Friday, May 28, 2010

The Dissector #164.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Hmmm... if we have to offer (Earth-Man) a Legion ring, it doesn't have to be an ordinary one. What was that rhyme about 'one ring'..." Brainiac 5, Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 #1.

Welcome to the column for comics released on 05/19, on time this week! Yes, it's a self-imposed deadline, but I like to meet it. Lt. Cmdr. JohnnyDoe earns himself another badge by noticing that the Celestial, said to be ten times taller than Ship, is not one and half times taller... JD, three more badges, and you make Commander!

Now, let it not be said that I just leave ambiguous dissections be and decide for myself that they're wrong. I try to go to authoritative sources and clear up my doubts. As confirmed by Tom Brevoort, "Michele" is the official spelling of Peter Parker's roommate’s first name. I'm not going to modify the dissection counts or averages from previous columns, but I've removed the dissections from book, company, and creator counts (only four occurrences this year).

Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week... Best Book Of The Week is, obviously, Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 #1. While the issue is not jam-packed with action like say, an issue of War Of The Supermen, there's enough action to keep you interested, excellent characterization (expectable, since Levitz basically owns most of this characters, if he didn't create them, he breathed life into them), and good plot twists. It's perfect for Legion fans, and I believe it's a good jumping on point for casual Legion readers, or even completely new readers. About the art, well, ever since I saw the first sketches by Cinar, I was convinced he was an excellent choice for this. He handles the action, the character moments, the technology and ambience very well. The only weak spot I can find is that some of the faces in characters sitting or standing in the background (but not that far away from the main characters in that scene) either look too rushed, or make the character look too young. But that's a minor gripe, compared to the background characters drawn by many other artists, and it's offset by the quality of the rest of the art in the book.

Worst Book Of The Week? The Galacta: Daughter Of Galactus one-shot. Wow, this was cute for a few pages in an anthology book (where it comes originated), or for a digital short story (where parts of this book were originally published... but thirty-one pages of story? and seven pages of posts from Galacta's twitter account? Not to mention the ridiculous writing... I expected much better from writer Adam Warren. Visually, the book is cute, but that's not enough for an entire one-shot, no matter how much Hector Sevilla Lujan tries to mimic Warren's art style.

The Rundown: Age Of Heroes (Faiza Hussain's eyes should be brown, not blue), Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son (multiple eye color errors), Batman: Streets Of Gotham (accented letter), Battlefields (the rank should be "Obersturmbannführer", not "Obersturmbanfuhrer", two Ns, even if you don't use the "ü"), Enter The Heroic Age (accented letter), G.I. Joe (eye color error), Girl Comics V2 (eye colors), Justice League Of America V2 (Alan Scott's lantern and chest emblem are wrong, German language errors, including a made-up rank), Wizard Magazine ("Ozymandius", "bones" instead of "bonus", and Ethan Van "Skiver"), X-Factor V3 (eye colors and shapes), X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back (German language, accented letter, Nightcrawler's costume is drawn and colored incorrectly), X-Men Forever V2 (several eye colors and designs are wrong, costuming errors, accented letter), X-Men Legacy (Dr. Nemesis' hair is colored incorrectly), Zatanna V2 (accented letters, a weird space after an opening question mark... surprisingly, the Spanish is right, if a bit stilted).
<-------------------------------->
"TWO CANS AND A BIT OF STRING."

TITLE: Avengers V4 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer).

DISSECTION: They either overshoot, or fall short... Avengers: The Origin has Rick Jones using computer equipment that's modern even for the Marvel Universe (12-15 years ago), and now, Bendis has him use CB Radio to unite the Avengers for the first time, and explain to people (it's text from a fictitious book) what CB radio was, compared to the internet...

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. There are also several eye color mistakes, plus Beast looking too much like his previous form.
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"THE ATOM, NOT DOLLMAN."

TITLE: DC Universe: Legacies (DC).

ISSUE: 01 of 10.

CULPRIT: Scott Kolins (penciller).

DISSECTION: The Atom, Al Pratt, was short, yes, at 5'1", but he was not a little person, and certainly not two heads shorter than Hourman (Rex Tyler, 5'10") and Sandman (Wesley Dodds, 5'11").

