Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Dissector #190.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"When I dedicated my life in service to you as Sorcerer Supreme... I remember I closed my eyes and I prayed that one day I would grow up to be a second-rate Jarvis for a second-rate pile of Avengers." Wong, New Avengers V2 #7.

Late, late, late... I know; but here we are with one of the last columns of the year (there will be possibly one more, maximum two), and one of the last before the last comics of the year are published. These, in particular, were released on 12/08. Last column's DT was cracked by Donald313, who pointed out that Aquaman is not half-human, but half-Atlantean, half-Atlantean wizard/demigod. Reader Darryn asked Dan DiDio on Facebook, and DiDio vaguely replied "roll with it". That's not really a confirmation of a retcon to pre-Crisis Aquaman (which is stupid, and makes him more of a Namor knock off); just a FB comment... in last week's issue of Brightest Day, Aquaman mentions Tom Curry as his father; but he doesn't specifically say he's his biological father... until it's explicitly mentioned in a comic, I won't consider it valid. And when it is, I'm still not retracting, because it wasn't done properly beforehand. Yeah, it's my column. Oh, Badge for Donald!

The Dissector's Picks Of The Week weren't spectacularly bad or good... Best Book Of The Week was Booster Gold V2 #39; good read, nice art, but filler. Worst Book Of The Week was Stargate: Daniel Jackson #4, last issue of a mini that had very weak art, and a story that could have been told in a one-shot. And then there's the Cover Of The Week, a nice piece by Marko Djurdjevic for one of the many (unnecessary) Chaos War tie-ins.

The Rundown: B.P.R.D. V2 (series numbering), Booster Gold V2 (eye and hair colors), Chaos War: Ares ("banish this place"?), DC Universe Holiday Special 2010 (wonky phrasing in the Anthro story at one point, John Stewart couldn't have likely patrolled Baghdad, Batman is very well known and recognized as a hero and not a mysterious vigilante like its implied in the Superman story, Supes refers to all heroes as "metahumans", in the Spectre story a speech balloon is misplaced, and in the Legion story, Abnett and Lanning mention stargates, which are not in use in the current LSH continuity), Detective Comics (Dick Grayson's costume is all wrong, emblem, gloves, and belt; in the backup story, Renee's eyes are colored incorrectly), Invaders Now! (accented letter), Justice League: Generation Lost (Fire's hair is inexplicably red in a panel), Namor: The First Mutant (Namor's ankle wings are ginormous on the cover, his eyes are miscolored inside, and the logomancer is still Caucasian colored, with no comment from any character, when they keep reminding Namor, their king, that he's a half-breed), New Avengers V2 (inconsistent lettering on credits and coming attractions page, Victoria Hand's eyes are colored incorrectly, and Danielle Cage is too young and doesn't look like she should), Northlanders (accented letter, and "Commonweath"), R.E.B.E.L.S. (Soranik Natu, John Stewart, and Ganthet have blank eyes at points, John's badge is wrong on the cover, "alternativeto", "forece", Soranik and Kyle should have green boots, not white... and not a dissection, but if John is now a Honor Guard Lantern, who's 2814.2?), Red Robin ("unlimted"), Shadowland: After The Fall ("isn't the Black Panther some sort of African hero?" Come on!!! He was until very recently king of a prominent country, had a celebrity wedding, and has been an Avenger!), What If? Wolverine: Father (Daken's mother is gutted by Wolverine to extract the baby, but there's no sign of blood or anything on the woman's clothes), Widowmaker (shinobi-zu, not zue; accented letter, and what are the Supreme Soviets doing there, and talking about Siberian work camps without anyone commenting on that?).
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"DISSECTOR DISSECTED."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 189.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: JohnnyDoe pointed out that I spelled his name incorrectly as "JhonnyDoe" last week; and he also noticed I wrote "wich" instead of "which". Two badges for Johnny. Then Donald313 noticed I used "obviously" instead of "obvious", "not" instead of "note", and "reverses" instead of "reverse". Three badges more for Don, which are more than enough to make him achieve the rank of Captain in the HDSC! Glückwunschs, Kapitän!

DISSECT-O-METER: Various ratings.
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"IT'S BACK IN FASHION."

