DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"Yes. I am Tesla and you are all Edison. Which means I'll die penniless & alone in a hotel room while obsessively counting my pubes." Warren Ellis, Backmater, Doktor Sleepless #10.
Well, second to last week of December, books out on 12/17. Last column's DT! was cracked by DrSilent, who correctly said that Green Arrow's original costume has red boots and gloves, unlike that flashback illustration I showed you. Before we get on with the rest of the column, let me tell you what The Dissector's Picks Of The Week were. Best Book Of The Week goes to Mighty Avengers #20; it was just a touching tribute to the Wasp, not one of my favorite characters, but a founding Avenger after all. Worst Book Of The Week was What If? Newer Fantastic Four, not because it was really bad, but because it was unnecessary... oh yeah, the art did suck.
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"GOOD GOING, HELENA."
TITLE: DC Universe Holiday Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer, Huntress story).
DISSECTION: Speech balloons get switched around, making the Huntress ask if a community service program run by herself is "Some sort of retarded helping program or something..."
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"OVERPOWERED, MUCH?"
TITLE: DC Universe Holiday Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Adam Schlagman (writer, Dr. Light story).
DISSECTION: You know, I'm all for suspension of disbelief and pseudoscience and all that, but... What the jiminy blazes is up with Shimmer transmuting Dr. Light's shield (made of, well, light...) into a mirror? Shimmer transmutes matter... MATTER. Not energy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"THE DISEECTOR."
TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 105.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: I hope this is my last self-dissection of the year... in fact, this shouldn't even count for 2008, because I posted #105 in 2009. Yeah, that's it. This is going into the 2009 Autopsy Awards files... What is it, you ask? Alex Maleev's HORRIBLE Namor had me seeing red, so I called the artist "Maalev". and Snakebyte (look kids, he's back! Good to have you back on board, Commodore-who-is-just-one-badge-away-from-being-a-Vice-Admiral!) noticed it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"NEW DISSECTIONS EXILED."
TITLE: New Exiles (Marvel).
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Mark Paniccia (editor) and/or Jordan D. White & Michael Horwitz (assistant editors).
DISSECTION: Never mind the fact that, somehow, Mystiq and Cat merge together... Morph is again the topic of this dissection. Apparently, they're cancelling this book in a couple of issues... as long as they don't relaunch it as All-New Exiles, that'd be too much...
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"TREKSSECTION."
TITLE: Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Last Generation (IDW).
ISSUE: 02 of 05.
CULPRIT: Andrew Steven Harris (writer).
DISSECTION: I was going to make a joke about how many colons these Star Trek titles have; but then I remembered that I neglected to comment on Majel Barret-Roddenberry's passing on my column. It's not comics, but it's part of our culture, and she was a driving force behind her late husband (Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry), as well as part of the franchise since the very beginning (she was the female first officer in the first Trek pilot; who had to be replaced because of network idiots thinking it was too avant garde), a character in the first show of the saga (Nurse Chapel); a great comic relief in TNG and DS9 (Lwaxanna Troi), and an ever-present voice in all Trek shows and movies (except for ENT), as the voice of the Starfleet computers. Godspeed, First Lady of Trek. Read more about her demise here.
Does it even matter what the dissection was, now? Well, I'll say it for the records: holographic life support. Right...
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, Data's eyes are colored incorrectly.
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"IS THAT SWAMPLAND CAMO OR DID YOU JUST GO POTTY IN YOUR PANTS?"
TITLE: Supergirl V6 (DC).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Sterling Gates (writer) and/or Jared K. Fletcher (letterer).
DISSECTION: Alura In-Ze (Supergirl's mother, in case you failed "Who's Who In Kryptonian Society") calls General Zod's men "soilders"... are those like soldiers who soil their pants?
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"I DON'T WANT TO CATCH ANY TANGENT GERMS."
TITLE: Tangent: Superman's Reign (DC).
ISSUE: 10 of 12.
CULPRIT: Kanila Tripp (colorist).
DISSECTION: When are artists and colorists going to learn that John Stewart doesn't wear gloves as part of his costume?!?!?
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars. Artist Carlo Magno also gets Guy Gardner's hair and costume wrong.
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"IT'S GEO-FORCE... YAY!"
TITLE: Terra (DC).
ISSUE: 04 of 04.
CULPRIT: Steve Wands (letterer, as Swands).
DISSECTION: Geo-Force's speech bubble points directly to a villain Richard Faulkner.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, Geo-Force's eyes are colored incorrectly. But who cares, it's Geo-Force.
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"UNCANNY DISSECTION."
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 505.
CULPRIT: Justin Ponsor (colorist).
DISSECTION: Look at this cover, and tell me what's wrong, color-wise:
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"I’M THE JAGANNĀTHA, BITCH!"
TITLE: X-Men: Legacy (Marvel).
ISSUE: 219.
CULPRIT: Cory Petit (letterer).
DISSECTION: Professor X refers to the Jagannātha, where the word juggernaut comes from, but the accented "A" is smaller than the rest of the letters.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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"CONCHITA VENEZUELA MARIANA OXIGENADA FERNANDEZ RODRIGUEZ ESTEVEZ DE LOS PALOTES Y SANTA CECILIA... A SU SERVICIO!"
TITLE: Zorro (Dynamite).
ISSUE: 09.
CULPRIT: Matt Wagner (writer).
DISSECTION: I'm willing to overlook weird names that don't really fit Spanish characters, like "Immaculata", or "Pasquale"; but the last name "de la Pulido" is just plain wrong. And there's tons of other Spanish language mistakes in this issue, as usual... nineteen more in fact.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. Please Matt Wagner, STOP raping the Spanish language!!! It's painful!!!
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Column comes to a closing with a 6.6 Bazzars average on thirty-four dissections (thanks to Zorro up there). Before you leave, check out the Moments Of The Week, for there were plenty: First up, Crusader's story was heroic and touching... but that didn't make a difference to 3-D Man, did it?
... but not everything is lost when you wear a ring made out of a Cosmic Cube sliver:
This can be trouble, don't you think? Next up, Superman, pimpmastah!
What's Supes about to do with two underage (or at least, very young) heroines while the rest of the heroes party? Two heroines... AND A MONKEY!!! Next up, Tony pulls a fast one on Norman:
Priceless... And last, and completely least; if that's Katana, what the hell is she doing with that meat cleaver?!?!
She was recently on the TV show, but looked more like herself... who's this supposed to be, then? Beats me... we'll find out in a few weeks, I guess. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