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WATCH YOUR FIGURE."

TITLE: Galacta: Daughter Of Galactus (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Adam Warren (writer).

DISSECTION: I should have caught this in the assistant editor special that came out some time ago, I think the same terms were used... but no matter how silly you're trying to be, and no matter how efficient Galacta's technology is, there is no way that a human being will yield between 16 and 18 GIGAcalories, a cat 4, and so on.

Warren, do you understand that GIGA means A BILLION? Ten to the power of nine?? 1.000.000.000??? Recommended daily energy intake values for human beings varies between 2000-3000 kilocalories per day... so how the hell could a person yield anywhere near a gigacalorie when converted to energy?!?!?!?

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. There is also an accented letter smaller than it should be.
<-------------------------------->
"PUSH."

TITLE: Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 (DC).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Paul Levitz (writer).

DISSECTION: I've sung all the praise I could about this book... well, maybe not all I could, but enough for this column. There was an error, however, and I didn't notice it... though I'm not at all certain it's actually an error, you know?

Here's the thing, Roy (who gets a badge and a promotion to Lieutenant) asked me if I had noticed Saturn Girl using telekinesis (or "teke", if Chris Claremont was writing this). I hadn't read the book yet, and said I'd be on the outlook. So I read with extra attention (not that my spider sense is not always on)... and only noticed one panel, where she seems to be shoving people from under falling ruble from a distance.

I told Roy that to me, it looked like that, but it could be said that she's using telepathy to shove them out in "command" way, if you know what I mean. But that wasn't what Roy was referring to... he was actually referring to the scene where she breaks through a window:


I didn't want to believe that Paul Levitz, who knows these characters like they were his creations, had slipped, so I countered that she could be flying through the window, using her flight ring, which is made from Valorium, a derivate of Thanagarian Nth metal, and there's some sort of gravity pulse and... yeah, I know, a little far-fetched, but plausible.

But while the Legion fan in me wanted to leave it at that, the Dissector wouldn't allow him. So I asked Yildiray Cinar, the Legion's newest artist, who I have contact with through Facebook. Cinar confirmed it was TK, and said: "It was in the script so I'm not sure what's with S.G.'s telekinesis. I'm sure we'll all find out. :)".

What does this mean? That it could all be part of a plan on Levitz part, which I'd prefer, because I don't want to believe that he's slipping like Chris Claremont (although the quality of the writing in this issue, as mentioned before, assures me that he's not). Why am I considering this a dissection, then? Well, when she's introduced, her caption says only "telepathy"... yes, it could all be part of Levitz' plan, but still... if it turns out there's an actual reason behind this, I'll retract from this dissection (but Roy won't lose his badge).

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Brainiac 5's eyes are purple (wrong), then green (correct), and Sodam Yat's hair should be black, not brown.
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"DISSECT THIS TO HELL."

TITLE: X-Men: Hellbound (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 03.

CULPRIT: Harvey Tolibao (penciller).

DISSECTION: See if you can spot this one:


DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, there are character design elements wrong, and some accented letters are smaller than they should be.
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This week's column gives us a 6.4 Bazzars average in fifty-four dissections, pretty standard. If you follow my posts on Facebook, you'll know that there's no doubt of which the Cover Of The Week is:


This delicacy by Yildiray Cinar (pencils), Wayne Faucher (inks), and Rod Reis (colors) is simply stunning, and if you don't know what's going on, you'll want to crack open the book just to see what the hell's up with this. Moments Of The Week? By all means. First, from War Of The Supermen, Jimmy Olsen's got friends:


A Legion of friends. :) (Matter of fact, he's got TWO Legions of friends, but who's counting...) The war between Earth and New Krypton rages on... in Argentina?


Obviously, Uruguay was small enough to be spared (and no, DC One Million doesn't count). What's interesting enough is that there are no Argentinian artists or writers involved in this book (Cafu is most likely Brazilian, and even if inker "Bit" or colorist "Blond" are Argentinian, they have no incidence on the actual content of the book), which makes me think one of the writers (James Robinson or Sterling Gates) is a Heinlein fan. That, or Robinson, being British, still can't forgive Argentina for the Falklands/Malvinas war (shya, right).

