The Dissector

The Dissector #172.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"The Phoenix Force is a crazy powerful cosmic firebird entity that for some reason seems to be attracted to earthbound redheads (I can relate)." Spider-Man, Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #2.

Let's make this quick, so I can be caught-up (only to end up late again, but that's another matter). This is the column for books released on 07/14, and I just noticed that I hadn't mentioned the release date covered by a column in some time. The DT! from last column was cracked by Sidney, who correctly pointed out that Sarge Steel's hands had both been colored the same, without regard for his artificial hand.

The Dissector's Picks Of The Week: Best Book Of The Week was Captain America/Black Panther: Flags Of Our Fathers #4; good ending to a WWII-era adventure, which are always welcome in my reading list. Worst Book Of The week was Doc Savage #4, conclusion to the storyline; with art more rushed than previous issues, completely out of place with the book, and a jumbled plot that provided absolutely no entertainment.

The Rundown: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (one of the Kravens is surprised that Spidey dodges a bullet, at one point Araña's name is misspelled "Añya", her shoes are colored incorrectly, she says she used to wear shorts, her "Ñ"s are all smaller than they should be, and the letter column Spidey-logo separators are pasted on top of text), Avengers Academy (inconsistent lettering in the credits page, accented letters), Batgirl V3 ("feelings" instead of "feeling"), Booster Gold V2 (the kid Booster brought from the future looks like a midget, Rip's eyes and hair are colored wrong), Comic Book Guy: The Comic (when you put up a video on the web, it's an "upload", not a "download"), The Expendables (accented letter), The Unwritten (accented letter), World War Hulks: Spider-Man Vs. Thor (Iceman's hair should be blond, not brown), X-Force Sex And Violence (Domino's skin turns normal for a page), X-Men: Hellbound (accented letters).
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"DISSECTION CLUBHOUSE."

TITLE: Adventure Comics V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 516.

CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer).

DISSECTION: Come on, this one's for Legion fans:


DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"BIRDS OF DISSECTION."

TITLE: Birds Of Prey V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Ed Benes & Adriana Melo (pencillers).

DISSECTION: Hawk smashes the front of a tank, and pages later, the tank is unharmed.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"ULTRA LACKING."

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

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Paul Levitz (writer).

DISSECTION: Ultra Boy's power listing is incomplete... but I have to retract from the Marzal dissection from last issue, as it seems it's been removed from Earth... even then, if it's in another dimension and not just in another part of Earth, it's not Earth per se. Sidney, you're not losing a badge, don't worry.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, Projectra's eyes are colored incorrectly.
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"COLD."

TITLE: Titans V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Eric Wallace (writer).

DISSECTION: Facade, according to Deathstroke, doesn't have a heat signature, which means "he was just as much machine as he was man". Uhm... 1) Why wouldn't a machine be able to have a heat signature? It's not a vampire. 2) Why would, in a metahuman-riddled world, not having a heat signature mean it's a machine (accepting that's a defining characteristic of robots)? Couldn't it be a vampire? *grins*

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"HEROIC DICTIONARY."

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).

DISSECTION: "Mutantcy", despite being part of a Darkwing Duck episode title, is not a word. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Fantastic would know that fact, and not use the term.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. There are other errors too; Beast is drawn by Steve Sanders as a Bothan again; Molly Hayes speaks of "that girl who came back" (Hope) that "everybody's talking about" (everybody who? Hope's story is most likely not known by the general public, and it's not like Molly hangs out at Utopia); the Thing is wearing boots; and Rogue's eyes are colored brown instead of green. Also, not a dissection, but why the hell is Cyclops killing dinosaurs willy-nilly in the Savage Land to blow off steam? It's completely out of character.
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"WORLD WAR WHU?"

TITLE: Hulk V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Jeph Loeb (writer).

DISSECTION: I just noticed this in World War Hulks: Captain America Vs. Wolverine #1, and I was going to blame writer Paul Tobin and artist Jacopo Camagni... but then I noticed this was actually a problem caused by Loeb's writing... I can't even blame Ed McGuinness (Hulk penciller).

