The Dissector #198.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

04-06 "(...) that's the great thing about being evil. Good is ever-vigilant because good never knows when evil will strike. Evil, on the other hand, always knows when it's going to strike, so evil can afford to take a couple of days off." Abyss I, Abyss: Family Issues #2.

04-13 "You lack protocol. "Imperius Rex" is generally reserved for before battle is joined." Namor, Uncanny X-Men #535.

04-20 "This has gone on long enough! I've got a reality-devouring elder beast to get to. You, sir, are in the way! En garde!" Darkwing Duck, Darking Duck #11.

04-27 "Getting to kick Logan in the face is definitely silver lining." Spider-Man, X-Men V3 #10.

Trying to get these out of the way so I can regain my regular posting rhythm (although I'm considering going monthly), this is the column for the month of April. On another matter, but still within the subject of change, I've launched Clockwork Chap, my own venture for freelance writing, comic book lettering, sound editing, minor graphic design, etc... Studio Robota is still the label for my projects with my bro Endriago, but since The Dissector is my own baby, it'll be under the banner of Clockwork Chap. So go to Facebook, and like it! Last column's DT! was cracked by Sydney: with Parallax again inside the GL Central Battery, their rings are again ineffective on yellow stuff... so how was Hal carrying Sinestro's ring within an energy globe? But Syd hasn't been reading the GL books, so he just took a guess. Still, he got it right.

Let's go with the Picks for each week. Cover Of The Week of 04-06 was that nice Robotman piece from Doom Patrol #21 by Matthew Clark, Serge Lapointe, and Guy Major. I just liked it. Best Book this week was Uncanny X-Men #534.1, Kieron Gillen's debut as UXM writer is off to a great start, with an excellent showcase for Magneto and why he's with the X-Men. Art by Carlos Pacheco is certainly up to the task, as the veteran artist certainly knows his X-Men. Worst Book was the JLA 80-Page Giant 2011... Adam Glass writes a completely non-compelling tale of several JLA members (and not, since Lobo, Etrigan, and Ragman are there, for example) wading through different circles of infernal punishment in one of those Satanus-Blaze-whoever bi-monthly-fight-for-control of-whatever-passes-for-some-version-of-Hell but-is-not-actually-Hell comics; and it doesn't even make sense, since while I can see how Oracle and Booster Gold can be in the "gluttony" circle, since one craves information and the other fame and glory; but why are Supergirl and Wonder Woman in the "lust" one? Or Zatanna and John Stewart in "treachery"? Not to mention the bland and inconstant art by Scott McDaniel, with inexpressive faces, weird poses, detail-light group shots where characters wear costumes belonging to others or Batman wears long shorts over his tights; and having Zatanna look Asian or Supergirl look like a forty-year old Bette Middler... add to that lettering, continuity, and coloring mistakes (which don't make the column now, but do detract from quality), and I wonder how editors greenlight these things. Best Book for the Week of 04/13 was Black Panther: Man Without Fear #517, David Liss tells a fast-paced, yet very detailed urban vigilante story, with relatable characters. Not to mention Francesco Francavilla's pulp-styled art, which I'll certainly miss from Liss's upcoming continuation series, Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive. Worst Book was Secret Warriors #26... for the last fifteen issues this books has been the perfect example of a book where a lot happens, yet nothing is really happening. Writer Jonathan Hickman weaves interesting conspiracies and comes up with fun pseudoscientific concepts, but in Secret Warriors, as well as in S.H.I.E.L.D., nothing actually happens, nothing at least that couldn't be told in a quarter of the pages used. Fantastic Four and now FF are not far behind in this style of Hickman's, but at least there I care about the characters. But back to Secret Warriors, Alessandro Vitti's art is not bad, not at all, but it does nothing for me. Mike Del Mundo draws this Hollywood Thor variant cover for Uncanny X-Force #7, which I liked over the rest of the covers that week.

Cover for the Week of 04/20 was this nice Hellblazer #278 by Simon Bisley... while I don't care much for the thicker, rougher face he's giving Constantine these days, this cover is the perfect amalgam of magic and grit that a Hellblazer book should have. Best Book for this week was X-Factor #219, just like the month before, Peter David and Emanuela Lupacchino headline a creative team that weave a series where a lot is happening all the time, yet you don't feel lost; and there's a good balance of action and character development/interaction. Worst Book of the Week is Avengers #12... just can't find what's good about this story arc. It's not that Bendis' writing being decompressed; one should expect that from him, but it's just not enjoyable this time around. And Romita's art is weak, uninspired, taking the blockiness and thick lines that are part of his trademark to an extreme where it's unappealing. Best Book of the week of 04/27 was Star Wars: Legacy - War #5, the end of the miniseries. Again, a bit rushed, but it was still very enjoyable, and it leaves you wanting more of this Star Wars era. Worst book this week was Justice Society of America #50. Too much of a jumble of new characters (both new to the book and new in general) that haven't gotten enough time, making you feel as if a couple of dozen pages of story between the last couple of issues and this one has been edited out. Cover for the week is from Warlord Of Mars #6, again by Joe Jusko. He paints a beautiful and alluring, yet obviously exotic woman.

