I love Atomic Robo. A lot.
(From Atomic Robo And The Ghost Of Station X #4, December 2011.)
Showing posts with label Atomic Robo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atomic Robo. Show all posts
Monday, December 19, 2011
SCIENCE CONVOY!!!
Two great moments from Atomic Robo:
I love Atomic Robo. A lot.
(From Atomic Robo And The Ghost Of Station X #4, December 2011.)
I love Atomic Robo. A lot.
(From Atomic Robo And The Ghost Of Station X #4, December 2011.)
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Dissector Special #10: Autopsy Awards 2010 Winners.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
You'll forgive me if I'm not too elaborate; but this is long overdue. There weren't many votes, and not many people (except my most loyal readers) cared about the awards, so I kept kicking the date back... but here they are.
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Best Writing Dissection:
Fifty percent of the votes went toward this little gem's victory.
W01-"THIS SMELLS LIKE BULLSHIT..." (The Dissector #147, 01/29/10)
COMMENT: With all the tools at Fraction's disposition, I was surprised he'd do something this dumb.
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 520.
CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).
DISSECTION: We get it, Wolverine has amazingly keen senses... but I will not accept that he can track a prey by smell from the top of a building in NEW YORK CITY, A 468.9 SQUARE MILES, 1,214.4 SQUARE KILOMETERS, 8,363,710 CITY INHABITANTS, AND 19,006,798 METRO AREA POPULATION CITY!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Not only does he track his prey (a Predator X) to a SEWER, but he knows that Fantomex (who carries no scent) is there because he smelled, and I quote, "a you-shaped hole in the smell of this dump". Fraction, Logan has a very acute sense of smell, not an echolocation device in his nostrils.
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Best Art Dissection:
This blog's readers don't condone laziness, at least, 77% of them don't.
A02-"FACE IS NOT IN MURDOCK'S BOOK.." (The Dissector #161, 05/08/10)
COMMENT: Simplification is one thing; plain old laziness is another.
TITLE: A-Team: War Stories: Murdock (IDW).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Guiu Vilanova (penciller).
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.
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Best Coloring Dissection:
Reading the script is apparently a requirement...
C03-"THE GRAY HOOD." (The Dissector #181, 10/14/10)
COMMENT: This was just baffling.
TITLE: Red Hood: The Lost Days (DC).
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Brian Reber (colorist).
DISSECTION: Jason Todd is trying to find a girl in a car that's, unwittingly, carrying a bomb. Over the phone, he asks her what kind of car she's in, and she says the car is red. But the colorist made the car gray or black...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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Best Lettering Dissection:
My readership is loyal, and is bothered by the same things I am.
L03-"HÉRR." (The Dissector #185, 11/19/10)
COMMENT: Two of my pet peeves (well, the same one twice, basically), mixed together.
TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 647.
CULPRIT: Joe Caramagna (letterer).
DISSECTION: Joe's one of my favorite letterers, and that makes this dissection worse... he letter's what's supposed to be the word "Señor" as "Senõr". Not only that, he makes the "o" smaller because of the tilde. *sigh*
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzar's for fucking up the word, 7 for the smaller letter.
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Best Other Dissection:
This one was weird enough to not be ignored.
O04-"FIRST ISSUE EVER... AGAIN!" (The Dissector #187, 11/23/10)
COMMENT: There's hype, and then there's lying and being ridiculous.
TITLE: Spider-Girl V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Stephen Wacker (senior editor), Nate Cosby (editor), Tom Brennan (associate editor), and Mike Horwitz (assistant editor).
DISSECTION: Cover for this first issue says it's the "most synapse-shattering super hero debut of the decade". Really? Can someone explain to me how that's possible? Araña has been around since 2004; and she changed costume and name months ago, jumping around other books with it since then... This is not a debut in any way... at least not a "super hero debut". It might be a "solo series debut" (which would be partially correct), but not what they say...
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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Now, the positive awards on which you could vote:
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Best Quote:
This category was a tie; so I had to choose between the winner and another one. The winner was, ultimately, the one that worked well without knowing who said it (even if we do know) of the two.
Q03-"This station will be ground up with your bones into the finest powder which we will snort in our victory orgy." Drenx commander, S.W.O.R.D. #5. (The Dissector #154, 03/19/10)
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Best Moment:
Not my choice; but it was one of the "he had it coming" moments of the year.
M03-From Siege #4: It's over, Norman. (The Dissector #155, 03/26/10)
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Best Cover:
I don't think this was even a contest, I just had to put a few covers around it to give options.
T02-From The Amazing Spider-Man V1 #625. The Gauntlet could get a bit repetitive, but the Rhino storyline was definitely compelling. Cover by Marko Djurdjevic. (The Dissector #155, 03/26/10)
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Best Fight:
Yeah, this was pretty badass.
F03-Don't mess with John Walker (the former U.S.Agent), even when he's missing limbs! From Thunderbolts #147 (The Dissector #175, 09/07/10)
Now it's time for those awards that are given just for sheer dissection quantities:
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Company With Most Dissections: Marvel wins again; but unlike last year, when the difference was only 24 dissections, in this case it's almost ten times that; 232. Marvel had 1110 dissections, and DC 878.
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Company With Most Dissections Per Titles Ratio: DC wins this year, with a ratio of 6.2 from 878 dissections in 103 different titles I dissected during 2010; against Dynamite's 7.7 ratio (116 dissections in 15 titles), and Marvel's ratio of 6.2 (1110 dissections in 178 titles). I read more Dynamite books this year, it seems, than last year.
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Book With Most Dissections: Zorro doesn't win this year, even with 57 dissections, because there's another title with 63 dissections of its own... The Dissector. However, two things disqualify this column:
1) First, it's not a comic. I only review my own dissections because fair is fair.
2) X-Men Forever V2 (50 dissections), and X-Men Forever 2 (26 dissections) are basically the same book. They share the same characters, the same storyline; Chris Claremont writes both, and Tom Grummett is the main penciller in the first book and one of the most important two in the second one; plus, they share other creators (like letterer Tom Orzechowski). Combined, these two books get 76 dissections, and win this award.
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Book Family With Most Dissections: The X-Men family, with 369 dissections. Well behind are the Batman books with 206, and the Green Lantern books with 131. It's interesting to see how GL, with only three monthly books gets that third spot. No surprise to see the X-Men family get the first spot, since it's probably the most prolific family; although Batman is close, and I don't read all Bat books all the time... but then again, I don't read the half-dozen Wolverine books either.
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Most Dissected Writer: I got most dissections this year, with 59; but for the same reasons as above, the award goes to Chris Claremont's 52 dissections. Far behind, Matt Fraction and Matt Wagner share a spot with 39 each.
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Most Dissected Artist: Mark Bagley and Freddie Williams II share first spot with 21, Ivan Reis gets second spot with 16, and 15 dissections each gets Ardian Syaf and Mike Mayhew a shared third spot.
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Most Dissected Colorist: Hi-Fi takes top spot with 44 dissections, but I suspect they're actually a team and not one person. Dissector old friend Jeromy Cox (48 dissections) is second place, and Peter Pantazis gets third with 22 dissections.
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Most Dissected Letterer: Simon Bowland is only third place with 43 dissections, workhorse Joe Caramagna (for sheer volume of work, not for dissection ratio) gets second spot with 45, and this category's winner is another workhorse, Dave Lanphear, with 69 dissections.
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Most Dissected "Other": The Marvel Handbooks are even more riddled with mistakes than before, giving their head writer/coordinator Michael Hoskin a first place with 32 dissections. Stephen Wacker is far, far behind in his second place (9 dissections), and Tom Brennan and Jeff Christiansen share a third spot with 8 dissections each.
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Single Issue With Most Dissections: Fantastic Four In... Ataque Del M.O.D.O.K.! (Marvel); a one-shot with forty-six dissections; forty-three of them being smaller accented letters or Ñs (something I no longer report in the column, but I did report it last year, so...). This issue was responsible for 62% of the dissections that gave Dave Lanphear the top spot in the Letterer category.
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And now, special awards given because... well, because I damn pleased, and because of certain merits or lack thereof.
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Cyclone Fashion Award To The Most Mutable Costume: Dick Grayson's Batman costume. Frank Quitely (I think) designed it, but almost nobody else could keep it straight; even changing the shape of his chest emblem between pages.
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Most Puzzling Mistake: Last year, Marvel started using a new font (here's an example) for credits, "next issue" blurbs and so on; in some of their books.
Most comic book fonts are all capital letters; and some feature two all-caps versions with slight differences, depending on whether you type lower case or capital text. This particular font has a difference in the "A" (though I don't know if it comes from caps/not caps); as you can see in the image linked above. Some "A"s have a small addendum on their upper left corner; something that would be pretty stupid in languages that use accented letters, but well, not in English.
However, Marvel could never decide when to use this modified "A". Was it for the larger letters in the last names? Well, no, as you can see in the first line of last names with Gage and Buchman, one with, and the other without. Was it only for the smaller letters in first names? No, as you can see in "Dan" (with) Buckley and "Rachel" (without) Pinnelas.
Sometimes they were used for the first letter of names beginning in A; sometimes they were used in all "A"s in the page; sometimes for none except one, etc... In one "also on sale this month" page "Secret Avengers" would have the special A, but Avengers Academy (in the same font, size, and usage) would not; then in another comic "Avengers Academy" in the same font, size and usage in a "also on sale" page would get the special "A" for both words. And so on. In any combination you can imagine.
From the examples I had saved to write this column, and from what I can see from a quick search, it looks it was something used exclusively for the Avengers line; except for a couple of exceptions (that I could find, Young Allies and Captain America: Forever Allies). Also, it seems to be something done by Virtual Calligraphy letterers. Then again, those are only the books I took note of because the lettering was inconsistent... sometimes, by sheer coincidence, they were consistent (using all special "A"s, or only for last names, etc).
Obviously, this is not something horrible; and it's not even something I will keep reporting, as previously mentioned. But it was, without a doubt, baffling. And it will continue to baffle me, both as a reader, and as a (new, very green) letterer.
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The You Make Doc Brown Cry Timeline Fuck-Up Award: DC Universe Legacies (DC) uses the age-old plot device of showing the history of the fictional universe through the eyes of a common citizen... but fails miserably. I've said it every time the book came out; because every time they made it worse: the book's main character starts out as a young boy in the late 30s or early 40s and is swayed away from a life of crime after being impressed by the JSA in their first appearances; but then, as the book progresses, he's shown as a young, fit policeman when Superman first appears, when Doomsday kills Superman, etc.
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Coal-Fueled Diesel Trainwreck Issue Award: An award reserved for an issue that was really, really bad; this time around it doesn't go to a comic book, but to a handbook; Heroic Age: Heroes (Marvel). Apart from the usual load of mistakes (spelling mistakes, continuity errors, etc); in this case, what gets this issue the award is the fact that it fails at the very purpose of a handbook.
For some reason, perhaps due to being written in-universe by Steve Rogers, the usual Marvel Handbook power meters are not used. Instead, a power grid consisting of the following attributes is used: power, conscience, altruism, wisdom, courage, determination, free will, and vulnerability (in a scale from 1 to 10). Apparently, Hoskin and his writers have no idea what many of these words mean; look at how some characters are measured according to those attributes:
Vulnerability seems to be a mixture of physical and mental/emotional vulnerability, and even if you mix up the words "vulnerability" "invulnerability", switching the ends of the spectrum, it's still very fucked up:
This is delicate... Normally, a detail like this wouldn't score too high; but because this is a handbook, the attributes in the power grid are a basic part of the book. Furthermore, it's done by Steve Rogers, who's one of the better judges of character and tactical minds in the Marvel universe, so these fucked up ratings make him look like an idiot.
Something like this garners the handbook team the "Golden Bonesaw Award" for catastrophic underachievement.
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Best Book Of The Year: Captain America: Patriot (Marvel). Yes, a miniseries; but it got best book of the week each time it came out, and in fact, since this year the best book of the week really varied from week to week, it ended up being the only book with more than three "best book of the week" notches. To quote myself when I chose the first issue as best book of its week: "Karl Kesel is a veteran character writer, and he gets the 40s dialogue and feel perfectly. For a book with a lot of narration (in the form of newspaper articles), it reads easily. Artist Mitch Breitweiser, with colorist and wife Bettie Breitweiser, draw a story that's both modern and WWII... like a (good) propaganda poster come to life."
Maybe I enjoyed other books more over the course of the year; since they were ongoings; or had characters (like Spidey, Green Lantern or the Legion) that I enjoy more; and this book was going to get (regardless of the "best book" count) "best miniseries"... but I have to concede it gets top spot for 2010.