Captain America (Barnes) and Wolverine get hulked up... right? All, or almost all of the heroes involved in this crossover got bombarded by gamma rays and hulked out. Okay? So, apart from how inane this plot is... how do gamma rays mutate Barnes' cybernetic arm (augmenting its size and making it grow spikes) and Wolverine's claws (changing their shapes and making them look as if they're made out of bone)? Not to mention the rest of Logan's adamantium-covered skeleton, or whatever other implants Cap might have (related to the arm or not).

If you really wanted to hulk out the heroes, gamma radiation isn't enough. Thor affected by gamma rays? Come on... Loeb should have included some sort of reality warping element (like the Marvel U is short on those) to the equation...

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"IT WAS THE FIFTIES, HE GAVE THEM A NICE POLISHED FINISH."

TITLE: World War Hulks: Captain America Vs. Wolverine (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Jacopo Camagni (penciller).

DISSECTION: Thought you were off the hook, Jacopo? Sorry, no. Wolverine, in the 50s, did not have metal claws. The adamantium implants are more recent.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Writer Tobin doesn't go blameless either; Wolverine acts like a gigantic wuss while being tortured with some knives, acid and pepper. That's Camagni's fault too, as are the mistakes on Cap's costume. Oh, and Wolverine has not been implanted with unbreakable bones and claws; his already existing skeleton (claws included) were bonded with adamantium. There is a difference, and anyone working on X-Men comics should know it... particularly when making a book about Wolverine.
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"KOLOSS."

TITLE: X-Men: Second Coming (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 02.

CULPRIT: Zeb Wells (writer, chapter one).

DISSECTION: Ezequiel earns a badge by letting me know (before I read the book, I'm SURE I would have caught this) that Colossus answers Beast's "Are you ready?" question with "Ja"... Yo, Zeb... Colossus is Russian... the German guy is Nightcrawler. Piotr would probably answer "Da"... And if I wrote the X-Men, or any other comic with non-English speakers in it who carry out conversations in English with English speakers, he'd say "yes". Except for specific phrases, or impulsive utterances (like cursing, pet names, or religious matters), people who know the language well don't just inject random foreign words into their conversations with people who don't speak their native language.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. On that same chapter, Hellion's arms both look like they were severed from the wrist up; when his right forearm was severed almost completely.
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"WRONG COMPANY."

TITLE: X-Men: Second Coming (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 02.

CULPRIT: Terry Dodson (penciller, chapter four).

DISSECTION: Namor should not have calf fins... those are the DC Atlanteans.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Namor's eyes should be grey, not blue.
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"IN-VISIBLE."

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer) and Tom Grummett (penciller).

DISSECTION: Rogue's invisibility to technology (thanks to Roma) is that: invisibility. Not "blurribility"...

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, "Prognosis: Minimal" from a Sentinel is a completely nonsensical sentence.
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Now, forty-four dissections leave us with an average of 6.5 Bazzars; fully within normal parameters. Cover Of The Week is again for Darwyn Cooke's piece for The Murder Of King Tut; this time for the second issue:


Simplicity, beauty, adequate to the subject, yet not derivative. Moments Of The Week! Don't mess with the Black Panther:


You hear that, ratzi? Now, the X-Men get recognized as heroes:


Or at least Cyclops does... until the next time any mutant screws up, and the whole Marvel Universe Earth blames it on them! Next, while Scott Pilgrim's final volume was not all I expected, it was still fun, and provided us with classic Scott moments:


WIS 5... From the ashes of Second Coming rises the new X-Force:


... where everybody, including Archangel/Angel/Whateverthefuckwarrenwantstocallhimselfthis week needs BIG FUCKING GUNS! God, I'm having 90s flashbacks... Speaking of Second Coming:


Yeah, I didn't see that coming, at least not so soon... but it's neat. You know what's not neat?


Being cheap on art for a licensed book... Stargate: Blow Up Dolls: The Comics. Now, the Grim Hunt is over, and Spidey went a bit bad-ass on Lady Kraven:


Damn, that's gotta hurt... Well, she'd killed his clone, so he was pissed:


That's a nice touch on Pete's part... too bad it doesn't stick:


Dead is dead, of course. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!