And now, the dissections!
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"SCIENCE IN ACTION."

TITLE: Action Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 900.

CULPRIT: Paul Cornell (writer).

DISSECTION: This might look like one of the minor mistakes I might have to keep out of the new column format... but calling "nanobots" "nanobytes" is something that I can't condone.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"CLASSIFIED."

TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 327.

CULPRIT: David Michelinie (writer).

DISSECTION: From my Vault, and 1989 comes an issue from the Acts Of Vengeance crossover... Magneto lands in Central Park, and a New Yorker mocks him with a "Halloween ain't for two weeks!". Well, I might concede that back then, Magneto wasn't as well known to the general public as he is now... but how many times has New York been invaded by supervillains? And you're gonna mock some guy in costume? He flies and wears a suit of armor, actually, and you mock him?

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"FLASH SURPRISE."

TITLE: The Flash V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

DISSECTION: Barry Allen, the fastest man alive, the man who's lived in the future, fought mythological gods and space aliens, met his comic book hero after who he called himself the Flash, and has more than likely seen a lot of things, including parallel world versions of himself... finds it strange to meet a future or parallel version of himself?

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Please!
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"CLASSIFIED."

TITLE: JLA Classified (DC).

ISSUE: 30.

CULPRIT: Kilian Plunkett (artist).

DISSECTION: From 2006 comes this DT!, check it out:


DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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Seeing that I had to fish in the Vault, and what I have filed for May, and for the two weeks of June already gone by, I'm going to have to do one more change to the column: it's going to be monthly now. I hope you'll still enjoy it, and I'm certain I'll be able to keep up. This column's average was 7 Bazzars in four dissections. Four! Yeah, monthly is the way to go.

Now, the Moments for each week... From 04/06, Vader shows us his dance moves:


Well, he's actually jumping off of a landed shuttle, but it's not the best depiction of that kind of movement. Next, from the best book of the week, Magneto saves San Francisco:


I know it looks like he's actually attacking it, but trust me, he's saving people. From 04/13, only one moment... the true purpose of the Colossus of Rhodes:


Fighting giant robots and monsters! Now, speaking of giant robots, and from 04/20, Darkwing Duck knows how to fight them too:


Of course, you fence with them using petrified spies! And for the end of this column, three moments from 04/27. First, who's back in the DCU?


John Constantine. You don't wanna be his friend, trust me. Then, both Booster and Beetle set Max Lord and his OMAC straight:


Give 'em hell, boys! And last, how do you make the Planet of the Apes?


You give the apes some zeppelins! Yeah! That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

PS: You can still get in your votes for the Autopsy Awards.

While I prepare the column with the last three weeks of February (yes, I'm AWFULLY late, I know), here's The Rundown for those weeks: Abyss: Family Issues (accented letter), Adventure Comics V1 (Night Girl's hair should be black, not brown), The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (ñ, a loose quotation mark), Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis (Beast looks wrong, Storm's eyes are not white when she's not using her powers, Jaspers is no "boy" or "adolescent"), Astonishing X-Men V2 ("past" ancestors... how do you get "future ancestors"? Well, this IS Marvel...), The Avengers V4 (inconsistent credit and upcoming features lettering), B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth: Gods (internal issue numbering), Batman (Enigma's eyes and Riddler's hair are colored incorrectly), Birds Of Prey V3 (Dove's agility is not mentioned in her powers), Booster Gold V2 (Rip Hunter's eyes and hair are wrong), Brightest Day (Aqualad shouldn't have calf fins), Captain America V2 (Black Widow's eyes should be green), DC Universe: Legacies (the effin' timeline; Spark gets called "Spark" and then "Sparks", Hal's badge is wrong, and his boots are white on another page), Doom Patrol V5 (Rita's eyes are colored incorrectly, two different word balloons point to wrong characters, Scandal's eye are also miscolored), Fantastic Four V1 (Danielle Cage should not look like she's three months old), Generation Hope (Shadowcat's eyes shouldn't be blue, Gabriel's eyes are brown first, then blue), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (badges), Green Lantern Corps V2 (Ganthet has blank eyes at one point... for no reason), Heroes For Hire V3 (Baby Cage again, "personalitied" is not a real word), Iron Siege (if you use translation brackets, don't leave untranslated words inside... and a Sergeant would never be the "CO" of a military unit... in charge, yes, but never "CO", and the unit is too small to be just the "101st Airborne"), Justice League: Generation Lost (Guy Gardner's eyes are wrong), Justice League Of America V2 ("Los Grandes Nombres" is not the right translation for "The Big Names"), Legion Of Super-Heroes V6 (Dawnstar's skin, eyes and powers), Namor: The First Mutant (Doom's eyes are colored wrong, so are Namor's, some Atlanteans have red eyes for no reason, and the logomancer is still Caucasian, with no explanation), The New Avengers V2 (Wanda's eyes should be blue, inconsistent credit lettering), Onslaught Unleashed (Beast looks wrong, accented letter), Outsiders V3 (Grace and Geo-Force have the wrong eye colors), Power Man And Iron Fist (numerous language errors, both in writing and lettering, an incorrect description of Power Man's power), Red Robin (accented letters), Spider-Girl V2 (Anya's skin should not be dark), Star Wars: Legacy - War (an incorrectly italicized word, an incorrectly spelled word in Huttese), T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (two accents that are almost horizontal lines), Teen Titans V3 (a misplaced question mark), Ultimate Spider-Man (Cairo looks nothing like it does here, Tony Stark's eyes are colored incorrectly), Uncanny X-Force (Wolverine's eyes should be blue), Uncanny X-Men (accented letter), The Unwritten (accented letters), Warlord Of Mars (it's either "Uncle Jack" or "Captain John", not "Captain Jack", and "the" is spelled "they" in a text), Widowmaker (wrong eye color for the former Red Guardian, and the first issue of Blind Spot is announced for the wrong date), X-Factor V3 (Layla and Madrox's eyes are colored incorrectly, and Layla calls Madrox her "fiancée" at one point, accented letter), X-Men: To Serve And Protect (accented letter), X-Men Legacy (accented letters).