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Worst Book Of The Year: JSA All-Stars almost made it because of the horrible art; having been worst book of the week four times; but in the end Teen Titans had that spot six times in the year... half the times it came out (and I'm not counting specials like Teen Titans: Cold Case). No fixed creative time, writers that didn't seem to get the characters, and artists who just didn't cut it. Some samples of what I said about the book when I picked it as worst book of the week:
"(...) boring story, confusing dialogue, plain art. That simple."
"(...) 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 art is not as bad as it's been before, but it still shows at certain points where Luís didn't put any effort into faces, and writer Felicia D. Henderson... should stay away from the Titans... cheesy dialogues, weird plot twists, characters behaving like jerks, and harebrained power-effects make for a bad comic."
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Creator That I'm Sorry I Have To Dissect Award: Fred Van Lente. I love his writing, and when I find errors in it, I hate to point them out.
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Worst Character Depiction Although You Obviously Have Talent Award: In Uncanny X-Men #527 Whilce Portacio and Leonard Kirk make Emma Frost seem like a crack whore, and Colossus like a mentally deficient jock. I was shocked.
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Breakout Book Of The Year: The Sixth Gun (Oni Press). Great read; without being really groundbreaking, but it stands out as a new book of the year to pay attention to. Excellent for anyone who likes westerns with a touch of supernatural, and quite possibly a good read for those who don't usually read comics.
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Bloody Stumps With Blunt Crayolas Award: With a single bound, Leandro Oliveira lands a Superman issue, with art that looks like this:
Yes, Rod Reis's unusually bad coloring helps, but look at those characters... man...
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Best Character Of The Year: Once more, the single best written, more entertaining character is Spider-Man. Both by the Spider-Brain Trust or now in solitary by Dan Slott (although he makes appearances in Avenger and FF books), the character grows and evolves at the same time it's still portrayed according to his essence, to his basic characterization.
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Worst Character Of The Year: Red Robin. Come on, I understand the need to get Tim Drake a niche of his own, but Jr. Batman isn't really the way to go!
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Best Event Of The Year: Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton. Pretty much self-contained, and action packed, despite some slight mistakes and the occasional weak art.
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Worst Event Of The Year: The Return Of Bruce Wayne (as "The Insider"). The whole miniseries by Morrison was boring, but the whole plot point as "The Insider" was even wrose.
YOU'RE WEARING A YELLOW UTILITY BELT! YOU HAVE A SUIT THAT GIVES YOU THE POWERS OF CLASSIC JUSTICE LEAGUE MEMBERS! YOUR GLOVES HAVE BATMAN SPIKES!!! AND SHE'S THE FOREMOST EXPERT IN INFORMATION IN THE SUPERHERO COMMUNITY!!! STOP TREATING THIS INSIDER SHIT AS MYSTERIOUS, IT'S OBVIOUS TO ALL HIS FUCKING ALLIES (AND ANYONE WHO CAN ADD 2+2) THAT THAT'S BATMAN!!!!!
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Best Publisher Of The Year: Personally, I liked a lot of the stuff DC put out this year, but they also had a lot of weak moves (see above, for example). Marvel, all in all, offered a great all-around spread of books with in every family of books (X-Men, Avengers, street heroes, etc).
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Worst Publisher Of The Year: Dynamite Comics, again, because they keep publishing books with gross Spanish mistake, and it's obvious they don't care, despite publishing a lot of good stuff.
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Funniest Book Of The Year: Atomic Robo (Red 5 Comics); in any of its permutations, always fun and funny.
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Best Creator Of The Year: Shared by Paul Levitz and Yildiray Cinar, for bringing back the Legion in style. I'm sad Cinar gradually did less and less of the LSH art, and that he won't be working on the team anymore. He was made for the book, and what can I say about Levitz? He still has it.
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Worst Creator Of The Year: I only read one book with art by him, and Leandro Oliveira (who did this) gets this award. Yes, a lot of other creators fucked up, but at least they do it in the process of delivering otherwise good stuff. Even Simon Spurrier... wait, I was going to excuse Simon, but he wrote an X-book where Dr. Nemesis said "Science-Gaze sees all, brainfail! There WILL be crotch-punching!", so... they share.
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Dumbest Plot Move: Bruce Wayne reveals he's behind Batman, and has been for years.
Batman, Inc. is a good concept, but I believe it's stupid for Bruce Wayne to reveal he's behind Batman, particularly when he a) still runs around inside a Batman costume, b) his three closest costumed associates are his children (two adoptive and one biological), c) those three sons are the exact heights and builds as the other Batman, Red Robin, and Robin and he paraded them in front of the press even if Damian hadn't been introduced to the public, and d) half of Gotham's population might suspect him of being Batman anyway. Add on top of that the fact that he's going around the world fronting Batman, Inc. and dealing with foreign governments and police departments, behaving in ways that completely throw overboard his playboy persona, and it's like he doesn't care if his cover is blown... Wait, maybe he just gave up on hiding it altogether! Of course, he has protection, so do his friends and associates... man, what a great moment to be a random employee of Wayne Enterprises!!!
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Most Baffling Dyslexia: Dear comic book writers, "physiognomy" does not mean the same as "physiology" or "anatomy". In case you're too lazy to click on links or crack open a fucking dictionary, here are the definitions of "physiognomy":
1. the face or countenance, esp. when considered as an index to the character: a fierce physiognomy.
2. Also called anthroposcopy. the art of determining character or personal characteristics from the form or features of the body, esp. of the face.
3. the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character: the physiognomy of a nation.
It is not, I repeat, NOT, a word that you can use to refer to mutant physiology/anatomy (like I dissected before on an X-Men book), nor a word you can use to refer to the digitized information of a person's body for teleportation... WORDS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!! THEY LIVE INSIDE DICTIONARIES!!! AND NOW, THEY'RE EVEN INSIDE THE INTERNET!!!!
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That's it for this year; I'll be on the outlook for more nominees, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
You'll forgive me if I'm not too elaborate; but this is long overdue. There weren't many votes, and not many people (except my most loyal readers) cared about the awards, so I kept kicking the date back... but here they are.
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Best Writing Dissection:
Fifty percent of the votes went toward this little gem's victory.
W01-"THIS SMELLS LIKE BULLSHIT..." (The Dissector #147, 01/29/10)
COMMENT: With all the tools at Fraction's disposition, I was surprised he'd do something this dumb.
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 520.
CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).
DISSECTION: We get it, Wolverine has amazingly keen senses... but I will not accept that he can track a prey by smell from the top of a building in NEW YORK CITY, A 468.9 SQUARE MILES, 1,214.4 SQUARE KILOMETERS, 8,363,710 CITY INHABITANTS, AND 19,006,798 METRO AREA POPULATION CITY!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Not only does he track his prey (a Predator X) to a SEWER, but he knows that Fantomex (who carries no scent) is there because he smelled, and I quote, "a you-shaped hole in the smell of this dump". Fraction, Logan has a very acute sense of smell, not an echolocation device in his nostrils.
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Best Art Dissection:
This blog's readers don't condone laziness, at least, 77% of them don't.
A02-"FACE IS NOT IN MURDOCK'S BOOK.." (The Dissector #161, 05/08/10)
COMMENT: Simplification is one thing; plain old laziness is another.
TITLE: A-Team: War Stories: Murdock (IDW).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Guiu Vilanova (penciller).
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.
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Best Coloring Dissection:
Reading the script is apparently a requirement...
C03-"THE GRAY HOOD." (The Dissector #181, 10/14/10)
COMMENT: This was just baffling.
TITLE: Red Hood: The Lost Days (DC).
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Brian Reber (colorist).
DISSECTION: Jason Todd is trying to find a girl in a car that's, unwittingly, carrying a bomb. Over the phone, he asks her what kind of car she's in, and she says the car is red. But the colorist made the car gray or black...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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Best Lettering Dissection:
My readership is loyal, and is bothered by the same things I am.
L03-"HÉRR." (The Dissector #185, 11/19/10)
COMMENT: Two of my pet peeves (well, the same one twice, basically), mixed together.
TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 647.
CULPRIT: Joe Caramagna (letterer).
DISSECTION: Joe's one of my favorite letterers, and that makes this dissection worse... he letter's what's supposed to be the word "Señor" as "Senõr". Not only that, he makes the "o" smaller because of the tilde. *sigh*
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzar's for fucking up the word, 7 for the smaller letter.
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Best Other Dissection:
This one was weird enough to not be ignored.
O04-"FIRST ISSUE EVER... AGAIN!" (The Dissector #187, 11/23/10)
COMMENT: There's hype, and then there's lying and being ridiculous.
TITLE: Spider-Girl V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Stephen Wacker (senior editor), Nate Cosby (editor), Tom Brennan (associate editor), and Mike Horwitz (assistant editor).
DISSECTION: Cover for this first issue says it's the "most synapse-shattering super hero debut of the decade". Really? Can someone explain to me how that's possible? Araña has been around since 2004; and she changed costume and name months ago, jumping around other books with it since then... This is not a debut in any way... at least not a "super hero debut". It might be a "solo series debut" (which would be partially correct), but not what they say...
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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Now, the positive awards on which you could vote:
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Best Quote:
This category was a tie; so I had to choose between the winner and another one. The winner was, ultimately, the one that worked well without knowing who said it (even if we do know) of the two.
Q03-"This station will be ground up with your bones into the finest powder which we will snort in our victory orgy." Drenx commander, S.W.O.R.D. #5. (The Dissector #154, 03/19/10)
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Best Moment:
Not my choice; but it was one of the "he had it coming" moments of the year.
M03-From Siege #4: It's over, Norman. (The Dissector #155, 03/26/10)
<-------------------------------->Best Cover:
I don't think this was even a contest, I just had to put a few covers around it to give options.
T02-From The Amazing Spider-Man V1 #625. The Gauntlet could get a bit repetitive, but the Rhino storyline was definitely compelling. Cover by Marko Djurdjevic. (The Dissector #155, 03/26/10)
<-------------------------------->Best Fight:
Yeah, this was pretty badass.
F03-Don't mess with John Walker (the former U.S.Agent), even when he's missing limbs! From Thunderbolts #147 (The Dissector #175, 09/07/10)
Now it's time for those awards that are given just for sheer dissection quantities:
<-------------------------------->
Company With Most Dissections: Marvel wins again; but unlike last year, when the difference was only 24 dissections, in this case it's almost ten times that; 232. Marvel had 1110 dissections, and DC 878.
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Company With Most Dissections Per Titles Ratio: DC wins this year, with a ratio of 6.2 from 878 dissections in 103 different titles I dissected during 2010; against Dynamite's 7.7 ratio (116 dissections in 15 titles), and Marvel's ratio of 6.2 (1110 dissections in 178 titles). I read more Dynamite books this year, it seems, than last year.
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Book With Most Dissections: Zorro doesn't win this year, even with 57 dissections, because there's another title with 63 dissections of its own... The Dissector. However, two things disqualify this column:
1) First, it's not a comic. I only review my own dissections because fair is fair.
2) X-Men Forever V2 (50 dissections), and X-Men Forever 2 (26 dissections) are basically the same book. They share the same characters, the same storyline; Chris Claremont writes both, and Tom Grummett is the main penciller in the first book and one of the most important two in the second one; plus, they share other creators (like letterer Tom Orzechowski). Combined, these two books get 76 dissections, and win this award.
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Book Family With Most Dissections: The X-Men family, with 369 dissections. Well behind are the Batman books with 206, and the Green Lantern books with 131. It's interesting to see how GL, with only three monthly books gets that third spot. No surprise to see the X-Men family get the first spot, since it's probably the most prolific family; although Batman is close, and I don't read all Bat books all the time... but then again, I don't read the half-dozen Wolverine books either.
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Most Dissected Writer: I got most dissections this year, with 59; but for the same reasons as above, the award goes to Chris Claremont's 52 dissections. Far behind, Matt Fraction and Matt Wagner share a spot with 39 each.
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Most Dissected Artist: Mark Bagley and Freddie Williams II share first spot with 21, Ivan Reis gets second spot with 16, and 15 dissections each gets Ardian Syaf and Mike Mayhew a shared third spot.
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Most Dissected Colorist: Hi-Fi takes top spot with 44 dissections, but I suspect they're actually a team and not one person. Dissector old friend Jeromy Cox (48 dissections) is second place, and Peter Pantazis gets third with 22 dissections.
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Most Dissected Letterer: Simon Bowland is only third place with 43 dissections, workhorse Joe Caramagna (for sheer volume of work, not for dissection ratio) gets second spot with 45, and this category's winner is another workhorse, Dave Lanphear, with 69 dissections.
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Most Dissected "Other": The Marvel Handbooks are even more riddled with mistakes than before, giving their head writer/coordinator Michael Hoskin a first place with 32 dissections. Stephen Wacker is far, far behind in his second place (9 dissections), and Tom Brennan and Jeff Christiansen share a third spot with 8 dissections each.
