The Dissector #185.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"What do you mean? No more food? No more pigs and cows and other animals and vegetables of a victual nature to finish my repast? (...) How then can I demonstrate my prowess in this challenge you've set, to prove to you how much I can eat for the bounty of fourteen ninety-nine? By my word, Joe of Joe's Diner, I've barely begun to tuck in! (...) Have I failed then? Am I to be ridiculed again among you fine people as a weak slackbelly?" Volstagg The Voluminous, Warriors Three #1.

And I got another column in before the week was over! This one's for 11/03, the first week of November. Jordan cracked the DT! last column; the Wolverine clone's claws are articulated, they have knuckle joints, when they shouldn't. Badge for him. He also noticed something else that I hadn't, see more of that below.

What are The Dissector's Picks Of The Week, you might be asking yourself... well, Best Book Of The Week was Iron Man Legacy #8... it's not extraordinary, but Fred Van Lente month after month shows how you can write between-the-raindrops-of-continuity tales or flashbacks without being cheesy or lame; Steve Kurth's art certainly doesn't hurt, with a healthy mix of retro and modern. Worst Book Of The Week was JSA All-Stars #12... Matthew Sturges' scripts for this book aren't very good; but what makes this book sink are Howard Porter's pencils... everybody has misshapen heads and weird expressions on their faces. The very flat colors by The Hories don't help either...

Now, how about a change in layout? The Cover Of The Week will, from now on, appear in this part of the column. Why? Well, several reasons. First, having a picture in this first part of the column makes it look better. Second, it's more in line with the Dissector Picks than with the Moments Of The Week. And third, Facebook doesn't detect any other images in the blog post after the first one, making the thumbnail for the post on each column usually end up being the DT!, which is not necessarily (that is, never) the most attractive image in the column. So, there... this is an obvious parody cover for The Boys, by Darick Robertson. Not fantastic, but pretty funny.

The Rundown: Avengers Academy (inconsistent lettering in the credits page, bullshit theories about mass conservation in Reptil's powers, accented letter), Batman Confidential (timeline in main story doesn't jive, in the backup story Martian Manhunter comments about having problems with the English language... when he's been speaking English longer than the other characters, particularly Wonder Woman; and Aquaman comments that a mere big lab is larger than the Mariana Trench... Silver Age style doesn't have to mean ridiculous), Doom Patrol V5 (Rita's eyes colored wrong), I Am An Avenger (Jarvis's eyes should be blue), JSA All-Stars (Cyclone's eyes should be green, but start out blue, then change to green in the same page, later they're blue again, and then green once more), Namor: The First Mutant (Namor's ankle wings on the cover are too large, inside his eyes are colored incorrectly, and while the Atlantean logomancer might be half-human, I doubt it, so he should be blue), Secret Six V3 (the word "undetectable" is between quotation marks, but one quotation mark ended up on the next line), Strange Tales II (the Watcher first calls the fake Watcher guy Philip, and then Tony; Toro shouldn't be blonde, and he certainly shouldn't be called "Maestro" by Iron Man), Young Allies (inconsistent credit lettering).
<-------------------------------->
"THE FUTURE IS STRANGE."

TITLE: Adventure Comics V1 (DC).

ISSUE: 520.

CULPRIT: Paul Levitz (writer).

DISSECTION: Saturn Girl refers to Naltor as "that strange planet where people can predict the future". That's just dumb... what about that strange moon where people are telepaths, that strange planet where people control magnetism, that strange planet where people eat anything, that strange planet where... That's, uhm... called the Legion Of Super-Heroes' setting!

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Star Boy's hair is colored incorrectly, Ultra Boy, Superman, and Supergirl's powers are incomplete (and even Superman and Supergirl are not said to have the same powers).
<-------------------------------->
"HÉRR."

TITLE: The Amazing Spider-Man (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. Then there's eye coloring mistake galore, baby goblin's ears are wrong in one story, and Vin Gonzales gets called "Gonzalez". Twice. Also, the story "You Again?" is missing the question mark in the credits page.
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECTION OUT OF TIME."

