The Dissector

The Dissector #139.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"The men of the Bronze Age were the children of humans and gods. They performed great deeds, rid the world of giant monsters, pursued the Golden Fleece on the Argo and waged war against Troy. (...) Now, we suffer through the doleful Iron Age. (...) The once-sacred powers of the gods are made mockery by freaks of science who wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing!" Hera, Assault On New Olympus.

Welcome to the column for the first week of November, 11/04. There are a few books I haven't received yet, and also a few back issues I included here, mostly in The Rundown, but the Best Book Of The Week is from some weeks ago. Last issue's DT! was spotted by JohnnyDoe, and it was the fact that James Rhodes' mother is colored as a Caucasian, instead of a black woman. Good job, Lieutenant, two more badges and you make Lt. Commander!

The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are as follow: Like I said, Best Book Of The Week is actually a bit older, since there wasn't anything that really jumped out at me this week. I'm talking about Ex Machina #46; not as good as other issues of that book, but always, always solid. Worst Book Of The Week was Magog #3. Not only is that book pointless (and I'm dropping it starting next month, since there's nothing in it for me, not even curiosity as in the case of Loeb's Hulk), but it's horribly drawn, and there were like ten caption boxes of Magog's thoughts to each speech balloon. Book's not pretty? Not interesting? And it's not even dynamic? Bleh.

Here's The Rundown: The Amazing Spider-Man Presents - Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live (language mistakes), Assault On New Olympus (Hercules' eyes should be blue, not brown, it's U.S.Agent, not USAgent), Batman Confidential (wrong eye color in a character, wrong emblem on Batman, horribly drawn map), Black Widow: Deadly Origin (Wolverine and the Black Widow get wrong eye colors), Captain America: Reborn (a letter "V" is not Doctor Doom's crest, and his eyes are not red), Dark Reign - The List: Hulk (wrong eye colors), Dark Reign - The List: Wolverine (Wolverine's eyes should be blue, not brown), Deadpool Team-Up (accented letter, Hercules' eyes, Arcade's eyes), Deathlok V4 (the word is "dispute", not "despute", and is it "Rand" or "Brand"?), Doctor Voodoo: Avenger Of The Supernatural (accented letters), Ex Machina (accented letters), Greek Street ("cant" instead of "can't"), Star Trek: Romulans Schism (again with the Klingon emperor), Warlord V4 (characters' eyes disappear, Shakira's eyes change to brown for the last page), Wildcats V5 (accented letter), X-Men Origins: Iceman (the Xavier mansion looks wrong). Dissections!!!
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"A BAT WITHOUT SONAR."

TITLE: Batman: The Unseen (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Doug Moench (writer).

DISSECTION: Not only is Batman's costume awful again, but now he can't fight against an unseen enemy (who's just a scientist, not a fighter). Only after he's hit a few times he decides to turn on his infrared lenses. Yeah, right.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Commissioner Gordon has a hard time believing someone can turn invisible? Pfft.
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"KEVIN, READ UP ON YOUR AQUAMAN."

TITLE: Batman: The Widening Gyre (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 06.

CULPRIT: Kevin Smith (writer).

DISSECTION: If you want to write things in continuity, be up to speed with continuity. Aquaman makes an appearance, and it's classic Aquaman, Orin aka Arthur, because of the costume, and the familiarity which with he talks to Bruce, and about J'onn and others from the League. And this is during the time when Tim Drake wore his post OYL costume (which by the way, has the wrong emblem).

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, Bruce Wayne's body has scars that look... like someone played tic tac toe on his skin, not like real scars; plus there's none on his legs, at all.
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"IT'S THERE FAULT."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 138.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: We have a new Lieutenant in the HDSC, Mr. Donald313. In his own words: "Okay, I´m late. But you said I only need one more badge, and you also nitpick tiny mistakes, so I´m gonna reach out. In your dissection about the Marvel Divas #4 you write "their presence their" when it should be "their presence there". I feel dirty now, but anything for a promotion :)".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"TEMPEST BLEDSOE."

TITLE: Doom Patrol V5 (DC).

ISSUE: 04.

CULPRIT: Keith Giffen (writer).

DISSECTION: I understand that New Earth is a new continuity; although it is a lot like Post Crisis Earth, much like the latter was mostly Earth-1, with bits and pieces of Earth-2, Earth-S and the other Earths that survived the Antimatter Wave; unless you specifically reboot something. For example, Superman's origin after Crisis was changed, and his continuity completely rebooted; his continuity hasn't been rebooted after Infinite Crisis, but there is a retelling of his origin.