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Single Issue With Most Dissections: Fantastic Four In... Ataque Del M.O.D.O.K.! (Marvel); a one-shot with forty-six dissections; forty-three of them being smaller accented letters or Ñs (something I no longer report in the column, but I did report it last year, so...). This issue was responsible for 62% of the dissections that gave Dave Lanphear the top spot in the Letterer category.
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And now, special awards given because... well, because I damn pleased, and because of certain merits or lack thereof.
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Cyclone Fashion Award To The Most Mutable Costume: Dick Grayson's Batman costume. Frank Quitely (I think) designed it, but almost nobody else could keep it straight; even changing the shape of his chest emblem between pages.
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Most Puzzling Mistake: Last year, Marvel started using a new font (here's an example) for credits, "next issue" blurbs and so on; in some of their books.
Most comic book fonts are all capital letters; and some feature two all-caps versions with slight differences, depending on whether you type lower case or capital text. This particular font has a difference in the "A" (though I don't know if it comes from caps/not caps); as you can see in the image linked above. Some "A"s have a small addendum on their upper left corner; something that would be pretty stupid in languages that use accented letters, but well, not in English.
However, Marvel could never decide when to use this modified "A". Was it for the larger letters in the last names? Well, no, as you can see in the first line of last names with Gage and Buchman, one with, and the other without. Was it only for the smaller letters in first names? No, as you can see in "Dan" (with) Buckley and "Rachel" (without) Pinnelas.
Sometimes they were used for the first letter of names beginning in A; sometimes they were used in all "A"s in the page; sometimes for none except one, etc... In one "also on sale this month" page "Secret Avengers" would have the special A, but Avengers Academy (in the same font, size, and usage) would not; then in another comic "Avengers Academy" in the same font, size and usage in a "also on sale" page would get the special "A" for both words. And so on. In any combination you can imagine.
From the examples I had saved to write this column, and from what I can see from a quick search, it looks it was something used exclusively for the Avengers line; except for a couple of exceptions (that I could find, Young Allies and Captain America: Forever Allies). Also, it seems to be something done by Virtual Calligraphy letterers. Then again, those are only the books I took note of because the lettering was inconsistent... sometimes, by sheer coincidence, they were consistent (using all special "A"s, or only for last names, etc).
Obviously, this is not something horrible; and it's not even something I will keep reporting, as previously mentioned. But it was, without a doubt, baffling. And it will continue to baffle me, both as a reader, and as a (new, very green) letterer.
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The You Make Doc Brown Cry Timeline Fuck-Up Award: DC Universe Legacies (DC) uses the age-old plot device of showing the history of the fictional universe through the eyes of a common citizen... but fails miserably. I've said it every time the book came out; because every time they made it worse: the book's main character starts out as a young boy in the late 30s or early 40s and is swayed away from a life of crime after being impressed by the JSA in their first appearances; but then, as the book progresses, he's shown as a young, fit policeman when Superman first appears, when Doomsday kills Superman, etc.
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Coal-Fueled Diesel Trainwreck Issue Award: An award reserved for an issue that was really, really bad; this time around it doesn't go to a comic book, but to a handbook; Heroic Age: Heroes (Marvel). Apart from the usual load of mistakes (spelling mistakes, continuity errors, etc); in this case, what gets this issue the award is the fact that it fails at the very purpose of a handbook.
For some reason, perhaps due to being written in-universe by Steve Rogers, the usual Marvel Handbook power meters are not used. Instead, a power grid consisting of the following attributes is used: power, conscience, altruism, wisdom, courage, determination, free will, and vulnerability (in a scale from 1 to 10). Apparently, Hoskin and his writers have no idea what many of these words mean; look at how some characters are measured according to those attributes:
- Beast has an altruism of 9, while Angel, Reed Richards, Mockingbird, NAMORA, COLLECTIVE MAN, RADIOACTIVE MAN, Thor, Longshot, and JIMMY WOO have 10??!?!?!?!?!?
- Wolverine has a 5 altruism? Toro (the new bull-mutated kid, not the WWII Kid Torch) has a 7?
- Paladin (a mercenary) has an altruism of 7, same as Northstar, and more than Moon Knight? And Elixir, a healer gets 5?
- A-Bomb has a power of 8, while Angel has a 7, and American Eagle an 8. In what world are those characters of comparable power?
Vulnerability seems to be a mixture of physical and mental/emotional vulnerability, and even if you mix up the words "vulnerability" "invulnerability", switching the ends of the spectrum, it's still very fucked up:
- A-Bomb and American Eagle have the same rating, 8; and Angel a 6... making Angel less vulnerable than those two? Or only two points more vulnerable?
- Asgardians as a race have a vulnerability of 6. The same as Angel and Luke Cage.
- Captain Britain has a vulnerability of 2... if it's a physical attribute, he's not that resistant, if it's a mental/emotional attribute, his insecurities are not reflected.
- Despite his looks, the Thing is one of the most mentally stable characters in the whole Marvel universe, not to mention one of the most powerful, physically speaking. Then why does he get a vulnerability rating of 6?
- Darwin, one of the most unbalancedly powerful characters in the X-teams, has a vulnerability of 5, when he's basically indestructible?
This is delicate... Normally, a detail like this wouldn't score too high; but because this is a handbook, the attributes in the power grid are a basic part of the book. Furthermore, it's done by Steve Rogers, who's one of the better judges of character and tactical minds in the Marvel universe, so these fucked up ratings make him look like an idiot.
Something like this garners the handbook team the "Golden Bonesaw Award" for catastrophic underachievement.
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Best Book Of The Year: Captain America: Patriot (Marvel). Yes, a miniseries; but it got best book of the week each time it came out, and in fact, since this year the best book of the week really varied from week to week, it ended up being the only book with more than three "best book of the week" notches. To quote myself when I chose the first issue as best book of its week: "Karl Kesel is a veteran character writer, and he gets the 40s dialogue and feel perfectly. For a book with a lot of narration (in the form of newspaper articles), it reads easily. Artist Mitch Breitweiser, with colorist and wife Bettie Breitweiser, draw a story that's both modern and WWII... like a (good) propaganda poster come to life."
Maybe I enjoyed other books more over the course of the year; since they were ongoings; or had characters (like Spidey, Green Lantern or the Legion) that I enjoy more; and this book was going to get (regardless of the "best book" count) "best miniseries"... but I have to concede it gets top spot for 2010.
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Worst Book Of The Year: JSA All-Stars almost made it because of the horrible art; having been worst book of the week four times; but in the end Teen Titans had that spot six times in the year... half the times it came out (and I'm not counting specials like Teen Titans: Cold Case). No fixed creative time, writers that didn't seem to get the characters, and artists who just didn't cut it. Some samples of what I said about the book when I picked it as worst book of the week:
"(...) boring story, confusing dialogue, plain art. That simple."
"(...) 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 art is not as bad as it's been before, but it still shows at certain points where Luís didn't put any effort into faces, and writer Felicia D. Henderson... should stay away from the Titans... cheesy dialogues, weird plot twists, characters behaving like jerks, and harebrained power-effects make for a bad comic."
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Creator That I'm Sorry I Have To Dissect Award: Fred Van Lente. I love his writing, and when I find errors in it, I hate to point them out.
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Worst Character Depiction Although You Obviously Have Talent Award: In Uncanny X-Men #527 Whilce Portacio and Leonard Kirk make Emma Frost seem like a crack whore, and Colossus like a mentally deficient jock. I was shocked.
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Breakout Book Of The Year: The Sixth Gun (Oni Press). Great read; without being really groundbreaking, but it stands out as a new book of the year to pay attention to. Excellent for anyone who likes westerns with a touch of supernatural, and quite possibly a good read for those who don't usually read comics.
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Bloody Stumps With Blunt Crayolas Award: With a single bound, Leandro Oliveira lands a Superman issue, with art that looks like this:
Yes, Rod Reis's unusually bad coloring helps, but look at those characters... man...
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Best Character Of The Year: Once more, the single best written, more entertaining character is Spider-Man. Both by the Spider-Brain Trust or now in solitary by Dan Slott (although he makes appearances in Avenger and FF books), the character grows and evolves at the same time it's still portrayed according to his essence, to his basic characterization.
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Worst Character Of The Year: Red Robin. Come on, I understand the need to get Tim Drake a niche of his own, but Jr. Batman isn't really the way to go!
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Best Event Of The Year: Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton. Pretty much self-contained, and action packed, despite some slight mistakes and the occasional weak art.
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Worst Event Of The Year: The Return Of Bruce Wayne (as "The Insider"). The whole miniseries by Morrison was boring, but the whole plot point as "The Insider" was even wrose.
YOU'RE WEARING A YELLOW UTILITY BELT! YOU HAVE A SUIT THAT GIVES YOU THE POWERS OF CLASSIC JUSTICE LEAGUE MEMBERS! YOUR GLOVES HAVE BATMAN SPIKES!!! AND SHE'S THE FOREMOST EXPERT IN INFORMATION IN THE SUPERHERO COMMUNITY!!! STOP TREATING THIS INSIDER SHIT AS MYSTERIOUS, IT'S OBVIOUS TO ALL HIS FUCKING ALLIES (AND ANYONE WHO CAN ADD 2+2) THAT THAT'S BATMAN!!!!!
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Best Publisher Of The Year: Personally, I liked a lot of the stuff DC put out this year, but they also had a lot of weak moves (see above, for example). Marvel, all in all, offered a great all-around spread of books with in every family of books (X-Men, Avengers, street heroes, etc).
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Worst Publisher Of The Year: Dynamite Comics, again, because they keep publishing books with gross Spanish mistake, and it's obvious they don't care, despite publishing a lot of good stuff.
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Funniest Book Of The Year: Atomic Robo (Red 5 Comics); in any of its permutations, always fun and funny.
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Best Creator Of The Year: Shared by Paul Levitz and Yildiray Cinar, for bringing back the Legion in style. I'm sad Cinar gradually did less and less of the LSH art, and that he won't be working on the team anymore. He was made for the book, and what can I say about Levitz? He still has it.
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Worst Creator Of The Year: I only read one book with art by him, and Leandro Oliveira (who did this) gets this award. Yes, a lot of other creators fucked up, but at least they do it in the process of delivering otherwise good stuff. Even Simon Spurrier... wait, I was going to excuse Simon, but he wrote an X-book where Dr. Nemesis said "Science-Gaze sees all, brainfail! There WILL be crotch-punching!", so... they share.
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Dumbest Plot Move: Bruce Wayne reveals he's behind Batman, and has been for years.
Batman, Inc. is a good concept, but I believe it's stupid for Bruce Wayne to reveal he's behind Batman, particularly when he a) still runs around inside a Batman costume, b) his three closest costumed associates are his children (two adoptive and one biological), c) those three sons are the exact heights and builds as the other Batman, Red Robin, and Robin and he paraded them in front of the press even if Damian hadn't been introduced to the public, and d) half of Gotham's population might suspect him of being Batman anyway. Add on top of that the fact that he's going around the world fronting Batman, Inc. and dealing with foreign governments and police departments, behaving in ways that completely throw overboard his playboy persona, and it's like he doesn't care if his cover is blown... Wait, maybe he just gave up on hiding it altogether! Of course, he has protection, so do his friends and associates... man, what a great moment to be a random employee of Wayne Enterprises!!!
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Most Baffling Dyslexia: Dear comic book writers, "physiognomy" does not mean the same as "physiology" or "anatomy". In case you're too lazy to click on links or crack open a fucking dictionary, here are the definitions of "physiognomy":
1. the face or countenance, esp. when considered as an index to the character: a fierce physiognomy.
2. Also called anthroposcopy. the art of determining character or personal characteristics from the form or features of the body, esp. of the face.
3. the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character: the physiognomy of a nation.
It is not, I repeat, NOT, a word that you can use to refer to mutant physiology/anatomy (like I dissected before on an X-Men book), nor a word you can use to refer to the digitized information of a person's body for teleportation... WORDS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!! THEY LIVE INSIDE DICTIONARIES!!! AND NOW, THEY'RE EVEN INSIDE THE INTERNET!!!!
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That's it for this year; I'll be on the outlook for more nominees, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Dissector #199.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
05-04 "Bah! I can travel in both time and relative dimensions in space!" Doctor Dinosaur, Atomic Robo & Others Free Comic Book Day 2011.
05-11 "This is nothing but bullshit! You expect us to believe that he can't get into this school because he hasn't passed English???? That's the worst excuse I've heard in my entire fucking life. What is it? You didn't like his psych test because this moron wrote all that crap about death and Jim Morrison's grave?" La Ranita, Ranitas: Catarsis & Rock N Roll.
05-18 "Tony said he hated the Norse god speech pattern I'd developed and promised to give ten million dollars to charity if I spoke like a normal person again." Thor, Ultimate Avengers Vs. New Ultimates #4.
05-25 "Y'know, there are times I wish Uncle Ben had told me that with great power comes pie..." Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man V1 #662.