Now, one of those funny moments from Atomic Robo:


Looks familiar... Next, the new Avengers assemble:


Wait, Bucky Cap was chosen only for his symbolism? Gee, thank you, Steve! Next, the much anticipated...


... return of the Great Machine! More LSH, Brainy's a character after my own heart:


Hehehe... and who was that Green Lantern ring for?


Oh, sprock! In the X-Men camp, I didn't enjoy Pixie's mini, but the last issue was better, particularly this moment:


I should adapt Enid Blyton's novels to comic... More Marvel, the first Hulk of the Ultimate universe has an interesting choice of weaponry:


War Machine is a crybaby, it was just a one-man plane! And for the finale, Zatanna has to be paying millions of dollars in life insurance:


Because there can't be anything more stupid in the DCU than dressing up as the Joker, like she has one of her actors do... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Peter David Interview.

Peter David (writer of Hulk, Supergirl, Aquaman, Star Trek, X-Factor, Babylon 5, Ben 10, and a long etc) was in Uruguay recently, and I was lucky enough to interview him. Here's the full audio of the interview, expect a transcript soon.


Download here, or here.
The Dissector #163.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Hey, Potts... worry about global warming. Worry about health care in America. Worry about the California housing market. There's all sorts of great things to worry about. But I'm not one of them. This is what I do. And it's time to go to work." Tony Stark, Iron Man: Public Identity #3.

Welcome to another column, this time for books released on 05/12; plus, as usual, a straggler or two. Last week's DT! was the fact that Deadpool's skin was normal, and he looked like he was sewn up from different corpses, like Frankenstein's monster. Deadpool's skin is supposed to look all tumorous and rotten... even I know this, and you must remember I find the character boring and stupid, so I pay little attention to it. Not only that, but also, he shouldn't have any scars, except for his... skin condition, because of his healing factor. So both Donald313 and JD got it; well, Don only mentioned the scars, but still... badge for both.

The Dissector's Pick Of The Week are as follow: Best Book Of The Week was Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #10... Bendis still knows how to handle a teenaged Spider-Man, and he doesn't overdo the splash pages or the long dialogues; and David Lafuente's art is just perfect, simple, but expressive. Worst Book Of The Week? That crapfest Sentry: Fallen Sun. Even dead this two-dimensional, convoluted, lame character keeps being retconned into all of Marvel's characters past. It wasn't enough that he was best friends with Reed Richards and Bruce Banner, or that Thor danced with his mom at his wedding... now he had an affair with Rogue?

The Rundown: Action Comics (Alan Scott's ring is wrong, then there's an accented letter in a French newspaper that's wrong), Adventure Comics V1 (various hair, eyes, and costume mistakes), Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis (Beast looks wrong, Storm doesn't have a mohawk these days, her eyes shouldn't be white if she's not using her powers, and most important of all, since when does Emma Frost put on a fake British accent?), Batman (for the Nth time, the Riddler's hair should be black), Booster Gold V2 (the whole final "punch" of the issue is that Booster went into the future to the wrong date, but the writer messes up the dates in the conversation between Booster and Rip... thanks to Dante for the heads-up, even though I had noticed it already), Dark Avengers (Osborn's eyes), Fall of the Hulks: Gamma (I only noticed this while looking up some Betty Banner-Ross pictures, but they colored her eyes incorrectly in this issue from some time ago), Heroic Age: Prince Of Power (a Broxton woman brings food gathered by the locals to the ruins of Asgard, and Heimdall asks her "what is this "spam"" she speaks of... but she never mentions spam at all... though there are a few at the Asgardian's feet), Incredible Hulk (Doom's eyes are wrong), Iron Man Noir (Pepper's eyes are wrong), Iron Man: Public Identity (accented letter), Justice League: Generation Lost (Fire's last name is da Costa, not Dacosta, and Captain Atom's boots should be blue), The Marvels Project (Namor's ankle wings are again GIGANTIC), New Avengers Finale (Danielle Cage's eyes should be green), R.E.B.E.L.S. (Adam's strange L.E.G.I.O.N. emblem disappears for a page, and Captain Comet's eyes change color), Sentry: Fallen Sun (Dr. Strange's eyes are wrong), Titans: Villains For Hire (Ryan Choi's eyes change from brown, to blue, then to brown with a blue ring around his left eye), Web Of Spider-Man V2 (Jameson's eyes should be blue, and Michelle Gonzalez gets called "Michele", MJ's eyes should be green), X-Men Forever V2 (Beast eyes, accented letter).
<-------------------------------->
"PUSHER FOR HIRE."