However, changing a character's powers complete and utterly, just because, without any (apparent, at least as of yet) significance? No, I find that unacceptable. Tempest's (Joshua Clay, not Garth) powers have been changed from energy blasts to... weather control. Unless there's some kind of explanation, even if it's just Giffen saying "New Earth".

After some research, I found out that some five years after Tempest's first appearance (Showcase V1 #94, 1977), Giffen pencilled DC Comics Presents #52 (1982), where Clay shoots cyclone-style blasts and flies propelled by some sort of fog. That issue is written by Kupperberg; and Clay refers to his powers as "mutant-blasts", and talks about creating vortexes. None of that was there in the Showcase issues; where they were just "power blasts", also written by Kupperberg.

On the 1978 issues of Superman Family (Supergirl/Doom Patrol stories by Gerry Conway) he has "blast powers", and the 1983 issues of "The Daring New Adventures Of Supergirl" by Kupperberg he has "force-blasts", which look like cyclones, but are never said to have anything to do with weather. In the late 80s, when Paul Kupperberg used Tempest in V2 of the Doom Patrol book. And Kupperberg wrote that DC Comics Presents story, so if he corrected his powers for his DP run, he must have realized it was a mistake.

I like how Kupperberg writes, but he also refers to "Lazarus" as "Lazurus", so I wouldn't put it past his early eighties self to use the word "vortexes" without checking what it meant really, and Giffen just drawing it as, well, vortexes; given that the character's name is "Tempest". For some reason, almost 30 years later, Giffen decides Tempest has weather powers... well, understandable, but I will still consider it a mistake unless there was a story need for it... or Giffen says it's just a retcon he decided to do because he damned well pleased.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. As usual, also, Rita Farr's eyes are colored incorrectly.
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"MASTERS OF DISSECTION."

TITLE: House Of M: Masters Of Evil (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer) and/or Manuel Garcia (penciller).

DISSECTION: This one is easy:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"ROGUE GLOVE."

TITLE: House Of M: Masters Of Evil (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Manuel Garcia (penciller) and/or Chris Sotomayor (colorist).

DISSECTION: Rogue steals someone's powers by touching them... wearing gloves.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, The Hood has blue eyes, when they should be brown.
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"MONSTURODEFENSOFORZO!"

TITLE: Psylocke (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 04.

CULPRIT: Chris Yost (writer).

DISSECTION: Japanese security forces stop Psylocke at the airport, saying that mutants are not welcome, and they know who she is... yet they don't bring any kind of psychic protection? Not believable.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, I doubt it'd be the police, as Psylocke refers to them, it should be the Self-Defense Forces guarding an airport, guarding the country against foreign mutants.
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"WRONG ASIAN COUNTRY."

TITLE: Psylocke (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 04.

CULPRIT: Harvey Tolibao (penciller) and Ulises Arreola & Brian Reber (colorists).

DISSECTION: Why do Japanese policemen look like Chinese soldiers, complete with a RED STAR ON THEIR CAPS AND HELMETS?!??!!??! I don't care if they're some special anti-metahuman task force (which brings us to the previous dissection), Japanese cops and soldiers don't look like Chinese ones. Psst, guys... try giving them a white or gold sakura blossom on the caps and helmets... it's a bit more Japanese. The air branch of the Self-Defense Forces wears stars with other stuff, but not like these uniforms:


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Psylocke's eyes in Kwannon's body should be violet, not blue.
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"STRANGE TALES INDEED."

TITLE: Strange Tales V5 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 03.

CULPRIT: Paul Hornschemeier (writer/full author, though I'm categorizing this as a writing dissection).

DISSECTION: Since when does Nightcrawler "cast a gateway" in front of him to jump through in his teleporting? Has Hornschemeier ever read or at least LOOKED at a comic book with Nightcrawler in it?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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So this all brings us to a 6.5 Bazzars average on forty-seven dissections. Good. Now, the Cover Of The Week is nothing special, but the best on a bunch of regular covers:


Greek Street is a fun, if not particularly special book to read. Not for kids, though. Moments Of The Week? Certainly! First up, another Mage: The Ascension parallel:


Okay, so you're not much of a gamer? No more roleplaying stuff for today. We do have some Hercules:


Yes, THAT Hercules. Parker Luck, anyone? No? More Hercules? Sure!


How much booze does Herc have to drink to get his eyes red? Dunno, but I lied about the roleplaying stuff:


I love the Black Hands, and Gordo is one of my favorite characters from all the KODTverse. Yeah, this is from an old issue, but I'm catching up on my Knights. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!