The Dissector

The Dissector #154.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"This station will be ground up with your bones into the finest powder which we will snort in our victory orgy." Drenx commander, S.W.O.R.D. #5.

Welcome to the column for comics released on 03/10; and let me start off by saying that Donald313 noticed correctly that in last week's DT! Hal Jordan was wearing white boots. Badge for you, my friend, and thank you for the kind e-mail you sent me.

Now, The Dissection's Picks Of The Week: Best Book Of The Week was R.E.B.E.L.S. #14; great end to the Starro storyline; and a book that shows DC's space setting and characters at its best; as opposed to the latest Mystery In Space stuff which was just plain boring while trying to be "cosmic". Worst Book Of The Week was X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back #2... cute girly art, but weak writing; Kathryn Immonen confuses "oneiric" with "senseless wacky story with demons". More or less like the second Seaguy mini by Grant Morrison, "Slaves of Mickey Eye".

Now, your Rundown! Batgirl V3 (Wendy's eyes are colored incorrectly, Stephanie's eyes are blank, then are colored incorrectly), Batman: The Widening Gyre (gigantic bat ears), Cable V2 (Wolfsbane's eyes are colored incorrectly), Dark X-Men (Spider-Man's eyes are colored blue), Doom Patrol V5 (a character is missing her face for no reason in a panel), Ghost Projekt (pointless alternating of Russian and English, without translation brackets), The Human Target (wrong use of the Italian language), Lockjaw And The Pet Avengers Unleashed (wrong character design on Lockheed), The Mystic Hands Of Doctor Strange (accented letter), Powers V3 (a Nazi says "Hiel Hitler", and someone says "you're" instead of "your"), Red Robin (Alfred is shown as if living at Wayne Manor), S.W.O.R.D. (Beast still looks like a Bothan, and he also gets one toe less than he should), Superman: Last Stand Of New Krypton (Sensor Girl's gloves are too short), Web Of Spider-Man V2 (Silverback is probably an old villain of Spider-Girl, but Don "Silvo"?!?!? I'm sorry, "Silvo" is not a person's name, for God's sake, it's a metal polishing product. Try "Silvio".), Wolverine: Savage (Wolverine has slightly sharp canines, not vampire teeth), Wolverine: Mr. X (Norman's eyes). Go on to the dissections, now.
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"D.R.B.P.?"

TITLE: B.P.R.D.: King Of Fear (Dark Horse).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Guy Davis (artist).

DISSECTION: The "D" of BPRD in a downed plane is missing it's lower right corner, just barely. Then by the next panel, the lower half of the letter and a corner of the (previously untouched) "R" are missing, causing Liz to say she can't make out the last letter at all.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"BREAKING COMICS."

TITLE: Breaking Into Comics The Marvel Way! (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Kathyrn Immonen (writer) and/or Serena Ficca (artist), Runaways story.

DISSECTION: By all means, if you're an artist, just shimmy up to an editor at a convention or publish your stuff on your DeviantArt page or some other internet site and we'll see it and you will break into comics!!! Even if you're from the ass-end of the world, you'll get published, no matter if you're awesome like Yildiray Cinar, or a completely talentless hack like Javier Aranda.

But if you're a writer, well, then, (almost) actual words by an editor: "publish your own comic books and we'll take notice of you". Real fair for writers, huh? Am I being bitter? Slightly. Am I doing something about it? Yes, making comics. And complaining.

In any case, apart from Spider-Man's chest emblem being wrong on the cover, and half of the characters in this book having their eyes colored incorrectly, the worst dissection here is having Karolina of the Runaways use her powers as if she was a Green Lantern. Yes, her beams can be concussive if she wants; but she cannot hold down someone with them as if she had a power ring.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. No idea how Cinar and Aranda actually broke into comics, they're just examples.
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"ARE YOU LOST? NEED A MAP?"

TITLE: Detective Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 862.

CULPRIT: Cully Hamner (penciller).

DISSECTION: A map of the DC Earth (New Earth) is shown, and many of the fictitious countries are missing.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Batman's gloves are wrong, and Huntress' eyes are green first, then blue (correct color).
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"I MEANT THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I WROTE."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 153.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: I made two small mistakes in the previous column; I wrote "he doesn't actually have enhanced reflexes" when I wanted to say that Timber Wolf actually has enhanced reflexes, and "in a nod Projectra´s original costume", missing the word "to". Both were spotted by Donald313, who reaches the rank of Lt. Commander! Glückwünsche, Herr Korvettenkapitän! (And yeah, that German might be wrong.)

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars for the Timber Wolf one, 3 for the Projectra one.
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"THE RISE AND FALL OF PAYING ATTENTION TO THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE WRITING AND DRAWING IN A STORY."

TITLE: Justice League: Rise And Fall Special (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: JT Krul (writer).

DISSECTION: How can Green Arrow say that the heroes considered Prometheus "kind of a joke", when he'd shown he was a villain to be reckoned with?

Plus, there's a gigantic amount of art and coloring errors in this book, enough for their own mini-rundown: Batman's cowl is colored incorrectly, his gloves and emblem is wrong, then changes to another wrong emblem, and the emblem on his belt is wrong; Hal Jordan's badge is wrong, his gloves shouldn't have visible seams, and his mask alternates between having white lenses and letting you see his eyes; Wally West's new costume shouldn't have wings on its boots, and Black Canary's costume is colored wrong. And when you thought the errors are over, here comes the faux newspaper piece where Batman's gloves are wrong again, Mr. Terrific is inexplicably not wearing a shirt under his leather jacket, Judomaster is a huge muscular man, Hal Jordan's badge is wrong, and Congorilla is the size of a small Winnebago.

On an interesting note, my friend Kal and I were discussing how dumb it is to be making a fuss about Red Arrow losing an arm, when there advanced cybernetics technology in the DCU; both of Earth and alien origin... we even said "Why, Cyborg is supposed to be his friend..." and then we noticed Cyborg examining an arm right in Roy's room... Of course, seeing the previews for "The Rise Of Arsenal" (here, and here), it was kind of predictable. Oh, of course, he has a metal arm, so he must wear no shirt, or a short-sleeved one to show it off... How Cable of him.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"SPEARHEAD DISSECTION."

TITLE: The Twelve: Spearhead (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Chris Weston (writer/penciller).

DISSECTION: Now, this one was obvious to me, but then again, I'm the Dissector, am I not?


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. There are other dissections too, Nick Fury's eye (he just lost the other one) is colored blue first, then correctly as brown; and Captain America's forehead "A" is shown with a military style stencil font on his mask.. it's never been that way.
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Like was to be expected, there was a 6.2 Bazzars average in the fifty-five dissections we had. Now, the Cover Of The Week will make seem like I'm being repetitive at best, or a bootlicker at worst:


Yes, Mrs. Jelena Djurdjevic once again! Now she shows us that she doesn't just paint pretty ladies, she can paint some pretty scary monsters too... Moments Of The Week; first up, Superboy & The Legion Of Super-Heroes arrive on New Krypton!


Now, Pete Woods would not have been my choice for artist on Last Stand, but you know me, I'm a sucker for Legion moments. Then, the A-Team stars in a prequel to their upcoming movie:


Not for being a classic something can't be a good MoT, right? I loved this next one:


Pimp slap! Still in Marvel, someone finally calls Iron Fist on his shoes:


Could have been worse, he could have been wearing the slippers... And last, still within the Marvel Universe, Peter Parker gets what he deserves:


Whether he deserves it for faking a photo, or for helping JJJ, that's still to be seen... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!