Creator sighting!

Chris Batista thanked me on Facebook for Booster Gold V2 #39 being best book of the week.

The Dissector #190.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

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

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

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

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

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 189.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

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

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

TITLE: The Flash V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).

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

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

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

ISSUE: 05.

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

DISSECTION: Sidney points out three errors in this issue:

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

* "as wellas"in the Marvel Apes entry.

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

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

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

ISSUE: One-shot.

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

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

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

TITLE: X-Men V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: Annual "#1" (2007).

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).

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

Anyway, here's a DT!

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

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel)

ISSUE: 12.

CULPRIT: Rodney Buchemi (penciller).

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

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

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


And as a finale, something that made me laugh:

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

THE DISSECTOR!

The Dissector #188.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"But it's World War Two! I want to beat up Nazis!" Booster Gold, protesting the unfairness of time travel, Booster Gold V2 #38.

This should be the column for comics released on 11/24; but I haven't received many of those books yet because of Thanksgiving, and I've read some past date, but recent books, recent enough to include them in this column instead of sending them to the Vault. I also didn't want to lag too much behind, to have this column run too late; since I have gotten, and read, most of my books for the first week of December.

Before going into the column proper, I want to remind you that the 2010 Autopsy Awards are coming up; and sometime within the first two weeks of January you'll have the nominees to vote for. But I want you to send me some suggestions for special awards. 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. You can e-mail me at lordmagnusen (at) gmail (dot) com, or leave comments in upcoming columns.

Okay then, let's get on with the column itself, with last column's DT!. It was solved by Donald313; who noticed (after several tries) that the editor's note referred to "Superman #84", without specifying that it was Superman V2, not V1 (which was from 1953). Badge for Donald. I'll get the Dissector's Picks Of The Week out of the way quickly... Best Book Of The Week was The Amazing Spider-Man #649. While Humberto Ramos' art is not my favorite, it fits Spider-Man, and Dan Slott has a good handle on Peter and his cast. Worst Book Of The Week was Batman And Robin #17, with Paul Cornell's writing being a poor follow-up to what was Grant Morrison's best contribution to the current Batman books; and Scott McDaniel's blocky, cartoony art not being a good fit for the look this title had up to now. While I'm at it, check out the cover of the week; is from Avengers Vs. Pet Avengers #2, and by Ig Guara and (I believe colors are his) Chris Sotomayor. I love how Lockheed is all defiant and in Fing Fang Foom's face.