TITLE: New Avengers: Luke Cage (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 03.

CULPRIT: Joe Sabino (letterer).

DISSECTION: Wow, Joe really did screw up on this one:


Cage talks like he's got people selling drugs? The villain who just attacked him says "it takes more than cats to hurt me"?!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars each. There's also a small writing mistake ("teaching tool" instead of "a teaching tool"), and once again, Danielle Cage is drawn as a blond boy, instead of a black-haired girl.
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"I SWORE AN OATH TO... DO STUFF WITH CHEMICALS AND PEOPLE!"

TITLE: New Mutants V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 13.

CULPRIT: Zeb Wells (writer).

DISSECTION: In the midst of the Second Coming crisis; with Nightcrawler dead, and Karma loosing one of her legs, Beast, who had left Utopia, has come back to help. Cyclops tries to let him know how much he appreciates that, since Beast is angry at him for X-Force and stuff like... but Beast says that he's only there because his absence would do harm, and the Hippocratic Oath forbids him to cause harm.

Uhm... Wells, you do know beast has a doctorate in biochemistry, and that he's not actually a medical doctor, and therefore, has not sworn a Hippocratic Oath... right? Yes, it's been proposed that graduating scientists take an equivalent oath, but it's only been done in isolated teaching institutions, and only very recently.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. It's possible Beast is being sarcastic, since even not being a physician, he perform those duties regularly. Beast's eyes are colored incorrectly, and seven different characters have blank eyes for no discernible reason.
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"DT-FACTOR FOREVER."

TITLE: X-Factor Forever (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Louise Simonson (writer) and/or Dan Panosian (penciller).

DISSECTION: Check this out, it ought to be easy:


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Trish Tilby's eyes are colored incorrectly.
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"~"

TITLE: Zorro Matanzas (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Joseph Rybandt (editor).

DISSECTION: I was looking at the credits to see who the colorist was... and I noticed that colorist Sam Parsons has been credited in all issues for colors "& seperations". "Seperations"?

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Zorro's eye color is "seperated" incorrectly, and while letterer John Constanza made all Ñs right, he's obviously not using a font that has that letter, since he ended up writing "Senor" with a diacritic on top of the "e", which is absolutely perfect... if this was Guaraní, where such a letter exists.
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"!"

TITLE: Zorro (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Matt Wagner (writer).

DISSECTION: And of course, the piece of resistance. With a total of fifteen Spanish language (well, one is a French loan word in English) errors by Wagner, and fifteen lettering errors by Bowland, an even thirty dissections is something normal by now for a Zorro issue.

My new pet peeve? Wagner writes complete sentences or exclamations in Spanish, but uses only the closing exclamation point. And it's not that he's unaware that you need the opening one, because in a few other dialogues he does it right...

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each.
<-------------------------------->
We ended up with a 6.4 Bazzars average in eighty seven dissections; normal stuff. This column's Cover Of The Week is once again a Marvel cover, pretty standard stuff, but nice to look at:


Steve Epting does a stock WWII Torch/Toro cover, but it's nice to look at... and there wasn't anything breathtaking, cover-wise, this week. Now, Moments of The Week, just four... first up, a nice ending for Mon-El's saga in the present:


Of course, he has the whole future ahead of him... My only concern is that Mon-El has been shown as in his mid-20s, or at most, early 20s... and when the rest of the legionnaires shown, especially Superman, look like teenagers. Ah, nothing that can't be explained away by saying the Phantom Zone will make him look younger. Next up, Steve Rogers welcomes Osborn to The Raft:


Good one, Steve. Just wear an actual costume soon, please. Then, a SHOCKING reveal!!!