TITLE: Captain America: Man Out Of Time (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Jorge Molina (penciller).

DISSECTION: Yay, another re-telling of Cap's getting frozen and thawed! Yay, it changes stuff unnecessarily! *groan* While he was still in WWII, spot me this one:


DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"COVER THIS DT!"

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 184.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (editor).

DISSECTION: Darryn noticed that instead of putting the Cover Of The Week, I repeated the DT! image. Badge for Darryn.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DT! WITHIN A DT!"

TITLE: X-Men Forever 2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 10.

CULPRIT: Mike Grell (penciller).

DISSECTION: Jordan also noticed that Wolverine's claws come out of his wrist instead of from in between his knuckles.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DO YOU SMELL THAT?"

TITLE: X-Men: To Serve And Protect (Marvel).

ISSUE: 01 of 04.

CULPRIT: James Asmus (writer).

DISSECTION: Now, Emma Frost's diamond form has been shown to grant her a nebulous level of immunity to psychic powers... but pheromones are not psychic, so she shouldn't be able to resist Mandrill's powers. Then again, she might not have a sense of smell in her diamond form ,but I doubt it... it still gets a dissection, though with a low rating.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Also, an accented letter in the Batroc/Fantomex story is smaller than it should be, but then another one is the right size.
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A lower than usual rating, at 5.8 Bazzars in thirty nine dissections... Now, Moments Of The Week! First, it's bad enough to be a zombie and eat brains, getting memories from the dead...


... it's worse when you eat your mom's brain! The next Moment needs some explanation as to why I found it so funny. Some years ago, my friends and I were playing a roleplaying game where we "reality hopped", and we ended up in a dimension where Mars looked a lot like the John Carter Of Mars setting. My character was a cowboy, a Texan soldier from WWII... who happened to read pulp magazines. What did he do? He stripped down to his underwear, boots, hat, and gunbelt, and that's how he went around the world (only to discover nobody actually dressed like that there, but well...)

Now, I'm reading Secret Six, and the team (or teams) is in Skartaris... and what does Ragdoll do?


Basically the same my character did. It was very nice to see Gail Simone thinking in a similar wavelength as me. Next, there are certain things you don't do in...


Such as fucking with The Wall. And the 90s come back to bite Cable:


But Spidey ends up footing the bill... Now, how would Thor fly if he didn't have his hammer?


Why, of course... The following Moment is not so much something I found cool, funny or shocking, but more something that puzzled me, but that I couldn't actually consider a dissection. Look at this cropping from the Women Of Marvel #1 cover:


The cover has several Marvel women, including the Black Cat (you can see her white hair there) and the Enchantress... and look at that woman in the middle. Now, I know it's Medusa, for several reasons: long hair, hair that's flaring up in odd ways, etc... but do you think you could have tried a bit less to make her look like Mary Jane Watson? There's no reason (except for the fact that she's not in a story inside) why MJ couldn't have been on the same cover as the Black Cat; you gave her a fringe haircut like MJ has used (but Medusa hasn't, at least not famously)... and you give her bracelets that look like web shooters. Not to mention the fact that the Medusa story inside the book is actually a story from her past; when she's a very young teen, and not the sexy seductress that you're showing in fake Moulin Rouge lingerie on the cover of a comic that is supposed to portray your publisher's female characters in a positive, non-sex object way!!!

Of course, the cover for issue #2 will be by Greg "Porntracer" Land. What, Greg doesn't trace porn? That's right, he traces ANYTHING he can find... Next Moment; how did Harry Osborn name his new baby boy?


Stanley! After his real dad, I guess! But don't worry, Norman still has young men to influence... like Vin Gonzales:

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.
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"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!

Peter David Interview.

Peter David (writer of Hulk, Supergirl, Aquaman, Star Trek, X-Factor, Babylon 5, Ben 10, and a long etc) was in Uruguay recently, and I was lucky enough to interview him. Here's the full audio of the interview, expect a transcript soon.


Download here, or here.

