The Dissector

The Dissector #177.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"A Robin who even brings his own crowbar to the party? You might be the funniest one yet." The Joker, Batman And Robin #14.

Late again, but not that late! Here are the dissections found in books (mostly) released on 09/09. Some of my books are arriving late, so this column contains some stuff from 09/01, and some stuff from 09/01 and 09/09 arrived after I started writing this, so they'll end up in next column. HDSC Commander JohnnyDoe caught the DT!, and earns himself his twenty-ninth badge... you have a stretch until you reach Captain at 41 badges. The dissection to spot last column was that the black guy with a green shirt throws the keys at the other guy (who's actually Asian, IIRC), with different skin color and a purple shirt; but they show the dark-skinned, green-shirted hand/arm catching it.

The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are both Bat-books... Best Book Of The Week is Batman And Robin #14; it's just good writing on Morrison's part, none of that attempted lysergic claptrap he does sometimes, and the art by Frazer Irving is spot on, too. Don't get me wrong, the issue is not amazing by any stretch, but it's good Batman, and from Morrison, who in recent years hasn't been very good in my view (except on this book). Worst Book Of The Week, unfortunately, is by someone I revere as a true master of comic book art: Neal Adams. However, it seems he's not a very good writer... the dialogue in Batman: Odyssey #3 is stiff, out of character (the way Batman and Alfred treat is other is just plain wrong), and the plot hardly flows as it should. A pity; the first two issues weren't awful, but they were kind of poor plot-wise, but this one? Blech...

The Rundown: Adventure Comics V1 (Ultra Boy's powers are incomplete, time travel technobabble is rubbish, Oracle's eyes are colored incorrectly), The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Dr. Strange's eyes are miscolored, accented letter), Batman (Bat emblems, a gigantic bat-tracer), Daredevil (blank eyes on a character), Doom Patrol V5 (Elasti-Girl's eyes are colored incorrectly, and the assessment about Kryptonian anatomy is bullcrap), Freedom Fighters V2 (accented letter), Green Lantern V4 (Hal's badge is wrong, and it changes between pages), Invaders Now! (Namor's eyes are colored incorrectly), X-Men V3 (Jubilee's eyes are colored incorrectly, then change to the right color).
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"NUMBER π IN A SERIES."

TITLE: B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth - New World (Dark Horse).

ISSUE: 01 and 02 of 05.

CULPRIT: Scott Allie (editor) and/or Samantha Robertson (assistant editor).

DISSECTION: Editor Scott Allie tells us readers in the letter column of the first issue that "the B.P.R.D. series that started in 2002 with Hollow Earth has ended with King Of Fear, and now we're into a new series- B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth, of which New World is the first arc. (...) But the name of the book is now B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth, with subtitles."

Now, this is all fine and dandy, because as you might have noticed if you read B.P.R.D., all of the miniseries feature in the credits a note that says "number ## in a series"; to show that it's all the same series, even if it's not published as a regular ongoing title. And now, it's a new series, "B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth"... but why are issues #1 and #2 marked as "number 69" and "number 70" ("in a series").

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"ODYSSEY IN READING."

TITLE: Batman: Odyssey (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 13.

CULPRIT: Neal Adams (writer).

DISSECTION: There are several coloring errors in this book, apart from the bad writing. Now, I won't consider the bad dialogues as dissections, mostly... but when Batman solves one of the Riddler's, well, riddles, because "water rhymes with order". Yeah, I couldn't find any way to actually rhyme those two words unless you speak in a heavy Jersey Shore accent and "order" sounds more like "oughter"...

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Unfortunately, Adams also makes mistakes in Robin's costume. Since it's early in Batman's career, as established in the first issue, it can't be Tim Drake, nor Jason Todd... yet this Robin is wearing a costume resembling Tim's.
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"DISCONTINUITY STUDIOS."

TITLE: Batman: Odyssey (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 13.

CULPRIT: Continuity Studios (colorist).

DISSECTION: Neal Adams and the late Dick Giordano founded Continuity Studios in the early 70s as a comic book packager for publishers. People like Terry Austin, Bob McLeod, Walt Simonson and Jim Starlin have worked there... now apparently it's called Continuity Studios; and whoever they have working there as a colorists signs the colors for this book. It's most likely a team of people taking turns or the like...

Now, this issue had a few coloring mistakes. Alfred and Robin (regardless of which Robin he's supposed to be) get brown eyes; Robin's costume changes colors; his hair changes colors too; and the Riddler's eyes and hair are miscolored too.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars for each wrong coloring, 7 for the changing ones.
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"R.E.B.E.L.ATIONS."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 175.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Lt. Commander Donald313 earns another badge (and is two badges away from a promotion to Cmdr.) by noticing that in the column for the month of August I said the quote for 08/04 was from R.E.B.E.L.S. #19, but the Best Book of that week was #20. My bad, I made a typo. Issue #19 was from that week.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"WHO'S YOUR DADDY-IN-LAW?"