Please, like it was hard to guess Thunderbolt Ross was Red Hulk, and Betty Red She-Hulk. Then, let's finish with Peter Parker asking himself, hypothetical "Why do I hate Spider-Man?":


He's got plenty stuff to hate Spidey for... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Dissector #162.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"(...) there we were... heroes! (...) Stomping out Nazis! Nazi robots! Nazi zombies! Nazi Nazis!" Billy Mace, Powers V3 #4.

Welcome to a late column, I know, but this was a busy weekend... and tomorrow is a busier day: I'm interviewing Peter David... so I should get this column down and get some sleep... still, I'll try not to rush it. Last week's DT! wasn't cracked; Deadpool attacked Hulkpool with what was supposed to be a discarded adamantium claw that didn't take on Wolverine or something like that, but the claw was longer than Deadpool's whole arm... Ah, before I forget, this is for books released on 05/05; plus a straggler or two.

So, I did went to bed, and I'm writing the rest of this column on Monday night... interview with PAD went smoothly, he's a great guy. It'll be online soon, in the meantime, here we are:


And I got my Atlantis Chronicles (plus an issue of Aquaman) signed by him! Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are the following... Best Book Of The Week was Superman: War Of The Supermen #1; great start (after the teaser #0 on FCBD) for the last part of the New Krypton saga... you'll see in the Moments Of The Week how they solved the Kryptonian overpopulation. Worst Book Of The Week was JSA All-Stars... it's just sub par, and unnecessary to boot. As a last thing, I'd like to point you in the direction of Pixel Fantasies, a site with a name dirtier than the site actually is... it's a nice place for comic book belles pinups, that's all. No pr0n, just some skin, but nothing explicit (so far).

The Rundown: Avengers: The Origin (Rick Jones' eyes are blue, then green, then blue again), Batman And Robin (Batman's chest emblem is wrong on the cover), Buck Rogers (an obvious question ends in just an exclamation mark, a period is missing in the "next issue" blurb at the end), Captain America/Black Panther: Flags Of Our Fathers (Nick Fury's eyes, while he still has too, are blue, they should be brown), Deathlok V4 (accented letters, and a character's name chances spelling between issues), Doom Patrol V5 (a word is missing in a sentence, and Elasti-Woman's eyes are STILL THE WRONG COLOR), Free Comic Book Day 2010: Iron Man/Thor (Tony Stark's eyes are colored brown), Hellboy In Mexico (wrong uses of the Spanish language), JSA All-Stars (assorted costuming design, eye and hair color mistakes, wrongly placed word balloons), Powers V3 (misspelled name), Red Robin (wrong eye color in R'as, wrong chest emblem in Batman that changes between pages), Uncanny X-Men (Bastion's hand is sticking out of the wrong place of Nightcrawler's chest, several wrong eye colors), Zorro (Spanish language, Ñs, accented letters... just twenty-seven dissections in total in one issue).
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"JUMP THE GUNN."

TITLE: Angel (IDW).

ISSUE: 32.

CULPRIT: Bill Willingham (writer).

DISSECTION: Gunn says that when Connor was living in the demonic dimension, he was leading his crew and protecting his territory. Uh, no? Gunn had already joined Angel Investigations by that time.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"HALF-AND-HALF."

TITLE: Brightest Day (DC).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi (writers).

DISSECTION: Aquaman is identified as "half-human"; he's not, he's pure Atlantean. You're thinking of Namor.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, I was ready to acknowledge that maybe Hal Jordan's badge had changed shape... but it's on the cover in its classic shape, then in the wrong shape inside... Also, "Somali" is not a country, "Somalia" is.
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"FRUTUOXIA BY KNIGHT."

TITLE: Freedom Knights En Ciudad Frutuoxia (Dragon/Ninfa).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Roy, Bea, and Nicolás "Nico" Peruzzo (editors, but they wrote, drew, "gray" colored, lettered all of it between the three).

