Creator sighting!
Scott Wegener, talented artist for Atomic Robo admits to certain Mignola similarities, all in good humor, in the comments section of the last column.
Plus, and probably Scott's doing, Red 5 Comics published a listing of good reviews for their books, and they loved that I picked it as best book of the week, even linking back to us. Thank you! Och, I just realized I have a sentence that doesn't make sense there: "(...) but also touching moments that show that in a very effective way make you care (...)"; that "that show" shouldn't be there...
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Dissector #49.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"They're giant insects. Of course they have eye-beams." Tesladyne field operative, Atomic Robo #02.
What's going on? Why am I not getting more votes for the Autopsy Awards? This is outrageous! Get your lazy asses over to your e-mails and send those votes (see last column, the third Special for the nominees) to lordmagnusen at gmail.com! Still up to date, here's the column on last week's comics, but let me tell you first that NOBODY found the Dissect This! from last week! The problem was that Donna Troy's boots did not have heels people... I know it's not Mary Marvel, but still...
Before moving on to the picks, you'll see something new in the Dissections. Each book title now has the publisher's name next to it, in parenthesis. Why? Because I had to go over almost 50 columns to see which company had the most dissections; and even though the figures are accurate as to how they relate to each other, they're still only approximated... and I want to have an easier time counting them for next years Autopsy Awards. Same thing with the authors, I'm going to start counting their dissections after finishing each column, to save myself the trouble next time.
Time for The Dissector's Picks Of The Week! Best book of the week was, once again, Atomic Robo, this time with its second issue. Yes, it's still a Hellboy homage (I want to stop using the word "rip-off"", it's not nice), but it's definitely one of the better books out there. Brian Clevinger writes an interesting, if simple story, which not only has great, funny dialogue (see the Quote Of The Week up there, or the Moments Of The Week at the end of this column for an example), but also touching moments that show that in a very effective way make you care for Robo. The art by Scott Wegener is cartoony, but fittingly so, and beautifully rendered, and Ronda Pattison's colors are perfect for Wegener's art.
A good read for the whole family, I think I'm going to start reading this book to my three year old son. If you need more than my suggestion to pick up Atomic Robo, go check this preview of the second issue, along with a preview of this week's first issue of Red 5 Comics' new book, Midknight. Worst book of the week? The "thank God it's over" last part of JLA: Classified's "The Ghost Of Mars", with issue #46. A story that should have been done in two issues, at most, sub par art by the usually good Rick Leonardi (with Sean Philips), and even worse dialogue for something to feels like a bad rehash of the "Baron Harkonnen takes over Alya" plot from Dune. That said lets go with the dissections for this week... AND GO VOTE FOR THE AUTOPSY AWARDS!!!
<-------------------------------->
"TELL ME, WHAT'S WRONG?"
TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).
DISSECTION: Well, a passable first issue for this (grrr) "new" book. Of course, the Dissector couldn't be quiet, and I found a couple of errors. One of them is in these two panels, tell me if you can find it. Clue, look at the culprit.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WELL, I'M ACTUALLY FROM THE BRAZILLIAN RAIN FOREST."
TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).
DISSECTION: On page ten Grace refers to herself as an "Amazonian", when the correct name for her race is "Amazon". Yes, she could be joking, but I don't think she'd make that mistake. She's a bruiser, sure, but she's not an idiot.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I JUST SNUCK IN WEARING ATOM SMASHER'S COSTUME, I'M JUST A STRIPPER."
TITLE: Black Adam: The Dark Age (DC).
ISSUE: 04 of 06.
CULPRIT: Nathan Eyring (colorist).
DISSECTION: Atom Smasher's eyes are colored black instead of blue, and his hair is colored as black instead of red.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, and it counts as two separate nits.
<-------------------------------->
"MARY, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Derenick is, without a doubt, one of the best pencillers working on Countdown. However, he still makes mistakes. Mary Marvel stands side by side with Darkseid, and he looks less than a head taller than her... when he's 8'9" and she's 5'6".
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars,
<-------------------------------->
"SNAP!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers) and/or Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: TWP (Superman, ok) Prime kills Earth-15 J'onn J'onzz by snapping his neck, something that shouldn't be possible given that J'onn's a shapeshifter.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"APOKOLIPS IS LIKE HEEL!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Mary Marvel's boots, on page 13, have regular heels instead of stiletto ones, and they're not lace-up boots, as they've been shown to be.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars, at least she has heels.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'RE GIVING YOU THE BOOT!"
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Cliff Chiang (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: On the cover, Black Canary's boots are wrong, as well as in the inner pages.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO ARE WE?"
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: The narration boxes say that Oliver Queen is a captive of the Amazons, when these women are, ostensibly, Athena/Granny Goodness' fake Amazons.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"OH, SO IT'S A NEW ONE...."
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: So, if this is Themyscira... why does "Athena" call it "New Themyscira" on page six. This even supports the facts that the ladies here are not the real Amazons. Yes, she could be referring to the fact that Themyscira was rebuilt, but that doesn't seem likely.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"COVER YOURSELF UP, CHILD. NEVERMIND THE FACT THAT WE ARE GOING TO AN ISLAND OF HALF-NAKED WARRIOR CHICKS..."