And welcome to a new column, this time for the month of May. Last column's DT! was cracked by Captain JohnnyDoe, who noticed that Martian Manhunter is too tall on that cover. Yes, he's a shapeshifter, but still... Let's go to the Picks of the Month:
Cover Of The Week for 05/04 was Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers #6, by James Silvani and Jake Miller; even if the title characters are not in the cover, the other two stars are, and it's the perfect image of what a Rescue Rangers' adventure should be. Best Book for that week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art Of Science #5; a perfect ending for a, as usual, great mini from the Robo team. Worst Book was JSA All-Stars #18. Blocky, ugly art that lacks soul, and a bland plot. It's not bad that this book is ending soon. Best Book Of The Week for 05/11 is Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #518, I can't stress enough 
how fun, fast-paced, yet filled with character moments this book by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla is. Worst Book for 05/11 is Justice League Of America V2 #57. It's no secret I've found James Robinson's JLA run boring, and Brett Booth's art, while good, is not enough to save this book. Cover for that week is Patrick Zircher's alternate FF #3 cover with (part of) Wolverine's graphic evolution.
Cover for 05/18 is Alex Ross's cover for Rocketeer Adventures #1... I wouldn't mind having that painting. Best Book of that week was Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 #13. Paul Levitz never fails to deliver, and while I'd prefer that all art was Yildiray Cinar, Jonathan Glapion is not bad as his co-artist. Don't look for groundbreaking comic book storytelling, though, this is just a straight up future superhero romp. Worst Book was X-Men Giant-Size #1... a pointless fight, and a *yawn* ultra-powerful enemy that seeks to eradicate mutants, completely pulled out of nowhere, complete with a flashback to some of Cyclops' repressed memories from when the original five were Xavier's only X-Men. Best Book for 05/25 was issue #2 of The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde. It's a fresh take on the old tale, intertwining it with Jack The Ripper's, newcomer writer Cole Haddon (who comes from the screenwriting and movie j
ournalism fields) spins an entertaining story that sounds at the same time fresh, modern, and Victorian as well. M.S. Corley (who I hadn't heard of before either) delivers great art that fits the story perfectly, enhanced by Jim Campbell's colors; and the whole thing is embellished by Richard Starking & Comicraft's lettering. Is it mind-blowing? No, I wouldn't say so. But it's so neat, so well done, that you can't help but say "man, this is a good comic book". Give it to people who don't usually read comics. Worst Book was Action Comics #901. One of the most boring Super Team Vs. Doomsdays fights I've ever red, Paul Cornell usually writes better things. Plus, why should I care about this book's numbering and history, if they're rewinding everything soon? Meh. Cover for this week is this sweet 70s movie poster style painting by Clayton Crain from Green Lantern V4 #66.
Let's get to those dissections...
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"ÖBAMA."
TITLE: Action Comics (DC).
ISSUE: 901.
CULPRIT: Jesus Merino (artist) & Paul Cornell (writer).
DISSECTION: Current DCU president (shown mostly in Freedom Fighters) is not Obama, nor does he even look like him (he's actually white).
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Plus, it's actually un-DC to have a real-life president (although they've done it before, occasionally).
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"THE DYSSECTOR."
TITLE: The Dissector (Clockwork Chap).
ISSUE: 198.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: My apologies to HDSC member Sidney, whose name I spelled as "Sydney" last column. Badge for him.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"BACK TO THE LEAGUE."
TITLE: JLA V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 58.
CULPRIT: Mike Miller (penciller).
DISSECTION: Check this one, from 2001:
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"TIME TWIST."
TITLE: Knights Of The Dinner Table: Black Hands 2011 Special (Kenzer & Co.).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jolly Blackburn (writer).
DISSECTION: Weird Pete, Patty, B.A., and Earl are all talking about when Nitro had recently returned from the Marines, fifteen years ago, and Earl says he remembers him as being terrible back then. Only problem is, Earl was introduced in the strip as a new character, transferring from another college to the local university only a few years ago. This doesn't jive even with a fluid timescale (like the one this comic uses), because Earl was specifically introduced as a new guy in town.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"~^?"
TITLE: Namor: The First Mutant (Marvel)
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Joe Caramagna (letterer)
DISSECTION: Penciller Sergio Ariño gets his name wrong, with a "^" instead of the "~" that the "ñ" should have... and it's halfway over the A and the R...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Double.
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"IF I HAD A HAMMER."
TITLE: The New Avengers V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 12.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis.
DISSECTION: Given how public it was during Norman Osborn's "Dark Reign", there's absolutely no way anyone, much less a cop, would not know what H.A.M.M.E.R. is or was.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"GRILS, GRILS, GRILS."
TITLE: Suicide Girls (IDW).
ISSUE: 01 & 02.
CULPRIT: Unidentified production designer.
DISSECTION: One of the ads at the end says "suiciegirls". I know producing this complete marketing vehicle must sap your enthusiasm, but you can at least write the brand name right, no?
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"TA-NO-TANTU."
TITLE: Teen Titans V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 35.
CULPRIT: Fabrizio Fiorentino (penciller).
DISSECTION: Vixen's powers come from her Tantu totem necklace. So you kind of have to draw it on her, not just a random animal fang necklace.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"LET'S JUST SKIP A FEW STEPS IN EVOLUTON."
TITLE: X-Men Giant-Size (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Christopher Yost (penciller) and Paco Medina (penciller).
DISSECTION: "For Homo sapien to live... Australopithecus sediba had to die.", that phrase is full of fail, because Australopithecus weren't even proto-humans, Australopithecine were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the encephalization characteristics of the genus Homo. The date is wrong, too, since it says 2.5 million years ago, and A. sediba lived between 1.95 and 1.78 million years ago.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars for using the Australopithecine instead of one of the archaic Homo sapiens (such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis, or Homo neanderthalensis), 7 for the wrong date.
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May, then, has an average of 8.2 Bazzars in ten dissections. Pretty high, but then again, I'm only keeping the most outrageous dissections these days. Let's go with the Moments Of The Month. First, from 05/04's issue of Atomic Robo, Tesla has a real "war of the currents" with Edison:
If you know me, you know this is fan service for me. Thank you, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener! Next, more from the same issue:
The real reason behind alternating current! More Atomic Robo, from the 2011 Free Comic Book Day Special, we learn how Dr. Dinosaur gets his guns:
Moving on to the next week, what's a good idea to have Batman everywhere?
Well, it's certainly NOT bat-robots, Bruce! Of course, what can we expect from...
... an internet troll? Now, from a Uruguayan comic, Ranitas: Catarsis & Rock N Roll, the stuff we do as drunken teenagers:
I didn't do THAT exactly, and I was a pretty nerdy guy who went out dancing and drinking very little... but I did a few stupid things while drunk, so I smile at this from a "yeah, I know" viewpoint. Week of 05/18 brought me some Quislet action over in LSH:
And it's almost as if the book had been written for me:
Good one. Now, more fan service, even if I don't like this artist, is having Lockheed meet up with Kitty Pryde in Astonishing X-Men:
That didn't go to well... or did it?
Guns! Big guns! You know who knows his place in the universe? Paladin:
He keeps it real. More Uruguayan stuff, from Orange Shaft, you shouldn't try to mug the wrong guy:
Believe me, this one of the tamest scenes in the whole book. You should see what Orange Shaft does to a guy's testicles with an arrow... Now, from 05/25, what do Donald's famous nephews do when they're not out adventuring?
They adventure some more! And to finish the column, John Stewart goes Death Star:
Again. Man, poor Mogo. I mean, we know he doesn't socialize, but that's no reason to do that to him That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
05-04 "Bah! I can travel in both time and relative dimensions in space!" Doctor Dinosaur, Atomic Robo & Others Free Comic Book Day 2011.
05-11 "This is nothing but bullshit! You expect us to believe that he can't get into this school because he hasn't passed English???? That's the worst excuse I've heard in my entire fucking life. What is it? You didn't like his psych test because this moron wrote all that crap about death and Jim Morrison's grave?" La Ranita, Ranitas: Catarsis & Rock N Roll.
05-18 "Tony said he hated the Norse god speech pattern I'd developed and promised to give ten million dollars to charity if I spoke like a normal person again." Thor, Ultimate Avengers Vs. New Ultimates #4.
05-25 "Y'know, there are times I wish Uncle Ben had told me that with great power comes pie..." Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man V1 #662.
And welcome to a new column, this time for the month of May. Last column's DT! was cracked by Captain JohnnyDoe, who noticed that Martian Manhunter is too tall on that cover. Yes, he's a shapeshifter, but still... Let's go to the Picks of the Month:
Cover Of The Week for 05/04 was Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers #6, by James Silvani and Jake Miller; even if the title characters are not in the cover, the other two stars are, and it's the perfect image of what a Rescue Rangers' adventure should be. Best Book for that week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art Of Science #5; a perfect ending for a, as usual, great mini from the Robo team. Worst Book was JSA All-Stars #18. Blocky, ugly art that lacks soul, and a bland plot. It's not bad that this book is ending soon. Best Book Of The Week for 05/11 is Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #518, I can't stress enough 
how fun, fast-paced, yet filled with character moments this book by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla is. Worst Book for 05/11 is Justice League Of America V2 #57. It's no secret I've found James Robinson's JLA run boring, and Brett Booth's art, while good, is not enough to save this book. Cover for that week is Patrick Zircher's alternate FF #3 cover with (part of) Wolverine's graphic evolution.
Cover for 05/18 is Alex Ross's cover for Rocketeer Adventures #1... I wouldn't mind having that painting. Best Book of that week was Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 #13. Paul Levitz never fails to deliver, and while I'd prefer that all art was Yildiray Cinar, Jonathan Glapion is not bad as his co-artist. Don't look for groundbreaking comic book storytelling, though, this is just a straight up future superhero romp. Worst Book was X-Men Giant-Size #1... a pointless fight, and a *yawn* ultra-powerful enemy that seeks to eradicate mutants, completely pulled out of nowhere, complete with a flashback to some of Cyclops' repressed memories from when the original five were Xavier's only X-Men. Best Book for 05/25 was issue #2 of The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde. It's a fresh take on the old tale, intertwining it with Jack The Ripper's, newcomer writer Cole Haddon (who comes from the screenwriting and movie j
ournalism fields) spins an entertaining story that sounds at the same time fresh, modern, and Victorian as well. M.S. Corley (who I hadn't heard of before either) delivers great art that fits the story perfectly, enhanced by Jim Campbell's colors; and the whole thing is embellished by Richard Starking & Comicraft's lettering. Is it mind-blowing? No, I wouldn't say so. But it's so neat, so well done, that you can't help but say "man, this is a good comic book". Give it to people who don't usually read comics. Worst Book was Action Comics #901. One of the most boring Super Team Vs. Doomsdays fights I've ever red, Paul Cornell usually writes better things. Plus, why should I care about this book's numbering and history, if they're rewinding everything soon? Meh. Cover for this week is this sweet 70s movie poster style painting by Clayton Crain from Green Lantern V4 #66.Let's get to those dissections...
<-------------------------------->
"ÖBAMA."
TITLE: Action Comics (DC).
ISSUE: 901.
CULPRIT: Jesus Merino (artist) & Paul Cornell (writer).
DISSECTION: Current DCU president (shown mostly in Freedom Fighters) is not Obama, nor does he even look like him (he's actually white).
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Plus, it's actually un-DC to have a real-life president (although they've done it before, occasionally).
<-------------------------------->
"THE DYSSECTOR."
TITLE: The Dissector (Clockwork Chap).
ISSUE: 198.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: My apologies to HDSC member Sidney, whose name I spelled as "Sydney" last column. Badge for him.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BACK TO THE LEAGUE."
TITLE: JLA V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 58.
CULPRIT: Mike Miller (penciller).
DISSECTION: Check this one, from 2001:
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TIME TWIST."
TITLE: Knights Of The Dinner Table: Black Hands 2011 Special (Kenzer & Co.).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jolly Blackburn (writer).
DISSECTION: Weird Pete, Patty, B.A., and Earl are all talking about when Nitro had recently returned from the Marines, fifteen years ago, and Earl says he remembers him as being terrible back then. Only problem is, Earl was introduced in the strip as a new character, transferring from another college to the local university only a few years ago. This doesn't jive even with a fluid timescale (like the one this comic uses), because Earl was specifically introduced as a new guy in town.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"~^?"
TITLE: Namor: The First Mutant (Marvel)
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Joe Caramagna (letterer)
DISSECTION: Penciller Sergio Ariño gets his name wrong, with a "^" instead of the "~" that the "ñ" should have... and it's halfway over the A and the R...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Double.
<-------------------------------->
"IF I HAD A HAMMER."
TITLE: The New Avengers V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 12.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis.