The Rundown: Action Comics (Scandal Savage's eyes are colored incorrectly), Angel (Connor's eyes should be blue, not green), Chaos War: Chaos King (Reed Richard's eyes shouldn't be blue), Chaos War: Dead Avengers (Deathcry refers to people as "hairy mammals", when she's been drawn very hairy, instead of "feathery", since she is a Shi'ar; Swordsman couldn't have been in Vietnam right after the war, two cedillas are the wrong size, and Swordsman's eyes change color), G.I. Combat V2 (accented letter), G.I. Joe: Future Noir Special (accented letter), Hercules: Twilight Of A God (Galactus' original name is "Galan", not "Galen"), Ides Of Blood ("he gods" instead of "the gods"), Jurassic Park (wrong Spanish, a word balloon is cut off, there's no way a normal person can knock someone out with a piece of amber thrown at the head, and Ludlow was Hammond's nephew, not his niece's husband), Our Army At War V2 ("solider" instead of "soldier"), Secret Avengers (a small cedilla), Shadowland: Power Man (small "ñ"), Taskmaster V2 (translated German inside brackets still in German, accented letters), Uncanny X-Force (Rachel Summer's hair in one photo is colored wrong, Psylocke's eyes are wrong), Welcome To Tranquility: One Foot In The Grave ("my" instead of "by"), X-Men: Phoenix Force Handbook ("Corps" instead of "Captain Britain Corps", and "Bran" Braddock).
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"BIG SECOND TIME DISSECTION."

TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 649.

CULPRIT: Dan Slott (writer).

DISSECTION: Come on, work on this one:


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"LEGACY OF TIMELESNESS."

TITLE: DC Universe Legacies (DC).

ISSUE: 07 of 12.

CULPRIT: Len Wein (writer).

DISSECTION: Oh, so the guy who was alive in the 1940s is about 40 when Barbara Gordon was shot by the Joker? And when Superman fought Doomsday? And when Batman was broken by Bane? Yeah, sure.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, John Stewart's fully becoming Green Lantern and Bane breaking Batman were not at the same time; Bane did not break Batman in public; Jean-Paul Valley never wore a regular batman costume with his clawed, spike shooting gloves; and who in their sane mind would send two detectives to shoot at Doomsday when he's fighting Superman's in downtown Metropolis; after it was plain obvious that no conventional weapons affected him?
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"I CARRY A BADGE."

TITLE: Detective Comics (DC).

ISSUE: 871.

CULPRIT: Scott Snyder (writer) and/or Francesco Francavilla (penciller).

DISSECTION: Commissioner Gordon has his badges on a "Father's Day" display Barbara gave him; and he has (last to first) his Commissioner badge, his Captain one, his Detective Lieutenant shield, all of those from Gotham, and then his Chicago Detective and Officer badges... but he should have a GCPD badge as his first one, because he started out as a cop in Gotham, and then was transferred to Chicago because he messed with Gotham's corrupt cops. In fact, recent stories have shown that to be still in continuity.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Maybe Babs didn't want to remind him of that first part of his career.
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"ACTUALLY DISSECTION."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 186.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: Donald313 noticed I wrote "but the character is actually lawyer". Another badge for Don.

DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
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"99 PROBLEMS BUT A BURQUA AIN'T ONE."

TITLE: Justice League Of America/The 99 (DC/Teshkeel).

ISSUE: 02 of 06.

CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza & Stuart Moore (writers).

DISSECTION: Why is Doctor Light complaining about feeling useless while the Atom, Flash, and two members of The 99 are performing a medical examination on another 99 member? She's a medical doctor, among many specialties, and one of the DCU's foremost experts in metahuman biology (along with Dr. Mid-Nite); she should be leading the procedure. It gets even more ridiculous when Barry Allen starts "performing incisions"... he's a scientist, but he's not a surgeon by any stretch.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, on the first issue, during the fight with the new Madmen, a giant cork appears out of nowhere...
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"JUSTICE IS GERMAN FOR GERECHTIGKEIT."

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 45.

CULPRIT: Marc Guggenheim (writer).

DISSECTION: "Scythe" is not, and will never be "German for 'Drachen'"; for a couple of reasons. First, "scythe" is not a German word, the German word for "scythe" is "Sense". Second, "Drachen" is a word in German, it is the plural for "Drache", which means "dragon". What the heck was Guggenheim trying to say here?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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"TO PERPETUATED."

TITLE: New Mutants V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 19.

CULPRIT: Jake Thomas (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor), Nick Lowe (editor).

DISSECTION: The cover bills this as the conclusion to the current story arc, but there seems to be one issue more to go, and the issue ends with "to be continued". What the...?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Also, there's an accented letter that's too small.
<-------------------------------->
"ULTIMATE SUPER FUCK UP."

TITLE: Ultimate Spider-Man (Marvel).

ISSUE: 150.

CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer), many others.

DISSECTION: So, they took up the numbering from the previous volume, that's good. This celebratory issue a long original story, or rather stories, as they were vignettes joined by an overarching topic, and it was a good read. Then there's the reprint of the 60-page Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special; from 2002.