DISSECTION: This is the first superhero crossover in my country, although it's a parody, between the comic "Relatos De Ciudad Frutuoxia" (Tales Of Frutuoxia City, from Ninfa Comics), which is a humorous book, and Freedom Knights (by Dragon Comics), a straight superhero comic book. If you can read Spanish, go and download it for free from either of the pages I linked for the publishers... and you can buy it in paper if you want too.

It was a good book, a fun read, but the credits were at the end of the book... which wouldn't be a problem, if they hadn't included the "This story takes place before..." blurbs for each of their books... it makes sense to include it in the back cover if it's just the credits... but not the storyline placement blurbs.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. There are also a couple of mistakes in some of the English dialogues.
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"NOT HAN SOLO."

TITLE: Solo (Apocalipta/G.A.S./Studio Robota).

ISSUE: Digital one-shot (originally published in Cisplatino Visiones #4).

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (letterer).

DISSECTION: This is my first comic book story, both written and published... local comic Cisplatino has a supplement called "Visiones" (Visions), in which they publish short stories about the characters' pasts, or stuff that happens on the side of the main story... up to my story (and I believe, so far), all stories have been written by Diego Tapié and Pablo Zignone, the book's creators... until this one, I was the first they allowed to play in their playground of the mind.

Besides writing it, I lettered the book; and when, a few months after it had been published in print, I asked for permission to publish it digitally, I adapted the pages for a release... and screwed up the lettering. Koutarou, from forum Freak Zone, noticed I had an accent jump around. The word "demás" had its accent jump to a word on the line above, "igual", so it ended on the "l", which is not even possible as I've explained in the past. So it ended up being two dissections in one. Badge for Koutarou.

If you want, and read Spanish, you can check out the story here, as well as the website for G.A.S., the comic book publisher I'm part of... indy, of course, but rising! And soon, I'll upload an English version of the story for those of you who don't read Spanish.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each. Also, I wrote "lobo" instead of "Lobo" in the back cover of the "book".
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"BUDGET CUTS."

TITLE: The Many Loves Of The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Brian Reed (writer) and/or Nick Dragota (penciller).

DISSECTION: Are we really supposed to believe that there is no computer in Captain Stacy's office, 13-14 years ago? Then again, this is Brian Reed, who recently wrote Miss Marvel pulling Mac Gargan out of the Venom symbiote by brute force...

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"VENGEANCE OF THE DISSECT THIS!"

TITLE: Vengeance Of The Moon Knight (Marvel).

ISSUE: 08.

CULPRIT: Tan Eng Huat (penciller).

DISSECTION: Look at Deadpool below, and tell me what's wrong:


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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This week we had a 6.6 Bazzars average, in sixty-four dissections. Cover Of The Week is by Bachalo and Townsend, and it's another good Spider-Man/Lizard piece:


Nice, unsettling, innit? Now, Moments Of The Week, we have plenty. First up, Hellboy in Mexico!


Awesome! Next, the Black Cat is... well... yummylicious...


Buttock poetry... Then, Red Robin pwns R'as:


Wonderful! Then, Colin Farrell should sue:


And it's not just one panel, the main character in Sparta USA looks like him all the time. You know who else should sue?


Colossus, he should sue Terry Dodson for making him look like Jaws from James Bond. Now, for a touching moment:


I'm still in denial; I don't buy that they'd cremate his body... Next, in my country, union leaders are tough:


Because they're Klingons like Worf! And last, how do you get rid of a planet full of Kryptonians?


Two-stage bomb, first a gold K bomb, then a green K bomb, and boom! BOOM! So, I finished this column on Monday night, but waited until today, Tuesday, to post it... I was too tired to post it around all the boards and places I promote it on. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

Saturday, May 08, 2010

The Dissector #161.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Greetings to all of you gathered here today. As you know, deep within my core is all that remains of our honored Lantern dead. After much deliberation with Lantern Morro, the keeper of the crypt... we can think of no greater way to pay tribute to their strength, dignity, principles of justice... and of course ultimate sacrifice.. than with a memorial of life." Mogo, Green Lantern Corps V2 #47.