DISSECTION: Given how public it was during Norman Osborn's "Dark Reign", there's absolutely no way anyone, much less a cop, would not know what H.A.M.M.E.R. is or was.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"GRILS, GRILS, GRILS."
TITLE: Suicide Girls (IDW).
ISSUE: 01 & 02.
CULPRIT: Unidentified production designer.
DISSECTION: One of the ads at the end says "suiciegirls". I know producing this complete marketing vehicle must sap your enthusiasm, but you can at least write the brand name right, no?
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TA-NO-TANTU."
TITLE: Teen Titans V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 35.
CULPRIT: Fabrizio Fiorentino (penciller).
DISSECTION: Vixen's powers come from her Tantu totem necklace. So you kind of have to draw it on her, not just a random animal fang necklace.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"LET'S JUST SKIP A FEW STEPS IN EVOLUTON."
TITLE: X-Men Giant-Size (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Christopher Yost (penciller) and Paco Medina (penciller).
DISSECTION: "For Homo sapien to live... Australopithecus sediba had to die.", that phrase is full of fail, because Australopithecus weren't even proto-humans, Australopithecine were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the encephalization characteristics of the genus Homo. The date is wrong, too, since it says 2.5 million years ago, and A. sediba lived between 1.95 and 1.78 million years ago.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars for using the Australopithecine instead of one of the archaic Homo sapiens (such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis, or Homo neanderthalensis), 7 for the wrong date.
<-------------------------------->
May, then, has an average of 8.2 Bazzars in ten dissections. Pretty high, but then again, I'm only keeping the most outrageous dissections these days. Let's go with the Moments Of The Month. First, from 05/04's issue of Atomic Robo, Tesla has a real "war of the currents" with Edison:
If you know me, you know this is fan service for me. Thank you, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener! Next, more from the same issue:
The real reason behind alternating current! More Atomic Robo, from the 2011 Free Comic Book Day Special, we learn how Dr. Dinosaur gets his guns:
Moving on to the next week, what's a good idea to have Batman everywhere?
Well, it's certainly NOT bat-robots, Bruce! Of course, what can we expect from...
... an internet troll? Now, from a Uruguayan comic, Ranitas: Catarsis & Rock N Roll, the stuff we do as drunken teenagers:
I didn't do THAT exactly, and I was a pretty nerdy guy who went out dancing and drinking very little... but I did a few stupid things while drunk, so I smile at this from a "yeah, I know" viewpoint. Week of 05/18 brought me some Quislet action over in LSH:
And it's almost as if the book had been written for me:
Good one. Now, more fan service, even if I don't like this artist, is having Lockheed meet up with Kitty Pryde in Astonishing X-Men:
That didn't go to well... or did it?
Guns! Big guns! You know who knows his place in the universe? Paladin:
He keeps it real. More Uruguayan stuff, from Orange Shaft, you shouldn't try to mug the wrong guy:
Believe me, this one of the tamest scenes in the whole book. You should see what Orange Shaft does to a guy's testicles with an arrow... Now, from 05/25, what do Donald's famous nephews do when they're not out adventuring?
They adventure some more! And to finish the column, John Stewart goes Death Star:
Again. Man, poor Mogo. I mean, we know he doesn't socialize, but that's no reason to do that to him That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
The Dissector #196.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
02/09 "Lightning guns! I shoot those all the time. Sometimes they don't even explode." Atomic Robo, Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #3.
02/16 "The real John Constantine is a stranger to me. He's a shadow at the end of the street, a pale face at the window. The real John Constantine scares the fucking shit out of me because I've seen what he's capable of." John Constantine, Hellblazer #276.
02/23 "Genius is often little more than the ability to see connections no one else can." Nikola Tesla, Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #4.
Yeah, I'm late, and still behind. Move along. Still time to vote on the Autopsy Awards, and you can become a fan of the column in the Facebook page. Last column's DT! was cracked by JohnnyDoe, who correctly pointed out that the TARDIS' exterior was too large. One more badge and you make Captain!
The Dissector's Picks Of Week 02/09 are the following: Best Book Of The Week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #3; whenever there's an Atomic Robo book out, it's hard not to choose it as the best book. It's fun, it's witty, it's well written... and it's pulp! Worst Book Of The Week was Superman #708. The art by Eddy Barrows (inks by Mater and Ferreira), and colors by Rod Reis weren’t as bad as previous installment... but the story, man, the story... Chris Roberson does his best to script the JMS train wreck that wastes one issue of the already boring "Superman walks around the USA" arc ramming new/old/different Wonder Woman down our throats. Gawd... Cover Of The Week, by Bill Sienkiewicz, was the only redeeming feature of DC Universe: Legacies #9.
Week 02/16's Best Book was Hellblazer #276. It's no surprise that Peter Milligan understands Hellblazer, and while it's no old school mid-to-late 90s Constantine, it's still good old British blue-collar magic entertainment. Simon Bisley's art, with Brian Buccellato's colors, gives us that make me think of New Wave and Punk album covers and posters. Worst Book was Superman/Batman #81. Remember when this book was good? Cover Of The Week is by Gerald Parel and Dustin Weaver, from S.H.I.E.L.D. #6. The book might be a weird science, revisionist history, look-there-is-Tesla-and-Newton-and-Leonardo-and-Galileo orgy, and it's just a tad short of being unreadable, plot-wise... but it's quite nice, visually.
On week 02/23, I couldn't pick Atomic Robo as best book, because Detective Comics #874 was very good. Scott Snyder wrote an actual detective story (starring Commissioner Gordon), and Francesco Francavilla's full art is just perfect for the tale. Namor: The First Mutant #7 was the Worst Book this week... wake me up when the wandering-through-a-hell-dimension snorefest ends, yes? I want to see underwater battles. Cover Of The Week is from Detective Comics #874, also by Francesco Francavilla. And The Rundown is too long, so it was posted previously. Click on that link to see it; if I included it here it would take up too much space.
<-------------------------------->
"RED SCARE."
TITLE: Black Terror (Dynamite).
ISSUE: 11-13.
CULPRIT: Adriano Lucas and Vinicius Andrade (colorists).
DISSECTION: Sidney tells us that a character in Black Terror was miscolored for several issues; in "(...) Black Terror #14, it was shown that the lower part of her face, below the line, was colored red, which means that she had been miscolored before."
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars, and a badge for Sidney; who's one badge away from making Commander.
<-------------------------------->
"NITBUSTER."
TITLE: Blockbusters Of The Marvel Universe (Marvel).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators), unspecified writers, one colorist.
DISSECTION: Too many errors to list (ten in total), not as bad as usual, but still... a Marvel handbook. I wasn't even going to give this an entry, it was going to be part of the Rundown; but Sidney sent in two of them, so he gets two badges. Congratulations, Sidney, you've been promoted to Commander!
DISSECT-O-METER: Blanket rating of 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"COLOR ME WRONG."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 195.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: JohnnyDoe was busy, and gets another badge for pointing out that I had credited John Ridgway as a colorist, and he's a penciller. Congratulations, Captain JohnnyDoe.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. it's made worse because it was a DT!, not a regular dissection.
<-------------------------------->
"FLASH NAME DANCE."
TITLE: The Flash V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 09.
CULPRIT: Adam Schlagman & Eddie Berganza (editors).
DISSECTION: Sidney gets another badge by telling us the following "The second mistake comes from Flash #9. Richard Zajac did the inking for the issue, but the book switched editors in the middle of production, and the new editor, Adam Schlagman, forgot to credit him. I know this because Richard works at the local comic store."
Sidney, tell Richard I say hi.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"IS THAT A LANTERN IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?"
TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).
ISSUE: 62.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Let's not talk about how the badges and rings are the wrong shape, or even change shapes within the same issue. So... remember how I've complained about the "ring... charge... low..." plot device being used too often? How they make a point of showing how when they're in a fight, Green Lanterns don't have their power battery handy to recharge... even though recharging takes a second (they don't actually have to say the oath)?
Traditionally, Green Lanterns have carried their power battery stored inside their ring; since there was always a pocket dimension inside it. Since the Corps came back in force, lead by Geoff Johns creative-wise, they complain about not being able to recharge every now and then. And guess what? In this issue, they talk about the pocket dimension all lantern corps use, and Krona says he discovered it.
You can't keep using the not-able-to-recharge plot device, Geoff and team.
DISSECT-O-METER: N/A, since this is the correct usage. There are, however, numerous art dissections.
<-------------------------------->
"IDES OF DICTIONARY."
TITLE: Ides Of Blood (DC/Wildstorm).
ISSUE: 06 of 06.
CULPRIT: Stuart C. Paul (writer).
DISSECTION: "Proscribing" is forbidding, not mandating.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'VE GOT OUR TOP ANALYSTS WORKING ON THIS!"
TITLE: Iron Man 2.0 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Nick Spencer (writer).
DISSECTION: Iron Man 2.0? Oh, yes, because it's not enough to be "the black Iron Man", now War Machine doesn't even have a book to his name? Now, on to the dissections... the plot goes like this: a scientist/engineer in a top level US military think-tank dies, and suddenly, his inventions show up in the hands of terrorists. But he could have never gotten his designs out of the think-tank because it's got very tight security, and no communications to the outside are allowed.
His scant personal belongings are in a box, and a team of analysts is going through them... but they find no clue. Prominent in a panel is his organ donor card... and nobody thought of checking where his organs went... and how in places where they ended up in transplant recipients, large quantities of materials needed to build his projects are being purchased. Come on, Spencer, in the Marvel Universe, one of several important things you'd look for would be some sort of DNA/organic computer storage in his organs! COME ON!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SCHEDULED SCANS."
TITLE: Iron Man 2.0 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Nick Spencer (writer).
DISSECTION: Oh, it doesn't end there. War Machine is going through the case with the analysts, and asks if the guy could have been a mutant. Of course he couldn't, the analysts answer, because the Feds seize Cerebro four times a year and do a sweep". Yes, right. The X-Men will allow the government to walk in and do a mutant search four times a year. As if. Haven't you read the countless stories where this exact kind of thing is opposed by the X-Men? Strongly opposed?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. And to boot, pulling a badly-written-Batman, War Machine asks if there was a chance of the guy becoming a ghost, and says he's asking something stupid. Really, when you've fought side by side with Thor, are in a team with Valkyrie, and have faced the supernatural every other week? Please. On top of that, the "War Machine Saga" section at the end of the book refers to "Stark's recent decision" to stop manufacturing weapons. Yeah, recent as of his most earliest appearances as a comic book character...
<-------------------------------->
"FADED LEGACY."
TITLE: Iron Man Legacy (Marvel).
ISSUE: 11.
CULPRIT: Damien Lucchese (production), and/or Ralph Macchio (editor) & Charlie Beckerman (assistant editor), and web content employees.
DISSECTION: Marvel Comics includes no creator credits in this issue, except for last name of writer, artist, inker and colorist on the cover... and to make it worse, on the Marvel website credits Tim Bradstreet as writer, penciller, inker, colorist and letterer (Make sure you click on Stories/Iron Man Legacy on the middle of the webpage to see the Bradstreet credits). Tim, you're pulling full duty, and people like Fred Van Lente take the credit! :) (J/K, BTW)
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Tony Stark's eyes are colored brown, and there's an accented letter that's smaller than it should.
<-------------------------------->
"99 DISSECTIONS AND THIS IS ONE."
TITLE: Justice League Of America/The 99 (DC/Teshkeel).
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza & Stuart Moore (writers) and/or Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Check this scene out, tell me what you can find... keep in mind that it's something that might be blamed on both writers and penciller, or either... so it's not a badly drawn character, or a spelling error, to name a couple of options that are out.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Wonder Woman's costume is drawn with some weird shoulder pads, on another note.
<-------------------------------->
"OH, BROTHER!"
TITLE: Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A To Z Update (Marvel).
ISSUE: 05.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and/or Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators).
DISSECTION: I know this happens in other types of fiction, and in similar ways, but I'm "worried" about it superhero comics, and in a specific kind of situation. I'm not talking about how the characters themselves will perceive these relations, but more from a detached point of view. What am I talking about? Genetically-engineered "siblings".
I'm not talking about clones (an exact copy of a person), but of similar creations. In particular, this question arose from the Marvel character Lyra, who was created by splicing DNA from Thundra and Hulk. While the final result might be similar to what is achieved through in-vitro fertilization; she's not precisely created by fertilizing one of Thundra's eggs with one of Hulk's sperm.
However, Marvel's character profile handbooks, in the usual "known relatives" or "relatives" section lists Hulk as her "father", and Hulk's children Skaar and Hiro-Kala (which he conceived naturally with Caiera) as her "half-brothers", and so on.