While there are a couple of minor errors in the new stories; the real problem is with the reprint. It's pointless, and its pointlessness worsens the impact of the errors it contains. Now, this is from the early years of the Ultimate line, and some things are forgivable, such as the Black Widow being considered a hero (she didn't become a traitor until much later); or the more shocking fact that Reed Richards is shown to be a middle-aged man, and married to Sue; and an image of the classic, even Kirby-esque Fantastic Four. Yes, the Ultimate Fantastic Four weren't actually introduced until later (2004), so in the original context, this was forgivable, but it's blatantly ridiculous as a reprint. Still, I cannot count these details in a reprint (despite no note beyond a title in the credit page with the name indicating it's an old story) as dissections, it wouldn't be fair. But I do question the intelligence on reprinting something as part of a current continuity book (making up most of the issue, not just a small backup story), when it flies in the face of what was later established.

What I can do is focus on all the fuck ups that were committed in that special that were wrong at the moment it was published (and I wasn't doing the column). Elektra's sai shouldn't draw blood from Peter's hand gripping the shaft (SAI DO NOT HAVE EDGES OR POINTY-POINTS), Elektra's feet are clad in red booties, and in one panel one foot is flesh colored; the Thing is given brown eyes, one portrayal of Nick Fury shows his Ultimate version but another one shows him as the 616 white man; a dialogue says "haveto", and Gwen Stacy's eyes are colored incorrectly.

But the worse fuck ups are in the framing sequence for the special's story. A teacher (a white, elderly lady) tells Peter's class (which in that scene consists of like seven students) that they have to do an oral presentation choosing a superhero or a villain, telling something about themselves as that hero, etc, etc, etc. Before that, Peter struggles with his role as a hero, and after the assignment is given, he describes what defines heroes; and different artists draw each scene (hence the two different Nick Furies, or the two different depictions of the FF).

But before Peter gives his presentation; we go back to the school (now it looks like a regular-sized class) and we see Kong (one of Ultimate Peter's classmates) giving his own presentation about the Punisher... and he's criticized by Gwen for choosing Frank Castle, who's a homicidal maniac... something the teacher supports; saying that the Punisher is not a hero. Problem is, the assignment is given as "good or bad guy"; so Kong's selection was not wrong. Oh, and you know what the other problem is? THE TEACHER IS NOW A YOUNG BLACK WOMAN!!!!!!

I'm willing to give the change of teacher a low rating, first because both scenes are done by different artists and it's not their fault (but Bendis or the editor should have made sure there was a description of the teacher on both script pages), and because maybe, just maybe, the assignment could be received by a different teacher (substitutes, etc). Still, failing Kong on his presentation because he chose the Punisher is not an acceptable plot twist, because Bendis is writing the whole story himself, and even if the teacher is different and she misunderstood the original assignment, students in the classroom or Kong himself should have said so. You know what I call this? Sloppiness. They churned out a Special in 2002 to cash in, and reprinted the piece of crap in this book to make it thicker and charge more; when it adds absolutely nothing to the current storyline or the anniversary.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars for the writing error, various lower ratings for the rest.
<-------------------------------->
"FULL BRAIN MORONS."

TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).

ISSUE: 530.

CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).

DISSECTION: A virus is affecting mutants, and Dr. Kavita Rao says that those mutants with "full body physiognomies" are the ones who are suffering the worst. You probably meant "physiologies", Matt, as in "physiology", the science that studies the functioning of a living organism; and is commonly used to refer to the living organism as a system. "Physiognomy" means "the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face". Quite different, isn't it?

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"FLAMING."

TITLE: X-Men Legacy (Marvel).

ISSUE: 242.

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer) and/or Paul Davidson (penciller).

DISSECTION: Why the fuck does a baseball thrown by Anole become a flaming curveball? He doesn't have the strength for something like that, even if it made sense, and this is not a cartoony story...

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, Psylocke's start out wrong and change color to the right one, while Magneto's alias is written "Eric Lensherr", when it should be "Erik Lehnsherr".
<-------------------------------->
Just 6.4 Bazzars as an average in fifty-eight dissections? Lower than I expected... the four 10-point dissections didn't factor as much as I expected them to, but it's logical when they're less than seven percent of the total dissections. Alright then, Moments Of The Week, the few and the proud. First up, who said scientists didn't have poetry in their souls?


You show them, Dr. Honeydew! And now, the ultimate minion:


REDSHIRT!!! Bwa-hah-hah!!! And for a finale, something that's definitely a tail to a tale; and en to a... well, see for yourself:


Dazzler is kind enough as to wear a costume that points to her... well... yeah. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

The Dissector #182.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"''Smoking while pregnant may seriously harm your baby's health'' I make a point of only buying packets with this warning... I figure the odds are it won't affect me. Though with my lifestyle, I can't rule it out." John Constantine, Hellblazer: City Of Demons #1.