The Dissector #162.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"(...) there we were... heroes! (...) Stomping out Nazis! Nazi robots! Nazi zombies! Nazi Nazis!" Billy Mace, Powers V3 #4.

Welcome to a late column, I know, but this was a busy weekend... and tomorrow is a busier day: I'm interviewing Peter David... so I should get this column down and get some sleep... still, I'll try not to rush it. Last week's DT! wasn't cracked; Deadpool attacked Hulkpool with what was supposed to be a discarded adamantium claw that didn't take on Wolverine or something like that, but the claw was longer than Deadpool's whole arm... Ah, before I forget, this is for books released on 05/05; plus a straggler or two.

So, I did went to bed, and I'm writing the rest of this column on Monday night... interview with PAD went smoothly, he's a great guy. It'll be online soon, in the meantime, here we are:


And I got my Atlantis Chronicles (plus an issue of Aquaman) signed by him! Now, The Dissector's Picks Of The Week are the following... Best Book Of The Week was Superman: War Of The Supermen #1; great start (after the teaser #0 on FCBD) for the last part of the New Krypton saga... you'll see in the Moments Of The Week how they solved the Kryptonian overpopulation. Worst Book Of The Week was JSA All-Stars... it's just sub par, and unnecessary to boot. As a last thing, I'd like to point you in the direction of Pixel Fantasies, a site with a name dirtier than the site actually is... it's a nice place for comic book belles pinups, that's all. No pr0n, just some skin, but nothing explicit (so far).

The Rundown: Avengers: The Origin (Rick Jones' eyes are blue, then green, then blue again), Batman And Robin (Batman's chest emblem is wrong on the cover), Buck Rogers (an obvious question ends in just an exclamation mark, a period is missing in the "next issue" blurb at the end), Captain America/Black Panther: Flags Of Our Fathers (Nick Fury's eyes, while he still has too, are blue, they should be brown), Deathlok V4 (accented letters, and a character's name chances spelling between issues), Doom Patrol V5 (a word is missing in a sentence, and Elasti-Woman's eyes are STILL THE WRONG COLOR), Free Comic Book Day 2010: Iron Man/Thor (Tony Stark's eyes are colored brown), Hellboy In Mexico (wrong uses of the Spanish language), JSA All-Stars (assorted costuming design, eye and hair color mistakes, wrongly placed word balloons), Powers V3 (misspelled name), Red Robin (wrong eye color in R'as, wrong chest emblem in Batman that changes between pages), Uncanny X-Men (Bastion's hand is sticking out of the wrong place of Nightcrawler's chest, several wrong eye colors), Zorro (Spanish language, Ñs, accented letters... just twenty-seven dissections in total in one issue).
<-------------------------------->
"JUMP THE GUNN."

TITLE: Angel (IDW).

ISSUE: 32.

CULPRIT: Bill Willingham (writer).

DISSECTION: Gunn says that when Connor was living in the demonic dimension, he was leading his crew and protecting his territory. Uh, no? Gunn had already joined Angel Investigations by that time.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"HALF-AND-HALF."

TITLE: Brightest Day (DC).

ISSUE: 01.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi (writers).

DISSECTION: Aquaman is identified as "half-human"; he's not, he's pure Atlantean. You're thinking of Namor.

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Also, I was ready to acknowledge that maybe Hal Jordan's badge had changed shape... but it's on the cover in its classic shape, then in the wrong shape inside... Also, "Somali" is not a country, "Somalia" is.
<-------------------------------->
"FRUTUOXIA BY KNIGHT."

TITLE: Freedom Knights En Ciudad Frutuoxia (Dragon/Ninfa).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Roy, Bea, and Nicolás "Nico" Peruzzo (editors, but they wrote, drew, "gray" colored, lettered all of it between the three).

DISSECTION: This is the first superhero crossover in my country, although it's a parody, between the comic "Relatos De Ciudad Frutuoxia" (Tales Of Frutuoxia City, from Ninfa Comics), which is a humorous book, and Freedom Knights (by Dragon Comics), a straight superhero comic book. If you can read Spanish, go and download it for free from either of the pages I linked for the publishers... and you can buy it in paper if you want too.