TITLE: Justice League Of America V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 48.

CULPRIT: James Robinson (writer).

DISSECTION: Well, the HDSC has been busy this past week! Ensign Darryn earns himself his second badge by calling my attention to the following:

"Hey big fella, you missed one in JLA 48, by James Robinson & Mark Bagley.

Battle scene, page 12, panel 1 - since when has Jesse been married to .... REX??"

Good point... She's married to Rick Tyler... Rex Tyler is her father-in-law.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"OS NOVOS MUTANTES PRA SEMPRE!"

TITLE: New Mutants Forever (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 05.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: Claremont's writing in this title is a bit better than in X-Men Forever, but that doesn't stop him from destroying non-English languages. First of all, why are Sunspot and his mother, when having a private conversation, speaking in English? And if you're going to throw in Portuguese words at random, Chris, make sure they're actually in Portuguese. "Hola" and "mama" are Spanish words. You were looking for "mãe" or "mamãe" and "ola" or "oi". In fact, "mama", in Portuguese, means "breast"...

Then, if you're going to use Brazilian police divisions, try to get the names right. The Força Nacional de Segurança Pública (not "Forca...") was founded in 2004; but I can believe it's right after that in this timeline... but their rapid deployment division is called "Batalhão Especial de Pronto Emprego", not "Batalhao Especial de Pronto"... not only you wrote "Batalhão" wrong, but you forgot the last word, rendering the name "Special Rapid Battalion".

The Latin is also bullshit, accented letters are smaller than they should be, Nova Roma is NOT in the Andes, and I will not believe that there are no references to the Red Skull in the X-Men's database that Cypher could find.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each.
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"FLASH! OH, WAIT, IT'S RED ROBIN."

TITLE: Red Robin (DC).

ISSUE: 16.

CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza (writer).

DISSECTION: Am I really supposed to buy that Red Robin uses an glider with no other propulsion than wind to cover a distance of fourteen blocks in about 50 seconds?

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"DISSECTGATE."

TITLE: Stargate: Daniel Jackson (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 02 of 04.

CULPRIT: John Watson (penciller).

DISSECTION: Spot me this one:


DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"THERE'S KRYPTONITE IN HIS COFFEE."

TITLE: Superman: Last Family of Krypton (DC).

ISSUE: 02 of 03.

CULPRIT: Renato Arlem (penciller).

DISSECTION: When this issue starts, it's about 15-16 years since Jor-El, Lara, and Kal-El arrived on Earth. Jor-El, at their arrival, looked about 35-40, at most, and in very good shape. Then why, over a decade later, and with yellow sun powers, does he look like his in his mid to late 50s? In fact, his appearance, and Kal-El's varies between pages that are only seconds apart in the timeline.

All that said, I'm thoroughly enjoying this miniseries.

DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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"AN ISLAND THE SIZE OF BRAZIL, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ATLANTIC, POPULATED BY TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE."

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 06.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: What starship do the Starjammers have in this universe that's BIGGER THAN THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN?!?!?!?

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, issue #7 has an accented letter smaller than it should be.
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This week yielded a 6.4 Bazzars average in forty-four dissections. Pretty much the usual. Cover Of The Week is this last cover for Daytripper; by Gabriel Bá:


A low key piece graphically showing the deconstruction the book's main character underwent during the story... at least, that's how I see it. Now, Moments Of The Week! The House Of El:


Okay, Don-El is Richard Donner, Ter-El is Joe Shuster, and Seyg-El is Jerry Siegel... but who's Jan-L? At first I thought it might be Janelle Siegel, DC assistant editor who's not even working in this book, and may or may not be related to Jerry (I doubt it)? However, my Superman expert pal, Kal, noted that all those names were from the late 80s John Byrne series "The World of Krypton", and Janelle Siegel was born in 1983... I'd welcome any suggestions about who Byrne named Jan-L after... because with the obvious tributes in the other names, I doubt this name wasn't one. Next, how do you convince a lazy cowboy to help you hunt down Jack the Ripper?


Like so. And who do you most expect to find in a battle of nerds and geeks?


Why, of course, Henry Kissinger, wearing an old-school Cylon costume! Speaking of shiny silver and matte black armored people, look who's back:


The Predator! THAT Predator!!! And for a finale, Tony Stark outgrows science:


He's science fiction! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!