Eventually, I will catch up... but not right now. Here's the column for comics released on 10/13 (mostly), so let's get on with it. Last column's DT!, or at least the gist of it, was cracked by Donald313... the problem is that the timeline in that Fantastic Four scene didn't fit. The problem is with the sliding timescale. The Fantastic Four got their powers at most 15 years ago; so if you make this 20 years ago, having Sue be 19 then and 39 now (a big stretch, because she shouldn't be 39, in Marvel's terms), sound files being something so outlandish would be stupid. There were other sound file formats in 1990; not mp3s exactly yet, at least not yet public; but the tech has existed for a long time... plus, they're wearing bell bottoms... both of them... I mean, you could have just worded the scene differently to achieve the same result, without fucking up continuity, know what I mean?

Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are the following: Best Book Of The Week was Iron Man Legacy #7; good script by Fred Van Lente, nice art by Steve Kurth. I enjoy seeing The Pride in action, and Iron Man building himself up from his own broken pieces. Worst Book Of The Week? Well, Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Outsiders... geez, this series of one-shots is a failure. Bruce Wayne wearing power armor? The armor doesn't even have consistent powers or limits across the different one-shots; and how could anyone who knows Bruce be unable to notice it's him in that "Insider" suit? FOR GOD'S SAKE, HE'S GOT BAT-BLADES IN HIS GLOVES, A YELLOW UTILITY BELT, AND EVEN SORT-OF-BATARANGS!!! Worst of all, having read all the books now; only Katana, Oracle, and R'as notice on their own? Yes, the others suspect something, but Dick would notice faster than any of the others... The Outsiders book in particular has very bad art, and the writing, like in the rest of this series, leaves a lot to be desired.

The Rundown: The Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Black Cat (writer and editors retracted themselves from this, but in previous issues they'd referred as Felicia Hardy's dad as "The Cat", when he never used that or any codename... except, and they didn't mention this, in the Spider-Man animated series of the 90s...), Angel Vs. Frankenstein II ("incnetive" cover?), B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth New World (why announce a new numbering if you keep the old?), Booster Gold V2 (Zamarons are not yellow-skinned humans... not even before revealing their true shape), Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Catwoman (Selina's eyes are colored incorrectly), Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Outsiders (all signs and writing in Markovia is in English), Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Batman And Robin ("niow" instead of "now"), Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Batgirl (Damian is not a public member of the Wayne family, he shouldn't be making public appearances with them), Captain America: Forever Allies (inconsistent lettering in the "next month" page), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (wrong badges and rings), Incredible Hulks (Beast looks wrong), Iron Man: Titanium! (accented letters), JSA 80-Page Giant 2010 (several costume and hair and eye coloring errors), Shadowland (someone should teach artists how sai are gripped), Spike: The Devil You Know (San "Fransisco"?), Strange Tales II (Wolverine's eyes should be blue, not brown), Superman V1 (Perry's eyes are colored wrong), Titans V2 (I understand giving Ray Palmer blue eyes, even though they should be brown... but blond hair? Also, Arsenal's eyes are wrong, and Batman's belt and gloves), Untold Tales Of Blackest Night (Hal's badge, and... since when is Donna Troy Cassie Sandsmark's mentor?), Warlord Of Mars (the writer can't keep the names of the Martian characters right), X-Men V3 (sai grip, dammit, sai grip).
<-------------------------------->
"SHOW ME THE SHAPE OF YOUR... TRACER."

TITLE: Bruce Wayne: The Road Home - Red Robin (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza (writer) and/or Ramon Bachs (penciller).

DISSECTION: Not a bad issue; but nothing to write home about. My problem? The tracer Dick planted on Vicki Vale's bag was NOT shaped like a bat, yet now, for this series of one-shots, it is.

DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NEW DISSECTION FOREVER."

TITLE: New Mutants Forever (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Al Rio (penciller).

DISSECTION: So, what gives?


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"... THE SIZE OF MANHATTAN."

TITLE: New Mutants Forever (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: From the same man that gave us a Starjammer starship the size of Manhattan, and a coal-powered diesel train engine... now Warlock's made of "the primal substance of a star" and able to survive "temperatures hoter than the surface of the sun"??!?!?! Since when??!?!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Poppycock, Chris, poppycock. Also, there are several small accented letters, and I will NOT go with your "Nova Roma is in the Andes" idiocy, Chris.
<-------------------------------->
"THE UNWRITTEN CREATED BY MIKE CARREY AND PETER GROSE."

TITLE: The Unwritten (DC/Vertigo).

ISSUE: 18.

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).

DISSECTION: It's a story about writing and writers; and a journalist says "Hunter S. Thomson" instead of "Thompson"?

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'M A BEAST, I DON'T UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY."

TITLE: X-Campus (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Francesco Artibani (writer) or Luigi Mutti (translator).

