week? It was very hard to choose... New Mutants #6 was excellent; writer Zeb Wells understands the characters, and penciller Diogenes Neves uses his own style, but incorporates elements from the original NM book; such as character body language, or Professor X's eyebrows (after Bill Sienkiewicz). Superman: Secret Origin #2 was fangasmic, with the Legion, but it wasn't THAT good outside of that.

Unknown Soldier is a book that's consistently good; a good script, nice art, and good real world information articles about the conflict the book covers. This issue in particular had the added bonus of art by Patrice Masioni Makamba (aka Pat Masioni), a Congolese artist now living in France. I believe it's the first comic by an African artist that I've ever seen. Masioni brings not only an understanding of the African continent and its conflicts (even if he's not from the same place that the book happens in), but an interesting aesthetic, a mix of European and African art that's very appealing. I'm going to see if I can track down some of the work he's done in Europe and Africa to read.

But... none of those was the Book Of The Week. Too many to share the spot, even... so I had to go for another book: Spin Angels #3. As I've mentioned before it's an interesting tale about Catholic Church agents facing Templars and recovering early Christian relics to maintain the theological supremacy of the Church. The plot and script by Jean-Luc Sala are very good, well paced, engaging; and the art by Pierre-Mony Chan is something else. Like I also said before, the art is a good blend of European comic book art (ligne claire, in particular) and manga styling; along with a dash of American comics... not as good a blend as Gipsy, as sometimes the manga elements overpower the other elements, and it distracts a bit from the story. For example:


That has got to be the most annoying manga trick ever; particularly when the characters are using each other's name in the dialogues, and when the rest of the page can look something like this:


See what I mean? Well, go read it if you like Indiana Jones-esque stories; with a dash of The Da Vinci Code (or so I assume, since I've never read the book or watched the movie).

The Rundown for his week is the following: Arkham Reborn (Bruce Wayne's eyes are colored brown... even if he's actually Hush), Batman (Batman's costume is colored and drawn incorrectly), Blackest Night (Scarecrow and Ray Palmer's eyes are colored incorrectly), Dark Avengers: Ares (Ares and Norman's eyes are colored wrong), Green Lantern V4 (Hal's badge is wrong... just once), Incredible Hercules (accented letter), Justice Society of America V3 (Power Girl's hairdo keeps changing), Ms. Marvel V2 (again, Moonstone cannot transmute matter any longer), New Avengers (wrong Night Nurse, again!), Northlanders (a name is spelled wrong once), Nova V4 (odd spelling for words), Ultimate Comics Armor Wars (Sabra's head is mounted on a wall; but her last name is spelled "Bat-Serpah", when it's "Bat-Seraph"... yes, Ultimate characters might have different names, and she even looks different... but this smells like a mistake), World's Finest V3 (Christopher "Lor Zod" Kent did not just now come to see that his father (General Zod) is evil... he was tortured by him from birth...), X Necrosha (Selene and Jetstream's eyes are colored incorrectly), X-Factor V3 (Guido, for some reason, is a black man), X-Force V3 (Magik's eyes should be blue, not brown). And now, dissections!
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"GOOBLY EYES."

TITLE: Dark Reign - The List: Punisher (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Dean White (colorist).

DISSECTION: I no longer devote time to Norman Osborn's eye color, or space, it usually goes into the Rundown... but in this book he has green eyes on page four, then brown eyes on page six; then green and brown eyes on page seven... I mean, I can accept that his eye color changes to green (from his correct blue one) when he starts to lose control (because of the goblin serum)... but he's calm most of this book, and in most books his eyes get colored green.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Daken has red glowing eyes at one point..
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"SISQÓ."

TITLE: Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink (DC).

ISSUE: 06 of 06.

CULPRIT: Eric Wallace (writer).

DISSECTION: A character that looks EXACTLY as Avery Brooks when he played Benjamin Sisko in Deep Space Nine gets called on the fact... but Wallace wrote "Sisco".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"IS YOGA SUPPOSED TO BE THIS DIFFICULT?"

TITLE: Marvel Divas (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer) and/or Tonci Zonjic (artist).

DISSECTION: Danny Rand teaches a Zen yoga class for superheroines, and Crystal, Tigra, She-Hulk and Storm are there... their presence their ranges from the unlikely (Storm is kind of busy with the X-Men and Wakanda, She-Hulk is M.I.A.), the highly unlikely (Tigra is a fugitive, no two ways around it), to the damn right impossible (Crystal is in Kree space). The status of Jericho Drum as Sorcerer Supreme (Doctor Voodoo now) places this within current continuity, thus making the above heroines taking the class difficult or impossible.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Doctor Voodoo gets blue eyes, and the heights of Pulsar, Firestar, Black Cat, and Hellcat are all mixed up and keep changing throughout the issue.
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"WRONG MODEL."

TITLE: Models, Inc. (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 04.

CULPRIT: Paul Tobin (writer).

DISSECTION: The "crashin' fashion" fake blog at the end of the book talks about the Night Nurse, and uses art from New Avengers... and you guessed it, it also identifies this nurse as Linda Carter, when she's Christine Palmer.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, there's a small grammatical error in the zombie backup story.
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"DISSECTION MACHINE!"

TITLE: War Machine V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Jay David Ramos & Michael Bartolo (colorists).

DISSECTION: Come on, this one is very simple:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Norman's eyes. And please, bring Leonardo Manco back to this book...
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"NEW NEW MUTANTS."

TITLE: X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Moose Baumann & Sotocolor's Adam Street (colorists).

DISSECTION: I'm betting it was Moose.... Now, the New Mutants are characters with over 20 years of existence, and an integral part of mutant mythos at Marvel. But in this book, Cannonball gets red hair instead of his blond hair; and Wolfsbane gets a more jarring white to her normally red hair.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each. Also, Wolverine's eyes are colored brown instead of blue, and Kitty Pryde gets blue eyes instead of her hazel ones. There's also an accented letter that's too small. At least "Zigfried" Trask gets renamed "Sigrid" (a female name)... but only in the intro text; not the book itself, so I'm afraid Claremont will keep calling her "Zigfried".
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That's another end of a column, with a 6.4 Bazzars average in thirty-six dissections. Cover Of The Week was this pretty cover by Guillem March for Gotham City Sirens #5:


I like me some cheesecake... Moments Of The Week! Superboy (albeit with an old lady's face) coins the Legion of Super-Heroes battle cry:


Nice! Then, if all the dead with significance to superheroes are rising...


Holy crap! Then, speaking of dead people... Punisher gets killed by Daken in "Dark Reign - The List: Punisher", so what happens next?


Eww.... BAD idea... Speaking of the Punisher, the Hood might have resurrected his family, and what does Frank do?


Shit Frank, you're one sad, sick puppy... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!