TITLE: The Flash V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Really, the boomerang was popularized in the US when Barry Allen was first active as The Flash? Barry was active in the late 60s?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, why are guards in Iron Heights Penitentiary wearing full body riot armors... with no neck protection at all?
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"OHOTMU DISSECTION UPDATE."

TITLE: Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z: Update (Marvel).

ISSUE: 05.

CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen & Mike O'Sullivan (coordinators, according to my reader).

DISSECTION: Sidney points out three errors in this issue:

* "De tainment quadrant" in the Beetle's Armor entry.

* "as wellas"in the Marvel Apes entry.

* In Boomerang's (Fred Myers) entry, he was referred to as "Mort" once instead of Myers.

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars on each of the spacing issues, 6 Bazzars on the name issue.
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"PROJECT: X-MAS."

TITLE: Project Superpowers X-Mas Carol (Dynamite).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Brandon Jerwa (writer) and/or Patrick Berkenkotter (penciller).

DISSECTION: Another dissection spotted by Sidney. The spirit of the Fighting Yank is talking about members of the Supremacy that are still at large, with symbolic pictures of them behind them. However, three of them, President West, Dynamic Man, and Dynamic Woman, quit the Supremacy and joined the heroes a while ago in the second volume of Project Superpowers. Then again, continuity has never been that good in the PS books.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"OLD ANNUAL DISSECTION."

TITLE: X-Men V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: Annual "#1" (2007).

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).

DISSECTION: Sometimes I don't understand the numbering changes... this volume of X-Men (the one that's now X-Men Legacy, but will eventually be combined with the current X-Men when they reach a significant numbering...) had three annuals (1992, 1993, and 1994), numbered one through three... then why number this one as #1? It'd make sense if it was a different volume (as the annuals from when Uncanny was merely X-Men), but it's the same volume...

Anyway, here's a DT!

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"FOREVER WAVING FLAG."

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel)

ISSUE: 12.

CULPRIT: Rodney Buchemi (penciller).

DISSECTION: At first I thought this was a MOT, because I thought the Uruguayan flag was among the member flags seen outside UN HQ (even though the blue is too light a shade)... but then I noticed that since the first stripe is blue; it can't be Uruguay's, which has as white for its first stripe. It might be the Greek flag, although the blue stripes should be darker too. The blue on Uruguay's flag is darker than the one on the Greek one, which in turn is a shade or two darker than the Argentinian flag; although due to the Uruguayan national football team's jersey being a light blue like the Argentinian flag has, people here insist on using a light blue shade for the flag sometimes...

Oh, sorry, that whole rant had nothing to do with the dissection... in which flags, including recognizable country ones (like Ireland, Spain or Germany) are flow in a random order by artist Buchemi, when flags outside the UN HQ are flown in English alphabetical order, north to south. Even with fictitious Marvel countries possibly there, anyone can tell it's wrong.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, Angel is said to be a Chicago native, when he's from Centerport (Long Island, New York), and an accented letter is wrong.
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This leaves us with a predictably low 5.5 Bazzars average in fifty-seven dissections. Now, let's end this with the (just two) Moments Of The Week. First up, Booster tells Captain Atom how's it gonna be:


And as a finale, something that made me laugh:

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

THE DISSECTOR!

8 comments:

JohnnyDoe said...

A quick stab at the DT!: the original Cerebra was destroyed in an attack on the X-mansion. It was later rebuilt though but the ORIGINAL was destroyed.

MaGnUs said...

Not quite... I must admit that it's a nuance what I am looking for, a very important nuance in this context, though.

JohnnyDoe said...

OK. another try then: The Decimation wasn't the cause of the alteration on the genome, it was the result of it.

To be precise the Scarlet Witch was the cause :-)

MaGnUs said...

No, you were warmer earlier.

JohnnyDoe said...

I haven't read the book but is the DT! that they actually have Cerebro not Cerebra?

MaGnUs said...

Even warmer!

Donald313 said...

No idea about the DT, I only know Cerebus, just wanted to thank you for the Beförderung. Btw, the plural of Glückwunsch is Glückwünsche :)

Merry X-Mas @ all.

MaGnUs said...

Merry X-Mas to all too. Curses, I fail at German!