DISSECTION: "Gigaterabytes of nanites"? What? You either have gigabytes, or terabytes... and nanites are physical nanobots; not information, data... which is what you measure in bytes.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars each. Beast also refers to "the Sanskrit", and Logan's eyes are colored incorrectly.
<-------------------------------->
"MEDICAL SCIENCE, WHO CARES?"

TITLE: X-Campus (Marvel).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Roberto Di Salvo (writer) or Luigi Mutti (translator).

DISSECTION: You can't have "anemic hemorrhage", you can have "hemorrhagic anemia". The term they used makes no medical sense.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
That's odd... despite several "10" ratings, the average was only 6.8 Bazzars in fifty dissections. Well, not important. Now, Cover Of The Week, from Tomb Of Terror, by Travel Foreman and Nathan Fairbairn:


Good job evoking the covers of those old horror books. Now, Moments Of The Week, first up Brainiac 5 does think of others:


Not too highly, but he does... Next, a robot with a sense of humor:


... and the correct laughter. Then, where is the Council Of The Spiders hiding?


My own backyard? Next, John Constantine, good neighbour:


He takes care of your mom! And Tony Stark...


pwnd! And who's Doctor Fate cribbin’ from?


Dr. Strange? Shame on you, Fate. And to finish this column, a peak at Kate Beaton's hilarious Spidery/Craven story for Strange Tales II:


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

THE DISSECTOR!

The Dissector #172.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

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

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

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

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

TITLE: Adventure Comics V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 516.

CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer).

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


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

TITLE: Birds Of Prey V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Ed Benes & Adriana Melo (pencillers).

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

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

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

ISSUE: 03.

CULPRIT: Paul Levitz (writer).

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

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

TITLE: Titans V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Eric Wallace (writer).

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

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

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

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).

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

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

TITLE: Hulk V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Jeph Loeb (writer).

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

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

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

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

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

ISSUE: 01 of 02.

CULPRIT: Jacopo Camagni (penciller).

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

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

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

ISSUE: 02 of 02.

CULPRIT: Zeb Wells (writer, chapter one).

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

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

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

ISSUE: 02 of 02.

CULPRIT: Terry Dodson (penciller, chapter four).

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

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

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03.

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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

THE DISSECTOR!

The Dissector #163.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"Hey, Potts... worry about global warming. Worry about health care in America. Worry about the California housing market. There's all sorts of great things to worry about. But I'm not one of them. This is what I do. And it's time to go to work." Tony Stark, Iron Man: Public Identity #3.

Welcome to another column, this time for books released on 05/12; plus, as usual, a straggler or two. Last week's DT! was the fact that Deadpool's skin was normal, and he looked like he was sewn up from different corpses, like Frankenstein's monster. Deadpool's skin is supposed to look all tumorous and rotten... even I know this, and you must remember I find the character boring and stupid, so I pay little attention to it. Not only that, but also, he shouldn't have any scars, except for his... skin condition, because of his healing factor. So both Donald313 and JD got it; well, Don only mentioned the scars, but still... badge for both.

The Dissector's Pick Of The Week are as follow: Best Book Of The Week was Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #10... Bendis still knows how to handle a teenaged Spider-Man, and he doesn't overdo the splash pages or the long dialogues; and David Lafuente's art is just perfect, simple, but expressive. Worst Book Of The Week? That crapfest Sentry: Fallen Sun. Even dead this two-dimensional, convoluted, lame character keeps being retconned into all of Marvel's characters past. It wasn't enough that he was best friends with Reed Richards and Bruce Banner, or that Thor danced with his mom at his wedding... now he had an affair with Rogue?

The Rundown: Action Comics (Alan Scott's ring is wrong, then there's an accented letter in a French newspaper that's wrong), Adventure Comics V1 (various hair, eyes, and costume mistakes), Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis (Beast looks wrong, Storm doesn't have a mohawk these days, her eyes shouldn't be white if she's not using her powers, and most important of all, since when does Emma Frost put on a fake British accent?), Batman (for the Nth time, the Riddler's hair should be black), Booster Gold V2 (the whole final "punch" of the issue is that Booster went into the future to the wrong date, but the writer messes up the dates in the conversation between Booster and Rip... thanks to Dante for the heads-up, even though I had noticed it already), Dark Avengers (Osborn's eyes), Fall of the Hulks: Gamma (I only noticed this while looking up some Betty Banner-Ross pictures, but they colored her eyes incorrectly in this issue from some time ago), Heroic Age: Prince Of Power (a Broxton woman brings food gathered by the locals to the ruins of Asgard, and Heimdall asks her "what is this "spam"" she speaks of... but she never mentions spam at all... though there are a few at the Asgardian's feet), Incredible Hulk (Doom's eyes are wrong), Iron Man Noir (Pepper's eyes are wrong), Iron Man: Public Identity (accented letter), Justice League: Generation Lost (Fire's last name is da Costa, not Dacosta, and Captain Atom's boots should be blue), The Marvels Project (Namor's ankle wings are again GIGANTIC), New Avengers Finale (Danielle Cage's eyes should be green), R.E.B.E.L.S. (Adam's strange L.E.G.I.O.N. emblem disappears for a page, and Captain Comet's eyes change color), Sentry: Fallen Sun (Dr. Strange's eyes are wrong), Titans: Villains For Hire (Ryan Choi's eyes change from brown, to blue, then to brown with a blue ring around his left eye), Web Of Spider-Man V2 (Jameson's eyes should be blue, and Michelle Gonzalez gets called "Michele", MJ's eyes should be green), X-Men Forever V2 (Beast eyes, accented letter).
<-------------------------------->
"PUSHER FOR HIRE."