It was a good book, a fun read, but the credits were at the end of the book... which wouldn't be a problem, if they hadn't included the "This story takes place before..." blurbs for each of their books... it makes sense to include it in the back cover if it's just the credits... but not the storyline placement blurbs.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. There are also a couple of mistakes in some of the English dialogues.
<-------------------------------->
"NOT HAN SOLO."

TITLE: Solo (Apocalipta/G.A.S./Studio Robota).

ISSUE: Digital one-shot (originally published in Cisplatino Visiones #4).

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (letterer).

DISSECTION: This is my first comic book story, both written and published... local comic Cisplatino has a supplement called "Visiones" (Visions), in which they publish short stories about the characters' pasts, or stuff that happens on the side of the main story... up to my story (and I believe, so far), all stories have been written by Diego Tapié and Pablo Zignone, the book's creators... until this one, I was the first they allowed to play in their playground of the mind.

Besides writing it, I lettered the book; and when, a few months after it had been published in print, I asked for permission to publish it digitally, I adapted the pages for a release... and screwed up the lettering. Koutarou, from forum Freak Zone, noticed I had an accent jump around. The word "demás" had its accent jump to a word on the line above, "igual", so it ended on the "l", which is not even possible as I've explained in the past. So it ended up being two dissections in one. Badge for Koutarou.

If you want, and read Spanish, you can check out the story here, as well as the website for G.A.S., the comic book publisher I'm part of... indy, of course, but rising! And soon, I'll upload an English version of the story for those of you who don't read Spanish.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each. Also, I wrote "lobo" instead of "Lobo" in the back cover of the "book".
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"BUDGET CUTS."

TITLE: The Many Loves Of The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Brian Reed (writer) and/or Nick Dragota (penciller).

DISSECTION: Are we really supposed to believe that there is no computer in Captain Stacy's office, 13-14 years ago? Then again, this is Brian Reed, who recently wrote Miss Marvel pulling Mac Gargan out of the Venom symbiote by brute force...

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"VENGEANCE OF THE DISSECT THIS!"

TITLE: Vengeance Of The Moon Knight (Marvel).

ISSUE: 08.

CULPRIT: Tan Eng Huat (penciller).

DISSECTION: Look at Deadpool below, and tell me what's wrong:


DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
This week we had a 6.6 Bazzars average, in sixty-four dissections. Cover Of The Week is by Bachalo and Townsend, and it's another good Spider-Man/Lizard piece:


Nice, unsettling, innit? Now, Moments Of The Week, we have plenty. First up, Hellboy in Mexico!


Awesome! Next, the Black Cat is... well... yummylicious...


Buttock poetry... Then, Red Robin pwns R'as:


Wonderful! Then, Colin Farrell should sue:


And it's not just one panel, the main character in Sparta USA looks like him all the time. You know who else should sue?


Colossus, he should sue Terry Dodson for making him look like Jaws from James Bond. Now, for a touching moment:


I'm still in denial; I don't buy that they'd cremate his body... Next, in my country, union leaders are tough:


Because they're Klingons like Worf! And last, how do you get rid of a planet full of Kryptonians?


Two-stage bomb, first a gold K bomb, then a green K bomb, and boom! BOOM! So, I finished this column on Monday night, but waited until today, Tuesday, to post it... I was too tired to post it around all the boards and places I promote it on. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

The Nitpicker #20.

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

Well, I'm back. I've been chastised by friends and readers that I don't update this blog more oftenly. A particular friend, writer and local media celebrity Nacho Alcuri, told me that I should only do two or three nits at a time, more like a blog entry than a column, which is what I'm used to.

But I can't, I need to do columns, it's my style. So, anyway, Civil War is over, so let's have the Civil War-related nits that I still had in my backburner. I was going to include a handful of 52 nits I also have in my files (you wouldn't believe how much stuff I have to write about); but I decided to save them until 52 is finished, and I can do a special 52 issue.