Now, I understand the biological reasoning behind considering those relations the same as the ones in a "traditional" family, or even considering people conceived by artificial insemination (if my father donated sperm and I found out I have a sibling from a woman he never even met)... but shouldn't an character profile (which is supposed to be informative) list those relatives with terms such as "genetic father" or "genetic half-brother"? They do list other characters in her extended family with terms such as "step-mother", and in other profiles they use specific designations for adoptive siblings and parents... why not for these relations?
So, while I can't consider branding these characters as "sister" or brother", I can consider an error to make distinctions when it comes to step relations or adoptive relations, but not for this kind of relations.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SMOKING."
TITLE: Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A To Z Update (Marvel).
ISSUE: 05.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and/or Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators).
DISSECTION: Mesmero's said to occasionally smoke tobacco, which is something that apparently, needs to be listed in the "abilities/accessories" section of his profile... ???
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MANY CRISES..."
TITLE: Power Girl V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 21.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: The search for missing Kryptonite from before Infinite Crisis called by Ted Kord is shown as "years ago, many crises yet to be faced"... given the kind of timeline in DC comics, even taking into account the "52" year; it can't be that many years ago, it could be as much as three, four stretching it. Yes, they don't use the word "many", but that kind of sentence is meant to be used for something that was a long time ago; and the "many crises" is also a hyperbole.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, the new Rocket Red's hair should be blond, but it's colored brown, and Bruce Wayne's Batman belt is wrong.
<-------------------------------->
One hundred and three dissections, with an average of 7.7 Bazzars. Wow. Our last high rating was a 7.6 a couple of years ago, and our highest one was 8.1 in column #20. Let's get the Moments Of The Week(s) done with and end this column. From 02/09, Atomic Robo gets his first kiss (back in 1930):
Hmm... metallic tasting! Of course, after learning that his little robot is having a romantic dalliance, Tesla wants to have "the talk" with him:
I laughed out loud. Now, one Moment from 02/16... what will rise in Darwking Duck?
DUCKTHULU!!! And now a few from 02/23, first, Hogun the grim hails a train:
... stops it, more like it. Then, more Robo romantic moments:
That's what happens when you date a robot. Next, what's a good outfit to wear to a funeral? Let's ask Storm, shall we?
Wow, in perfect taste! And from Star Wars: Legacy: Wars...
IT'S TRAP!!! OR MORE THAN ONE!!! And last, what does Dazzler do best?
DISCO, BABY, DISCO! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
02/09 "Lightning guns! I shoot those all the time. Sometimes they don't even explode." Atomic Robo, Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #3.
02/16 "The real John Constantine is a stranger to me. He's a shadow at the end of the street, a pale face at the window. The real John Constantine scares the fucking shit out of me because I've seen what he's capable of." John Constantine, Hellblazer #276.
02/23 "Genius is often little more than the ability to see connections no one else can." Nikola Tesla, Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #4.
Yeah, I'm late, and still behind. Move along. Still time to vote on the Autopsy Awards, and you can become a fan of the column in the Facebook page. Last column's DT! was cracked by JohnnyDoe, who correctly pointed out that the TARDIS' exterior was too large. One more badge and you make Captain!
The Dissector's Picks Of Week 02/09 are the following: Best Book Of The Week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art of Science #3; whenever there's an Atomic Robo book out, it's hard not to choose it as the best book. It's fun, it's witty, it's well written... and it's pulp! Worst Book Of The Week was Superman #708. The art by Eddy Barrows (inks by Mater and Ferreira), and colors by Rod Reis weren’t as bad as previous installment... but the story, man, the story... Chris Roberson does his best to script the JMS train wreck that wastes one issue of the already boring "Superman walks around the USA" arc ramming new/old/different Wonder Woman down our throats. Gawd... Cover Of The Week, by Bill Sienkiewicz, was the only redeeming feature of DC Universe: Legacies #9.
Week 02/16's Best Book was Hellblazer #276. It's no surprise that Peter Milligan understands Hellblazer, and while it's no old school mid-to-late 90s Constantine, it's still good old British blue-collar magic entertainment. Simon Bisley's art, with Brian Buccellato's colors, gives us that make me think of New Wave and Punk album covers and posters. Worst Book was Superman/Batman #81. Remember when this book was good? Cover Of The Week is by Gerald Parel and Dustin Weaver, from S.H.I.E.L.D. #6. The book might be a weird science, revisionist history, look-there-is-Tesla-and-Newton-and-Leonardo-and-Galileo orgy, and it's just a tad short of being unreadable, plot-wise... but it's quite nice, visually.
On week 02/23, I couldn't pick Atomic Robo as best book, because Detective Comics #874 was very good. Scott Snyder wrote an actual detective story (starring Commissioner Gordon), and Francesco Francavilla's full art is just perfect for the tale. Namor: The First Mutant #7 was the Worst Book this week... wake me up when the wandering-through-a-hell-dimension snorefest ends, yes? I want to see underwater battles. Cover Of The Week is from Detective Comics #874, also by Francesco Francavilla. And The Rundown is too long, so it was posted previously. Click on that link to see it; if I included it here it would take up too much space.<-------------------------------->
"RED SCARE."
TITLE: Black Terror (Dynamite).
ISSUE: 11-13.
CULPRIT: Adriano Lucas and Vinicius Andrade (colorists).
DISSECTION: Sidney tells us that a character in Black Terror was miscolored for several issues; in "(...) Black Terror #14, it was shown that the lower part of her face, below the line, was colored red, which means that she had been miscolored before."
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars, and a badge for Sidney; who's one badge away from making Commander.
<-------------------------------->
"NITBUSTER."
TITLE: Blockbusters Of The Marvel Universe (Marvel).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators), unspecified writers, one colorist.
DISSECTION: Too many errors to list (ten in total), not as bad as usual, but still... a Marvel handbook. I wasn't even going to give this an entry, it was going to be part of the Rundown; but Sidney sent in two of them, so he gets two badges. Congratulations, Sidney, you've been promoted to Commander!
DISSECT-O-METER: Blanket rating of 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"COLOR ME WRONG."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 195.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: JohnnyDoe was busy, and gets another badge for pointing out that I had credited John Ridgway as a colorist, and he's a penciller. Congratulations, Captain JohnnyDoe.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. it's made worse because it was a DT!, not a regular dissection.
<-------------------------------->
"FLASH NAME DANCE."
TITLE: The Flash V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 09.
CULPRIT: Adam Schlagman & Eddie Berganza (editors).
DISSECTION: Sidney gets another badge by telling us the following "The second mistake comes from Flash #9. Richard Zajac did the inking for the issue, but the book switched editors in the middle of production, and the new editor, Adam Schlagman, forgot to credit him. I know this because Richard works at the local comic store."
Sidney, tell Richard I say hi.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"IS THAT A LANTERN IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?"
TITLE: Green Lantern V4 (DC).
ISSUE: 62.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Let's not talk about how the badges and rings are the wrong shape, or even change shapes within the same issue. So... remember how I've complained about the "ring... charge... low..." plot device being used too often? How they make a point of showing how when they're in a fight, Green Lanterns don't have their power battery handy to recharge... even though recharging takes a second (they don't actually have to say the oath)?
Traditionally, Green Lanterns have carried their power battery stored inside their ring; since there was always a pocket dimension inside it. Since the Corps came back in force, lead by Geoff Johns creative-wise, they complain about not being able to recharge every now and then. And guess what? In this issue, they talk about the pocket dimension all lantern corps use, and Krona says he discovered it.
You can't keep using the not-able-to-recharge plot device, Geoff and team.
DISSECT-O-METER: N/A, since this is the correct usage. There are, however, numerous art dissections.
<-------------------------------->
"IDES OF DICTIONARY."
TITLE: Ides Of Blood (DC/Wildstorm).
ISSUE: 06 of 06.
CULPRIT: Stuart C. Paul (writer).
DISSECTION: "Proscribing" is forbidding, not mandating.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'VE GOT OUR TOP ANALYSTS WORKING ON THIS!"
TITLE: Iron Man 2.0 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Nick Spencer (writer).
DISSECTION: Iron Man 2.0? Oh, yes, because it's not enough to be "the black Iron Man", now War Machine doesn't even have a book to his name? Now, on to the dissections... the plot goes like this: a scientist/engineer in a top level US military think-tank dies, and suddenly, his inventions show up in the hands of terrorists. But he could have never gotten his designs out of the think-tank because it's got very tight security, and no communications to the outside are allowed.
His scant personal belongings are in a box, and a team of analysts is going through them... but they find no clue. Prominent in a panel is his organ donor card... and nobody thought of checking where his organs went... and how in places where they ended up in transplant recipients, large quantities of materials needed to build his projects are being purchased. Come on, Spencer, in the Marvel Universe, one of several important things you'd look for would be some sort of DNA/organic computer storage in his organs! COME ON!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SCHEDULED SCANS."
TITLE: Iron Man 2.0 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Nick Spencer (writer).
DISSECTION: Oh, it doesn't end there. War Machine is going through the case with the analysts, and asks if the guy could have been a mutant. Of course he couldn't, the analysts answer, because the Feds seize Cerebro four times a year and do a sweep". Yes, right. The X-Men will allow the government to walk in and do a mutant search four times a year. As if. Haven't you read the countless stories where this exact kind of thing is opposed by the X-Men? Strongly opposed?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. And to boot, pulling a badly-written-Batman, War Machine asks if there was a chance of the guy becoming a ghost, and says he's asking something stupid. Really, when you've fought side by side with Thor, are in a team with Valkyrie, and have faced the supernatural every other week? Please. On top of that, the "War Machine Saga" section at the end of the book refers to "Stark's recent decision" to stop manufacturing weapons. Yeah, recent as of his most earliest appearances as a comic book character...
<-------------------------------->
"FADED LEGACY."
TITLE: Iron Man Legacy (Marvel).
ISSUE: 11.
CULPRIT: Damien Lucchese (production), and/or Ralph Macchio (editor) & Charlie Beckerman (assistant editor), and web content employees.
DISSECTION: Marvel Comics includes no creator credits in this issue, except for last name of writer, artist, inker and colorist on the cover... and to make it worse, on the Marvel website credits Tim Bradstreet as writer, penciller, inker, colorist and letterer (Make sure you click on Stories/Iron Man Legacy on the middle of the webpage to see the Bradstreet credits). Tim, you're pulling full duty, and people like Fred Van Lente take the credit! :) (J/K, BTW)
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Tony Stark's eyes are colored brown, and there's an accented letter that's smaller than it should.
<-------------------------------->
"99 DISSECTIONS AND THIS IS ONE."
TITLE: Justice League Of America/The 99 (DC/Teshkeel).
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza & Stuart Moore (writers) and/or Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Check this scene out, tell me what you can find... keep in mind that it's something that might be blamed on both writers and penciller, or either... so it's not a badly drawn character, or a spelling error, to name a couple of options that are out.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Wonder Woman's costume is drawn with some weird shoulder pads, on another note.
<-------------------------------->
"OH, BROTHER!"
TITLE: Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A To Z Update (Marvel).
ISSUE: 05.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and/or Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators).
DISSECTION: I know this happens in other types of fiction, and in similar ways, but I'm "worried" about it superhero comics, and in a specific kind of situation. I'm not talking about how the characters themselves will perceive these relations, but more from a detached point of view. What am I talking about? Genetically-engineered "siblings".
I'm not talking about clones (an exact copy of a person), but of similar creations. In particular, this question arose from the Marvel character Lyra, who was created by splicing DNA from Thundra and Hulk. While the final result might be similar to what is achieved through in-vitro fertilization; she's not precisely created by fertilizing one of Thundra's eggs with one of Hulk's sperm.
However, Marvel's character profile handbooks, in the usual "known relatives" or "relatives" section lists Hulk as her "father", and Hulk's children Skaar and Hiro-Kala (which he conceived naturally with Caiera) as her "half-brothers", and so on.
Now, I understand the biological reasoning behind considering those relations the same as the ones in a "traditional" family, or even considering people conceived by artificial insemination (if my father donated sperm and I found out I have a sibling from a woman he never even met)... but shouldn't an character profile (which is supposed to be informative) list those relatives with terms such as "genetic father" or "genetic half-brother"? They do list other characters in her extended family with terms such as "step-mother", and in other profiles they use specific designations for adoptive siblings and parents... why not for these relations?
So, while I can't consider branding these characters as "sister" or brother", I can consider an error to make distinctions when it comes to step relations or adoptive relations, but not for this kind of relations.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SMOKING."
TITLE: Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A To Z Update (Marvel).
ISSUE: 05.
CULPRIT: Jeff Christiansen and/or Mike O'Sullivan (head writers/coordinators).
DISSECTION: Mesmero's said to occasionally smoke tobacco, which is something that apparently, needs to be listed in the "abilities/accessories" section of his profile... ???
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MANY CRISES..."