Running late!!! I might just make it in time, though. Welcome to the column for books released on 04/28, plus a couple of stragglers, and some stuff from FCBD 2010. Last DT! was hard to crack, apparently, but after several tries by longtime readers, newcomer Waka solved it. The guy crouching with the girl has his hand behind her foot, but her foot seems to be transparent and we can see his hand through it. Welcome to the Honorary Dissector Scout Corps, Ensign Waka!

Here are The Dissector's Picks Of The Week: Best Book Of The Week was Green Lantern Corps V2 #47. Peter Tomasi knows this book and its characters well, and Patrick Gleason always provides a solid, visually fulfilling art. Using four different inkers, however, is not the best choice. Worst Book Of The Week is Teen Titans V3 #82... the Dakota plot was weak, and Holocaust was insanely powerful (even with a power-up), taking on Superboy, Miss Martian, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl head-to-head... plus, I hate this new trend of allowing Beast Boy to shapeshift into alien or mythological animals...

The Rundown: Captain America V1 (accented letter, a character called by the wrong name), Detective Comics (in a flashback, Tim Drake is wearing a Robin costume he never wore), Green Lantern Corps V2 (one cover has Kilowog's badge wrong, the other has his ring wrong), The Invincible Iron Man V2 (Reed Richard's eyes should be brown), Justice League: The Rise Of Arsenal (Batman's emblems are wrong), Justice Society Of America V3 (multiple accented letters), The Last Days Of American Crime ("buisness"), The Mighty Avengers (USAgent, accented letter), The New Avengers (The Hood's eyes change from brown to blue to brown again), Superman V1 (Sensor Girl's eyes are colored incorrectly), Teen Titans V3 (accented letters in penciller José Luís' name, plus Wonder Girl has an emblem belt buckle and then a regular one), Thor V1 (Volstagg's eyes should be blue), X-Men Forever V2 (Annual: "whom loves you").
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"FACE IS NOT IN MURDOCK'S BOOK."

TITLE: A-Team: War Stories: Murdock (IDW).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Guiu Vilanova (artist).

DISSECTION: Artists, and particularly IDW artists, are known to not draw faces on background characters. While it's a practice I don't consider correct, it's understandable. Some IDW artists, however, most specifically, the ones in most of their Star Trek books, have done it to characters that, while not important to the scene, are not in the background. This time, however, Vilanova has taken it too far:


Come on! This is outrageous! Those are the ONLY TWO CHARACTERS IN THE PANEL!!! ONE OF THEM IS THE STAR OF THE BOOK, AND THE OTHER ONE IS TALKING!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU LAZY MOTHERFUCKER!??!!?!?!?!?!?!? Not happy with that, he does it twice more, once again to Murdock, star of the book, WHILE HE'S TALKING AND IS ONE OF THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS IN THE PANEL, AND THEN AGAIN... but in that panel Murdock is not talking, at least.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. There's also a wrong name.
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"WAR IS MESSY."

TITLE: Battlefields (Dynamite).

ISSUE: Honestly, I give up.

CULPRIT: Joseph Rybandt (editor).

DISSECTION: You know I enjoy these books... except for "Dear Billy", all the Battlefield minis have been excellent... well, "Dear Billy" is not bad, but just not to my taste. My favorite was "The Tankies", a three issue miniseries last year. Now the Tankies are back! Is it Battlefields: The Tankies II? Or is it Battlefields: The Firefly And His Majesty, or Battlefields: The Firefly, as it was announced?

No, it's Battlefields #4. What? There was never a book called "Battlefields", it was just Battlefields: The Night Witches, Battlefields: Dear Billy, and Battlefields: The Tankies, Yes, originally it was going to be Battlefields 1 to 9, with each of those three stories taking up three issues; but then, Battlefield: Happy Valley was released... and now a second Tankies story gets #4?