I'm going to try and post a new column next week; with nits from other March issues; and then after that, try to post a column at least every week or two, with nits I find on the latest books released. Well, enough chatter, here goes the last volley of Civil War nits.
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"PFFFF... WHOEVER HEARD OF AN UNDERWATER CIVILIZATION?"

TITLE: Civil War: Front Line.

ISSUE: 07 of 11.

CULPRIT: Paul Jenkins (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 30, part of the "Sleeeper Cell" story, one of the cops examining the scene says about the Atlanteans "You're not serious. These are those Atlantis guys? I thought they were supposed to be a myth."

First of all, with all the stuff that you see in the Marvel Universe (mutants, gods, planet devourers, super soldiers, aliens, etc, etc), how can you doubt the existence of an underwater race?

Secondly, Atlantis, with or without Namor as their leader, has attacked the surface world over and over again, with news coverage almost every time. Even Dorma (I think it was her) was on live TV pleading for Namor in an old Daredevil issue. Not to mention Namor in the news every now and then, and he's part of history with his participation in the WWII Invaders. How can somebody, much less a police detective, think they were just a myth?

NIT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, floppy writing.
<-------------------------------->
"EXTREME MAKEOVER."

TITLE: Civil War: Front Line.

ISSUE: 07 of 11.

CULPRIT: Eduardo Barreto (penciller) , Tom Brevoort (editor), Molly Lazer & Aubrey Sitterson (assistant editors), and Sotocolor's A. Crossley (colorist).

NIT-TO-PICK: Also in the Sleeper Cell story, on all pages showing the Atlanteans, they are mostly dark-haired (with dreadlock style doos), and one or two are bald; they're all wearing pants with high-tech look (strange, but what the hell), and one of them is even wearing a white t-shirt and jeans.

However, by the next segment, where the battle between the Atlanteans and the Green Goblin is compared to the Somme Offensive in WWI, my good compatriot and acquaintance Eduardo Barreto (who I must say does a superb job of drawing the WWI scenes) draws the Atlanteans in completely different clothes (barbarian-style), wearing scale-speedos, bracers and armored shoulder padds, and with long flowing hair, which Crossley colors blond!

Not happy with that, Barreto also draws Wonder Man with a long-sleeved costume (as opossed to the short-sleeved one he wears on Sleeper Cell); actually, it's not just the sleeves, it's a different costume design. He also draws the Green Goblin with a cape, and riding a very different glider.

Now this is what I call a cluster-fu... nit.... The blame here is not particularly on the artist and colorist (the former most likely having not read any of Civil War, I know he's not much of a superhero comic fan), but more properly on the editor and his assistants. If you're having an artist draw something which is based upon another story, can't you at least send him some scans of the other artist's pages for reference?

You'll notice that I've mentioned the editor and assistant editors as culprits here, and if you look at the rules I've set for myself since the begining (you can see them in the blog's first post, or in the post before the last one, where I reposted my first column), I think editors are always to blame in this case; but I don't bother mentioning them. But this time, this was too big, they needed to be pointed at with "shame on you" faces.

NIT-O-METER: I know I'm being anal, this is not a story-affecting nit, but it is too big a screw-up. 10 Bazzars.
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"I JUST WANTED TO TOUCH AN X-MAN."

TITLE: Civil War: X-Men.

ISSUE: 04 of 04.

CULPRIT: David Hine (writer), and/or Yanick Paquette (penciller).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 20, when Cyclops cannot stop firing his optic beam (he's being controlled, y'see), Leech is the only one who can stop him... by touch. Leech does not need to touch somebody to nullify their powers, his mutant ability works by proximity.

NIT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, please research a character's powers. Of course, you can retcon this and say that, when it's too much power to absorb, he needs to touch his target for his power to work, but... bleh...
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"CHEAP DRUNK."

TITLE: New Avengers.

ISSUE: 24.

CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 22, panel 4, Iron Man says "You think I wouldn't love to just sit alone in a room with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black and forget all of this?" He's one of the richest men on the world, and he thinks about drinking JW Black Label?!?!?!?!? WTF??!??! He should be drinking BLUE label, which is the blend that's aged the most (and also the most expensive, nacht). In fact, he'd drink here. Follow the link and tell me if you don't agree with me that Iron Man would drink that kind of Johnny Walker.

NIT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. Bendis, you're a cheapass.
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"NAMOR WHO?"

TITLE: Civil War: Front Line.

ISSUE: 08 of 11.

CULPRIT: Paul Jenkins (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 28, first panel, here we go again. Two mounted cops comment on the Atlantis situation saying "...so everything comes to a halt just because some no-name country sends spies through our borders (...)". Again, Atlantis has tried to invade the surface world (always starting by New York) almost on a yearly basis.

NIT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Paul, please, read up on Marvel history. Just because you created that retcon-monster of the Sentry doesn't mean you get to ignore Marvel's rich history. What's next, somebody being surprised next time Galactus shows up for lunch?
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TITLE: Black Panther V4.

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Marcus To (penciller).

NIT-TO-PICK: On page 9, panel 3, the Wakandan embassy employees are using an operating system which, besides looking suspiciously like Windows or Mac, says, in plain English "FILES DELETED".

Now, why would one of the Marvel Universe's Earth world leaders in technology, who vehemently eschew western technology in favor of their own, use an OS in English? It's not impossible, but it's very unlikely.

NIT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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TITLE: Black Panther V4.

ISSUE: 25.

CULPRIT: Reginald Hudlin (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: Page 22 has the Invisible Woman and Storm root for Hercules in his fight against Clor, in a completely uncharacteristic and schoolgirl-like behaviour, ending with a "Wow, what a finish!" cheer from Storm.

Not only this is awfuly bad characterization for these two heroines, it's also something inmensely stupid to do while there's a gigantic superhero battle raging on in the middle of New York City.

NIT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, come on Reggie, you can do better!
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"DAMMIT WONG! WHERE ARE MY ANIMAL PRINT GLOVES?"

TITLE: Civil War: The Confession.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Dave Stewart (colorist, sequences from Illuminati one-shot).

NIT-TO-PICK: Part of this issue reprints panels from The New Avengers: Illuminati one-shot that preceeded Civil War, and they've not corrected the errors that I found there. The first is the fact that on page 10, panel 4, Dr. Strange is wearing blue gloves, instead of his trademark leopard print ones.

NIT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, at least this time they didn't make his gloves come and go, they just made a mistake on the colors.
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"I SHAVED. THE MUSTACHE WAS TOO FREDDY MERCURY-ISH."

TITLE: Civil War: The Confession.

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Alex Maleev (penciler) and/or Dave Stewart (colorist).

NIT-TO-PICK: On the same panel, Dr. Strange is missing his mustache, not to mention the gray hair on his temples.

NIT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, it was 7 last time, but this is a repeat offense.
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"NOW? WHEN DO I SHOOT THEM? DO I SHOOT THEM NOW?"

TITLE: Punisher War Journal V2.

ISSUE: 05.

CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).

NIT-TO-PICK: On Civil War #6, The Punisher is with the rest of Cap's faction, when Diamondback brings in supervillains Goldbug and The Plunderer (who want to offer their help to the anti-Registration side), and Frank shoots the villains and kills them.

However, in this issue of Punisher War Journal, Captain America is meeting the two villains along with Luke Cage and Patriot, and Frank eavesdrop on the conversation from behind the door, enters the room and shoots Goldbug and Plunderer.

NIT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, please guys, coordinate these things.
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Well, the final wave of Civil War nits came up with an average of 7.8; much higher than last time's 5.7; in fact, the highest since... fricking ever! The highest average was 6.4 back on column #2!!!

Let me go over the numbers again.... yes, 7.8.... dayamn!!! It was an 8.3 before I added in two nits that had escaped my sight (they were actually filed in another computer), but still, 7.8 is high.

Catch you later, hopefully next week.