TITLE: Power Girl V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 21.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: The search for missing Kryptonite from before Infinite Crisis called by Ted Kord is shown as "years ago, many crises yet to be faced"... given the kind of timeline in DC comics, even taking into account the "52" year; it can't be that many years ago, it could be as much as three, four stretching it. Yes, they don't use the word "many", but that kind of sentence is meant to be used for something that was a long time ago; and the "many crises" is also a hyperbole.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, the new Rocket Red's hair should be blond, but it's colored brown, and Bruce Wayne's Batman belt is wrong.
<-------------------------------->
One hundred and three dissections, with an average of 7.7 Bazzars. Wow. Our last high rating was a 7.6 a couple of years ago, and our highest one was 8.1 in column #20. Let's get the Moments Of The Week(s) done with and end this column. From 02/09, Atomic Robo gets his first kiss (back in 1930):
Hmm... metallic tasting! Of course, after learning that his little robot is having a romantic dalliance, Tesla wants to have "the talk" with him:
I laughed out loud. Now, one Moment from 02/16... what will rise in Darwking Duck?
DUCKTHULU!!! And now a few from 02/23, first, Hogun the grim hails a train:
... stops it, more like it. Then, more Robo romantic moments:
That's what happens when you date a robot. Next, what's a good outfit to wear to a funeral? Let's ask Storm, shall we?
Wow, in perfect taste! And from Star Wars: Legacy: Wars...
IT'S TRAP!!! OR MORE THAN ONE!!! And last, what does Dazzler do best?
DISCO, BABY, DISCO! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Dissector #191.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I wear pants because it's the law." Atomic Robo, Atomic Robo & The Deadly Art Of Science #2.
Second-to-last column of the year? Maybe! This is for books released on 12/15, and I might be able to finish the column for 12/22 books in time before the end of the year, but there's no way I can read all 12/29 books in time, much less write that column... but it should be out by the end of next week, and after that I'll post the Autopsy Award nominations. Speaking of Autopsy Awards, remember you can make nominations (copy/paste from a previous column:
Back to this column, last column's DT wasn't cracked. JohnnyDoe got close by saying that they have "Cerebro" and not "Cerebra", but that wasn't quite it. The X-Men's mutant locator has been called "Cerebra" for quite a while, but if Rogue wanted to refer to it, she shouldn't say "the original", because the original was "Cerebro". It's like saying "we've got the original New Coke"... Yes, it's a nuance... it's semantically correct, since they do have the first "Cerebra", but the original machine that fulfills that role is "Cerebro", and therefore, the only one that should be called "original".
Now, look at this very nice variant cover from Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513, by Francesco Francavilla... very Kirby meets Frank Miller. Speaking of The Dissector's Picks Of The Week, Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513 is Best Book Of The Week. While I don't agree with characters taking over the numbering of someone else's books (like Hercules taking over Incredible Hulk, or this, with Black Panther taking over Daredevil... are these issues going to count toward Daredevil's #600 issue?), I must admit that this was a great start for this run. David Liss, who has very little in the way of comic book credits (a Phantom Reporter special for Marvel's 70th anniversary line, and this very comic), has a considerable body of work in prose fiction, mostly historical-mystery novels... but he manages to make this "set-up issue" as enjoyable as any comic book pro's "full gear" run. Yes, his villain is kind of stereotypical, but this is a superhero comic, what do you expect? Add Francesco Francavilla's pulp-style art (pencils, inks, and colors), and you get a mixture of explosive Jack Kirby action and noir Frank Miller ambience... which is what you'd expect from a book where the Black Panther takes over Daredevil's job as protector of Hell's Kitchen. Go read it. Worst Book Of The Week was Superman #706... as much as G. Willow Wilson impressed me with "Air", her Superman issues are worthless. Stilted dialogue and mischaracterization make for bad stories... Perry White completely out of touch with the internet? Doubtful. Superman saying that he's "scared by the internet"? What?!? Add mediocre art by Amilcar Pinna and oddly phosphorescent colors by Rod Reis (who usually does good work), and you get a very bad comic which gives credence to those who say that Superman comics are boring and unattractive.
The Rundown: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (why doesn't Peter show any wounds from his fight with Hobgoblin, only seconds after, and an accented letter), Batman (Riddler's hair should be black, Enigma's eyes should be blue), Black Panther: The Man Without Fear (bad Romanian dialogue, accented letter), Brightest Day (Mera shouldn't have flipper feet), Captain America: Man Out of Time (Rick Jones was recently shown to be a hacker and anti-authority paranoid, why does he not know what an APB is?), Green Lantern/Plastic Man: Weapons Of Mass Deception (numerous costume design and other errors), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (Kilowog and Guy get incorrect badges), I Am An Avenger (inconsistent credit lettering), New Mutants Forever (ANDES! FUCKING ANDES!!!! Plus, Storm's eyes should not be white when she's not using her powers), Titans V2 (bad Italian and Portuguese), Velocity V2 ("replace" instead of "replaced"), What If? The Amazing Spider-Man: Grim Hunt (small ñ), X-Factor V3 (Shatterstar's eyes should be blue, not green).
<-------------------------------->
"THEM DRAWING MONKEYS."
TITLE: Avengers Academy (Marvel).
ISSUE: 07.
CULPRIT: Rachel Pinnelas (assistant editor), John Denning (assistant editor), and Bill Rosemann (editor).
DISSECTION: Tom Raney pencilled this issue, but regular penciller Mike McKone gets credited for it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DOVE ASK, DOVE TELL."
TITLE: Birds Of Prey V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 07.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: Dove's powers are listed, but many of her powers (such as one of her more visually distinctive ones, her enhanced agility) are missing, in exchange of shit like "she is the consciousness of the superhero community", when most heroes don't even have contact with her...
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DAS FAIL."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 190.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Donald313 doesn't rest, and he points out that the plural of "Glückwunsch" is "Glückwünsche".
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"RETRO DT!"
TITLE: Outsiders V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 45.
CULPRIT: Carlo Barberi (penciller).
DISSECTION: From The Vault, this an old pet peeve of mine, old readers might remember.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"VANISHING SENSE."
TITLE: Time Masters: Vanishing Point (DC).
ISSUE: 05 Of 6.
CULPRIT: Dan Jurgens (writer).
DISSECTION: Two powerful sorcerers scour all of time to find the most powerful weapon in the universe and then decide to steal one of the first atom bombs? What? Not to mention they had a Green Lantern captive...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Hal Jordan's badge is wrong on the cover and inside, as is his ring, and he's even missing his ring altogether in one page.
<-------------------------------->
With a 6.9 Bazzars average in thirty-eight dissections, we get a "high among normal" average rating for this week. Now, Moments Of The Week... from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Cobra's sophisticated torture methods:
Amazing... and look who's back in Green Lantern:
Oh, shit... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I wear pants because it's the law." Atomic Robo, Atomic Robo & The Deadly Art Of Science #2.
Second-to-last column of the year? Maybe! This is for books released on 12/15, and I might be able to finish the column for 12/22 books in time before the end of the year, but there's no way I can read all 12/29 books in time, much less write that column... but it should be out by the end of next week, and after that I'll post the Autopsy Award nominations. Speaking of Autopsy Awards, remember you can make nominations (copy/paste from a previous column:
"As you might now (and if you don't, you can read the first, second, and third editions of the awards), some awards are selected by reader votes from several nominations I select from the year's columns; such as Best Writing Dissection, Best Art Dissection, Best Quote, or Best Cover. Then there are awards that are given based solely on number of dissections, like Company With Most Dissections, Most Dissected Writer, or Single Issue With Most Dissections.
But there are also special awards, given for specific circumstances, for merit or lack of it. For example, I will probably select myself things like Breakout Book Of The Year, or Best Character Of The Year; but I will accept suggestions for awards that I might not think of myself; or even within categories used in previous years. For example, in the first awards, Cyclone (from the JSA) won an award for not having her costume depicted correctly in any of her appearances after her first one. That award has gone one to be called the "Cyclone Fashion Award To The Most Mutable Costume", and was won by Una in the second edition of the awards, and was expanded in the following edition to cover any character alteration, going to Norman Osborn's eyes, for changing contacts all the time (basically EVERY Marvel book during Secret Invasion and Dark Reign).
Then, within the same special awards, we have stuff like the "Creator That I'm Sorry I Have To Dissect Award", for people whose sheer volume of work makes it likely they slip up and I notice it, but they obviously very much care about their work, and on top of that, are nice people. Or the "Bloody Stumps With Blunt Crayolas Award", for underachievement in art; or the "Worst Character Depiction Although You Obviously Have Talent Award" for instances in which it's readily noticeable that an artist has a lot of talent, but (for example) decides to make Beast look like a humanoid goat, for example. And finally, there's the "Golden Bonesaw Award", for catastrophic underachievement, taken home in 2007 by Marvel for the many shapes of Beast, in 2008 by the Blue Beetle issue in Spanish, and in 2009 by IDW and their Zorro book for their year-long raping of the Spanish language. I will probably choose this one myself, but I welcome suggestions too."
Back to this column, last column's DT wasn't cracked. JohnnyDoe got close by saying that they have "Cerebro" and not "Cerebra", but that wasn't quite it. The X-Men's mutant locator has been called "Cerebra" for quite a while, but if Rogue wanted to refer to it, she shouldn't say "the original", because the original was "Cerebro". It's like saying "we've got the original New Coke"... Yes, it's a nuance... it's semantically correct, since they do have the first "Cerebra", but the original machine that fulfills that role is "Cerebro", and therefore, the only one that should be called "original".
Now, look at this very nice variant cover from Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513, by Francesco Francavilla... very Kirby meets Frank Miller. Speaking of The Dissector's Picks Of The Week, Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513 is Best Book Of The Week. While I don't agree with characters taking over the numbering of someone else's books (like Hercules taking over Incredible Hulk, or this, with Black Panther taking over Daredevil... are these issues going to count toward Daredevil's #600 issue?), I must admit that this was a great start for this run. David Liss, who has very little in the way of comic book credits (a Phantom Reporter special for Marvel's 70th anniversary line, and this very comic), has a considerable body of work in prose fiction, mostly historical-mystery novels... but he manages to make this "set-up issue" as enjoyable as any comic book pro's "full gear" run. Yes, his villain is kind of stereotypical, but this is a superhero comic, what do you expect? Add Francesco Francavilla's pulp-style art (pencils, inks, and colors), and you get a mixture of explosive Jack Kirby action and noir Frank Miller ambience... which is what you'd expect from a book where the Black Panther takes over Daredevil's job as protector of Hell's Kitchen. Go read it. Worst Book Of The Week was Superman #706... as much as G. Willow Wilson impressed me with "Air", her Superman issues are worthless. Stilted dialogue and mischaracterization make for bad stories... Perry White completely out of touch with the internet? Doubtful. Superman saying that he's "scared by the internet"? What?!? Add mediocre art by Amilcar Pinna and oddly phosphorescent colors by Rod Reis (who usually does good work), and you get a very bad comic which gives credence to those who say that Superman comics are boring and unattractive.The Rundown: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (why doesn't Peter show any wounds from his fight with Hobgoblin, only seconds after, and an accented letter), Batman (Riddler's hair should be black, Enigma's eyes should be blue), Black Panther: The Man Without Fear (bad Romanian dialogue, accented letter), Brightest Day (Mera shouldn't have flipper feet), Captain America: Man Out of Time (Rick Jones was recently shown to be a hacker and anti-authority paranoid, why does he not know what an APB is?), Green Lantern/Plastic Man: Weapons Of Mass Deception (numerous costume design and other errors), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (Kilowog and Guy get incorrect badges), I Am An Avenger (inconsistent credit lettering), New Mutants Forever (ANDES! FUCKING ANDES!!!! Plus, Storm's eyes should not be white when she's not using her powers), Titans V2 (bad Italian and Portuguese), Velocity V2 ("replace" instead of "replaced"), What If? The Amazing Spider-Man: Grim Hunt (small ñ), X-Factor V3 (Shatterstar's eyes should be blue, not green).
<-------------------------------->
"THEM DRAWING MONKEYS."
TITLE: Avengers Academy (Marvel).
ISSUE: 07.
CULPRIT: Rachel Pinnelas (assistant editor), John Denning (assistant editor), and Bill Rosemann (editor).
DISSECTION: Tom Raney pencilled this issue, but regular penciller Mike McKone gets credited for it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DOVE ASK, DOVE TELL."
TITLE: Birds Of Prey V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 07.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: Dove's powers are listed, but many of her powers (such as one of her more visually distinctive ones, her enhanced agility) are missing, in exchange of shit like "she is the consciousness of the superhero community", when most heroes don't even have contact with her...
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DAS FAIL."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 190.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Donald313 doesn't rest, and he points out that the plural of "Glückwunsch" is "Glückwünsche".
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"RETRO DT!"
TITLE: Outsiders V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 45.
CULPRIT: Carlo Barberi (penciller).
DISSECTION: From The Vault, this an old pet peeve of mine, old readers might remember.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"VANISHING SENSE."