If it's a continuation of the original series of three minis, it'd be #10... if it's a continuation of the whole thing, including Happy Valley, it'd be #13. And if it's a continuation to the Tankies, it'd be #4... So, any way they want to say Dynamite is trying to publish this, it still doesn't make sense. There's also a blurb at the end of issue #5 that says announces the next issue as the conclusion of "the second Battlefields arc". So they're trying to consider this part of Battlefields: The Tankies... why don't you name it Battlefields: The Tankies and that way you can number it from #4?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, a black character (a new guy) has blue eyes in issue #4, then in issue #5 he has black or brown eyes, which makes more sense. On the plus side, the German seems to be right, and they forewent the use of accented characters, so Simon Bowland didn't make any letter smaller than it should have.
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"THE DISSECTOR: LEGACY."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: Various.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: I've occasionally been calling "X-Men Legacy" the wrong name, "X-Men: Legacy".

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"IN GOTHAM, DAYS ARE SHORTER."

TITLE: Gotham City Sirens (DC).

ISSUE: 11.

CULPRIT: Andres Guinaldo (penciller) and Ian Hannin (colorist).

DISSECTION: Catwoman goes for a 6AM jog, and it's obviously summer or thereabouts, because it's broad daylight. A couple asks her to help them find their lost dog, and she doesn't want to, but when she goes back to the house, Harley convinces her to help her look for the pet. They search for three hours... Harley says that, literally, and in the same scene where she says that, the sky is dark, as if it's late afternoon/early evening.

Selina walks into the house immediately after talking to the couple, and even if takes Harley two hours to get dressed (and mind you, she's not wearing her costume and work make-up), they leave the house at 8AM, and three hours later, it's 11AM... it should be even brighter outside.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"HULKED-OUT DISSECTION."

TITLE: Hulked-Out Heroes (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 02.

CULPRIT: Humberto Ramos (penciller).

DISSECTION: You have no idea how bad Teen Titans was this week, else this piece of crap would have been Worst Book Of The Week. Anyway, take a look at this:


Spot anything wrong?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"HOMEMS X PRA SEMPRE."

TITLE: X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 22.

CULPRIT: Daniel HDR (penciller) and Wil Quintana (colorist).

DISSECTION: I had the small suspicion that Daniel HDR was Brazilian... and guess what, he is! So his name is probably something like Daniel Helioberto Da Rosa (and that's just the short version). Did he have the decency of calling himself Daniel Da Rosa, or Daniel, or Danielinho, as all Brazilians who do things internationally have? No, he doesn't.

Not only that, but he draws beast with blank white eyes in page 5, then in page 7, Beast has his normal, human blue eyes. Well, he corrected himself, good for you, Dani! But no, the next page, his eyes are featureless and yellow, and in page 9, they're back to normal. Then on page 13, they're white once more, and on page 22, they're yellow again. Good job!!!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, three times, for the fuck up. Not only that, but Ororo's eyes are blank all the time, and she's not using her powers.
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"PEEK-A-BOO!"

TITLE: X-Men Forever V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 22.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: Jean Grey cloaks herself and Beast from a space station's sensors, and based on what characters say, it's not telepathically. I'm sorry, but her powers are nothing like that.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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So, we've got an average of 6.8 Bazzars in forty-three... I thought it was going to be higher, but there were a few lower graded dissections to balance out the tens. Now, Cover of the week... not Iron Man!!! It's Cap's turn:


Nice piece by Gerald Parel... and since I can't tell if that's Bucky or Commiebuster Cap, I can't say if the blue eyes are wrong or not. I just noticed that, but I can't actually dissect it... Now, Moments Of The Week... it was an eventful week, and we ended up with ELEVEN moments! First, Achilles tells a monster were to go:


Eloquent. Then, Atomic Robo's intelligent humor:


Then, a touching memorial for the fallen of the Green Lantern Corps:


May their light burn brightly forever! Speaking of Lanterns, don't piss Arisia off:


And don't piss Salakk off:


While you’re at it, on the Marvel side, don't piss Morbius off:


He's a punmaster. Speaking of pissed of guys:


God. Of. Fear. Yeah Obama, shake in your Air Force One. But there's no state like the Sith Empire:


That's... wow... the Mon Cals... damn... Now, let Quicksilver take care of a Gary Stu:


Mr. X is not as bad as the Sentry, but really, he tires me. Then, Ultimate Punisher has a nice vacation spot for you:


What, too harsh? Speaking of harsh:


Crap, that's my favorite X-Man! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!