The Dissector

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).
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"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.
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"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.
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"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!