TITLE: Time Masters: Vanishing Point (DC).
ISSUE: 05 Of 6.
CULPRIT: Dan Jurgens (writer).
DISSECTION: Two powerful sorcerers scour all of time to find the most powerful weapon in the universe and then decide to steal one of the first atom bombs? What? Not to mention they had a Green Lantern captive...
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Hal Jordan's badge is wrong on the cover and inside, as is his ring, and he's even missing his ring altogether in one page.
<-------------------------------->
With a 6.9 Bazzars average in thirty-eight dissections, we get a "high among normal" average rating for this week. Now, Moments Of The Week... from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Cobra's sophisticated torture methods:
Amazing... and look who's back in Green Lantern:
Oh, shit... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Dissector #186.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jarvis is an Avenger. He is as much an Avenger as any of us." Steve Rogers, Avengers Assemble, The Oral History Of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Chapter 12, The New Avengers V2 #6.
Still playing that game of "ketchup", here's the column for books released on 11/10. Last column's DT! was cracked by JohnnyDoe, who spotted that Bucky's Tommy gun ammo drum is in a ridiculous angle regarding the rest of the gun. Badge for you, Johnny.
Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week... Best Book Of The Week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art Of Science #1. Not only do we get to see "teenage" Robo having adventures with a mystery man of his universe (in what's probably the late 20s or early 30s), but we see some of his father/son dynamic with Tesla himself. You all know how much I love this book. Worst Book Of The Week was Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne #6, last issue of this poor miniseries. Not only Grant Morrison's plot makes no sense, mistaking chaotic storytelling for innovation, but they couldn't even have one artist do all the pages (much like the previous issue). On top of that, the release timing is bad, because it comes out after all the (also horrible) "Road Home" one-shots with the "Insider" crap...
Cover Of The Week is from Dungeons & Dragons #1 (by IDW); with art by Tyler Walpole and production work by someone uncredited, to make it look like an old school gaming module. Yeah, I admit it, I liked this because of a novelty issue; the actual cover art isn't that wonderful... but the effect they were looking for was achieved. Not only that, but the feel of the actual issue is that of a tabletop game (regardless of the fact that I do not like the D&D 4E rule system), and the actual module is included in the issue. It might not be the best cover art ever, or the best comic book of the week... but it certainly is the best issue gimmick of the week.
The Rundown: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Doom's eyes are colored incorrectly twice, inconsistent credit lettering), Batgirl V3 (Oracle's eyes should be blue, not green), Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne (Hal Jordan's badge is wrong, it should be "déjà vu" and not "dejà vu"), Birds Of Prey V3 (weird dialogue at one point), Dungeons & Dragons (the fantastic metal is "adamantine" or, more commonly in RPGs, "adamantite", not "adamanite"), G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (wrongly sized Cyrillic letters in the art), Invaders Now! (accented letters, Namor's eyes should be grey), Knights Of The Dinner Table ("Hat Of Opulent Lodging" becomes "Hat Of Opulant Loding"), New Mutants Forever (NOVA ROMA IS NOT IN THE FUCKING ANDES, CHRIS!!! YOU CREATED IT AND PLACED IT IN THE AMAZON JUNGLE!!!), R.E.B.E.L.S. (Psion computer monitor with English text), Shadowland: Daughters Of The Shadow (Misty Knight, a black woman, gets her eyes colored blue, and then green; none of those colors are correct for her eyes), Titans V2 (Batman's gloves are wrong, Ray Palmer is not blond and brown-eyed, Tattooed Man is Mark Richards, not "Richard"), X-Men Forever 2 (Genosha, even at the height of its power, could never be considered on par with the US; Lockheed's fangs shouldn't be that large).
<-------------------------------->
"BIG TIME DISSECTION."
TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel).
ISSUE: 648.
CULPRIT: Dan Slott (writer).
DISSECTION: Check this one out:
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Reed Richard's eyes are colored incorrectly on the cover, Michele Gonzales' eyes and skin are wrong too, "skeletal crew" is used instead of "skeleton crew", and Captain America's boots are colored red when they should be black.
<-------------------------------->
"BEAUTIFUL WORLD."
TITLE: The Avengers Prime (Marvel).
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer).
DISSECTION: Why would Thor refer to Jotunheim, land of his people's mortal enemies, as "that beautiful realm"?
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"OBJECTION!"
TITLE: Captain America V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 346.
CULPRIT: Mark Gruenwald (writer).
DISSECTION: An older one to pad out the column... Louis Hamilton, aka Stonewall is playing a lawyer in a mock trial for Quicksilver, and acts like a lumbering idiot, quoting "L.A. Law" for example... but the character is actually lawyer, something the late Gruenwald didn't bother to check.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"VOLUME, VOLUME."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: Various.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: I've referred to the current Captain America book as volume 1; but it's actually (technically) volume 2. I count volume numbers based on numbering; thus, books that have gone back to their previous numbering (like Captain America, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Superman, etc) count as "V1". In this case, the current Cap Book continues numbering from the Captain America book that picked up numbering from Tales Of Suspense (as Thor did with Journey Into Mystery, for example).
The original book was Captain America Comics, published starting in 1941 by Timely/Atlas (and then Complete Photo Story, and Marjean Magazine), running up to issue 75 (that issue and the previous one were actually cover titled Captain America's Weird Tales). In 1954, however, Atlas published issues 76 through 78 of "Captain America", continuing the previous' book numbering, and portraying the "Commie Smasher" Captain America that was later retconned into being the crazy "Steve Roger" guy. Atlas, Timely, etc, are all effectively considered Marvel, and in any case, with Captain America I'd consider volumes from other companies as I've done with characters like Blue Beetle. So, to sum up, the current Captain America series is V2, if only because of the three 50s issues.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"GALACTIC CIVIL RIGHTs."
TITLE: Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (DC).
ISSUE: 04.
CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer).
DISSECTION: Guy Gardner and other lanterns break into a torture (sorry, interrogation) chamber in Daxam to confront Sodam Yat's father (who's doing the interrogating), and he threatens them that he's going to submit a "GOTG-22" and "have" Guy's ring. What? The Guardians do not subject the Green Lantern Corps to complaints and overseeing by the worlds they patrol and protect; in fact, that's been a major plot point in books like L.E.G.I.O.N., R.E.B.E.L.S., Darkstars, etc, etc.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, GL badges on Kilowog and Guy Gardner are wrong, and Guy's is positioned too low on his jacket.
<-------------------------------->
This time we returned to an average within the usual parameters, 6.4 Bazzars in thirty seven dissections. Moments Of The Week! First up, a prepared nerd is a surviving nerd:
SHAZAM! Next, some D&D characters have their priorities straight:
That sounds like something out of the mouth of some players I know... Still within D&D, you've got to have cooperation from the local law:
That's helpful! And last, don't sass Tesla!
Nine crackers. Precisely nine. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jarvis is an Avenger. He is as much an Avenger as any of us." Steve Rogers, Avengers Assemble, The Oral History Of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Chapter 12, The New Avengers V2 #6.
Still playing that game of "ketchup", here's the column for books released on 11/10. Last column's DT! was cracked by JohnnyDoe, who spotted that Bucky's Tommy gun ammo drum is in a ridiculous angle regarding the rest of the gun. Badge for you, Johnny.
Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week... Best Book Of The Week was Atomic Robo And The Deadly Art Of Science #1. Not only do we get to see "teenage" Robo having adventures with a mystery man of his universe (in what's probably the late 20s or early 30s), but we see some of his father/son dynamic with Tesla himself. You all know how much I love this book. Worst Book Of The Week was Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne #6, last issue of this poor miniseries. Not only Grant Morrison's plot makes no sense, mistaking chaotic storytelling for innovation, but they couldn't even have one artist do all the pages (much like the previous issue). On top of that, the release timing is bad, because it comes out after all the (also horrible) "Road Home" one-shots with the "Insider" crap...
Cover Of The Week is from Dungeons & Dragons #1 (by IDW); with art by Tyler Walpole and production work by someone uncredited, to make it look like an old school gaming module. Yeah, I admit it, I liked this because of a novelty issue; the actual cover art isn't that wonderful... but the effect they were looking for was achieved. Not only that, but the feel of the actual issue is that of a tabletop game (regardless of the fact that I do not like the D&D 4E rule system), and the actual module is included in the issue. It might not be the best cover art ever, or the best comic book of the week... but it certainly is the best issue gimmick of the week.The Rundown: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Doom's eyes are colored incorrectly twice, inconsistent credit lettering), Batgirl V3 (Oracle's eyes should be blue, not green), Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne (Hal Jordan's badge is wrong, it should be "déjà vu" and not "dejà vu"), Birds Of Prey V3 (weird dialogue at one point), Dungeons & Dragons (the fantastic metal is "adamantine" or, more commonly in RPGs, "adamantite", not "adamanite"), G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (wrongly sized Cyrillic letters in the art), Invaders Now! (accented letters, Namor's eyes should be grey), Knights Of The Dinner Table ("Hat Of Opulent Lodging" becomes "Hat Of Opulant Loding"), New Mutants Forever (NOVA ROMA IS NOT IN THE FUCKING ANDES, CHRIS!!! YOU CREATED IT AND PLACED IT IN THE AMAZON JUNGLE!!!), R.E.B.E.L.S. (Psion computer monitor with English text), Shadowland: Daughters Of The Shadow (Misty Knight, a black woman, gets her eyes colored blue, and then green; none of those colors are correct for her eyes), Titans V2 (Batman's gloves are wrong, Ray Palmer is not blond and brown-eyed, Tattooed Man is Mark Richards, not "Richard"), X-Men Forever 2 (Genosha, even at the height of its power, could never be considered on par with the US; Lockheed's fangs shouldn't be that large).
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"BIG TIME DISSECTION."
TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel).
ISSUE: 648.
CULPRIT: Dan Slott (writer).
DISSECTION: Check this one out:
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Reed Richard's eyes are colored incorrectly on the cover, Michele Gonzales' eyes and skin are wrong too, "skeletal crew" is used instead of "skeleton crew", and Captain America's boots are colored red when they should be black.
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"BEAUTIFUL WORLD."
TITLE: The Avengers Prime (Marvel).
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer).
DISSECTION: Why would Thor refer to Jotunheim, land of his people's mortal enemies, as "that beautiful realm"?
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"OBJECTION!"
TITLE: Captain America V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 346.
CULPRIT: Mark Gruenwald (writer).
DISSECTION: An older one to pad out the column... Louis Hamilton, aka Stonewall is playing a lawyer in a mock trial for Quicksilver, and acts like a lumbering idiot, quoting "L.A. Law" for example... but the character is actually lawyer, something the late Gruenwald didn't bother to check.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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"VOLUME, VOLUME."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: Various.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: I've referred to the current Captain America book as volume 1; but it's actually (technically) volume 2. I count volume numbers based on numbering; thus, books that have gone back to their previous numbering (like Captain America, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Superman, etc) count as "V1". In this case, the current Cap Book continues numbering from the Captain America book that picked up numbering from Tales Of Suspense (as Thor did with Journey Into Mystery, for example).
The original book was Captain America Comics, published starting in 1941 by Timely/Atlas (and then Complete Photo Story, and Marjean Magazine), running up to issue 75 (that issue and the previous one were actually cover titled Captain America's Weird Tales). In 1954, however, Atlas published issues 76 through 78 of "Captain America", continuing the previous' book numbering, and portraying the "Commie Smasher" Captain America that was later retconned into being the crazy "Steve Roger" guy. Atlas, Timely, etc, are all effectively considered Marvel, and in any case, with Captain America I'd consider volumes from other companies as I've done with characters like Blue Beetle. So, to sum up, the current Captain America series is V2, if only because of the three 50s issues.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"GALACTIC CIVIL RIGHTs."
TITLE: Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (DC).
ISSUE: 04.
CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer).
DISSECTION: Guy Gardner and other lanterns break into a torture (sorry, interrogation) chamber in Daxam to confront Sodam Yat's father (who's doing the interrogating), and he threatens them that he's going to submit a "GOTG-22" and "have" Guy's ring. What? The Guardians do not subject the Green Lantern Corps to complaints and overseeing by the worlds they patrol and protect; in fact, that's been a major plot point in books like L.E.G.I.O.N., R.E.B.E.L.S., Darkstars, etc, etc.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, GL badges on Kilowog and Guy Gardner are wrong, and Guy's is positioned too low on his jacket.
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This time we returned to an average within the usual parameters, 6.4 Bazzars in thirty seven dissections. Moments Of The Week! First up, a prepared nerd is a surviving nerd:
SHAZAM! Next, some D&D characters have their priorities straight:
That sounds like something out of the mouth of some players I know... Still within D&D, you've got to have cooperation from the local law:
That's helpful! And last, don't sass Tesla!
Nine crackers. Precisely nine. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
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