TITLE: New Avengers: Luke Cage (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 03.

CULPRIT: Joe Sabino (letterer).

DISSECTION: Wow, Joe really did screw up on this one:


Cage talks like he's got people selling drugs? The villain who just attacked him says "it takes more than cats to hurt me"?!?!

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars each. There's also a small writing mistake ("teaching tool" instead of "a teaching tool"), and once again, Danielle Cage is drawn as a blond boy, instead of a black-haired girl.
<-------------------------------->
"I SWORE AN OATH TO... DO STUFF WITH CHEMICALS AND PEOPLE!"

TITLE: New Mutants V3 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 13.

CULPRIT: Zeb Wells (writer).

DISSECTION: In the midst of the Second Coming crisis; with Nightcrawler dead, and Karma loosing one of her legs, Beast, who had left Utopia, has come back to help. Cyclops tries to let him know how much he appreciates that, since Beast is angry at him for X-Force and stuff like... but Beast says that he's only there because his absence would do harm, and the Hippocratic Oath forbids him to cause harm.

Uhm... Wells, you do know beast has a doctorate in biochemistry, and that he's not actually a medical doctor, and therefore, has not sworn a Hippocratic Oath... right? Yes, it's been proposed that graduating scientists take an equivalent oath, but it's only been done in isolated teaching institutions, and only very recently.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. It's possible Beast is being sarcastic, since even not being a physician, he perform those duties regularly. Beast's eyes are colored incorrectly, and seven different characters have blank eyes for no discernible reason.
<-------------------------------->
"DT-FACTOR FOREVER."

TITLE: X-Factor Forever (Marvel).

ISSUE: 03 of 05.

CULPRIT: Louise Simonson (writer) and/or Dan Panosian (penciller).

DISSECTION: Check this out, it ought to be easy:


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars. Also, Trish Tilby's eyes are colored incorrectly.
<-------------------------------->
"~"

TITLE: Zorro Matanzas (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: Joseph Rybandt (editor).

DISSECTION: I was looking at the credits to see who the colorist was... and I noticed that colorist Sam Parsons has been credited in all issues for colors "& seperations". "Seperations"?

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Zorro's eye color is "seperated" incorrectly, and while letterer John Constanza made all Ñs right, he's obviously not using a font that has that letter, since he ended up writing "Senor" with a diacritic on top of the "e", which is absolutely perfect... if this was Guaraní, where such a letter exists.
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"!"

TITLE: Zorro (Dynamite).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Matt Wagner (writer).

DISSECTION: And of course, the piece of resistance. With a total of fifteen Spanish language (well, one is a French loan word in English) errors by Wagner, and fifteen lettering errors by Bowland, an even thirty dissections is something normal by now for a Zorro issue.

My new pet peeve? Wagner writes complete sentences or exclamations in Spanish, but uses only the closing exclamation point. And it's not that he's unaware that you need the opening one, because in a few other dialogues he does it right...

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each.
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We ended up with a 6.4 Bazzars average in eighty seven dissections; normal stuff. This column's Cover Of The Week is once again a Marvel cover, pretty standard stuff, but nice to look at:


Steve Epting does a stock WWII Torch/Toro cover, but it's nice to look at... and there wasn't anything breathtaking, cover-wise, this week. Now, Moments of The Week, just four... first up, a nice ending for Mon-El's saga in the present:


Of course, he has the whole future ahead of him... My only concern is that Mon-El has been shown as in his mid-20s, or at most, early 20s... and when the rest of the legionnaires shown, especially Superman, look like teenagers. Ah, nothing that can't be explained away by saying the Phantom Zone will make him look younger. Next up, Steve Rogers welcomes Osborn to The Raft:


Good one, Steve. Just wear an actual costume soon, please. Then, a SHOCKING reveal!!!


Please, like it was hard to guess Thunderbolt Ross was Red Hulk, and Betty Red She-Hulk. Then, let's finish with Peter Parker asking himself, hypothetical "Why do I hate Spider-Man?":


He's got plenty stuff to hate Spidey for... That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!