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Cliff Chiang (penciller/inker) and Trish Mulvihill (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the cover and inside the book, Speedy's arrow emblem on her chest is slightly smaller than it should be, and it's painted yellow as if it was fabric, when it's been show in the past to actually be open, as cleavage (great going there Ollie, letting the former prostituted minor, who's still a minor, mind you, go out like that).
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHY YOU SO FORMAL, MAN?"
TITLE: House Of M: Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01 of 05.
CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer).
DISSECTION: Luke Cage's childhood friend calls him "Lucas" in the flashbacks, when that was Luke's last name (Carl Lucas). This seems unlikely.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'RE A LITTLE OVERCROWDED, YOU KNOW?"
TITLE: House Of M: Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01 of 05.
CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer).
DISSECTION: Why does somebody caught with drugs in New York get sent to a prison in Florida?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS GETTING O.L.D.!"
TITLE: Marvel Comics Presents V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 03.
CULPRIT: Rich Koslowski (writer) and/or Dave Sharpe (letterer).
DISSECTION: USAGent, yeah.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CONTACTS, PROFESSOR X GAVE ME SOME OF HIS."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36 and several issues before.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist).
DISSECTION: The Guvnor alerted me to the fact that Wolvie's eyes are being colored brown in this book too. Of course, badge for the Guvnor. In fact, now that I look at my notes for issue 36 in particular, McCaig colored his eyes orange in one page, only to color then blue in the next one. Does he not even pay attention to what he's doing?!?!?
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, Wolverine is one of the stars of this book (not to mention one of Marvel's top characters, appearing in half of the company's books any given week), and it's been done over and over again. Ooooh... I got it... this is not actually Wolverine... it's one of the many stand-ins he hires to be able to appear in all those comics!
<-------------------------------->
"MARVEL COMICS' NEW ADVERTISERS: CONTACT LENSES COMPANIES!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist).
DISSECTION: The Black Widow's eyes are colored green, when they should be blue.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. MARVEL.COM/UNIVERSE, DAVE!!!!!!!!
<-------------------------------->
"I'M A NON NUDE."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Wolverine surprises Spider-Woman in the shower (hehehe), and of course, she's nekkid. She's still naked when the Black Widow (who by the way, wears white panties with a black bra) comes in to borrow deodorant, and seconds later, when Wolvie jumps out of the window, Spider-Woman is wearing panties.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars, she COULD have put them on while Wolvie jumped, but...
<-------------------------------->
"PACMAN-MAN!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: On the last page, Luke Cage and his Avengers bring backup to face The Hood and his gang, including the FF, the Mighty Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. capekillers and the X-Men. Angel is there, but he's wearing a costume with an emblem that looks like a hollow Pacman instead of like a halo.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THE OTHER COSTUME WAS IN THE LAUNDRY."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist)
DISSECTION: Angel's costume is colored red (almost burgundy), like the variation of the current (and old) blue one, that he used to wear years ago. This one even has yellow gloves and boots, like an iteration of that costume he wore while with the Champions.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HE KNOWS QUACK-FU!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: So, backup, right? X-Men, Fantastic Four, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Punisher, the other Avengers, Daredevil, even some gamma goodness with Doc Samson... but what the hell is Howard the Duck doing there?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TONY, REED, IS THAT ANOTHER OF YOUR CLONES?"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: The Silver Surfer is there too, when he's supposed to be in deep space.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NIGHTHAWK? SERIOUSLY?"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Nighthawk is part of the backup too, but he's gone back to being a villain with the Squadron Sinister.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, this guy has gone back and forth between hero and villain a couple of times.
<-------------------------------->
"SEEING VISIONS..."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: The Vision is already there, which is odd, considering that the rest of the Young Avengers aren't.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JLA'S BUYING SURPLUS TELEPORTING EQUIPMENT."
TITLE: Nightwing (DC).
ISSUE: 138.
CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza (writer).
DISSECTION: Nightwing declines Batman's offer of his JLA teleporter code, only to show that he actually knows it, commenting that he "was saving that card for another time" or something to that effect. Well, it was pretty stupid of him to do that, instead of just letting Batman tell him the code, but that's not the problem here. Problem is, he teleports into Wayne Manor's yard, instead of directly into the cave, saying that he'd rather not risk teleporting into the Giant Penny (I just noticed that letterer Steve Wands doesn't use all caps for Nightwing's narration boxes... I like that).
Dick, you think the JLA teleporter wouldn't have some kind of guidance system to teleport in a fixed spot in the cave not occupied by a stupid trophy, or sensors that would allow it to find a clean spot for you to rematerialize? It is made of the best technology Earth, Krypton, Mars, Thanagar and God knows where else have to offer. The only point in Dick teleporting outside the house is to face Tiger Moth, Silken Spider and Dragonfly.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO DISSECT, DIVINE."
TITLE: The Nitpicker (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 42.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Matías N. spotted a ni... dissection to be made in one of the nominees for the Autopsy Awards. In a JLA nit among the Best Writing Dissection nominees, I wrote "intestinal flora, despite its name, it's made of plants, it's made of bacteria.", when I should have said "it's NOT made of plants".
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, you can still understand what I wanted to say, particularly from the context.
<-------------------------------->
"I DYED IT IN PRISON."
TITLE: Salvation Run (DC).
ISSUE: 01 of 07.
CULPRIT: John Kalisz (colorist).
DISSECTION: Mammoth's hair is colored a bright yellow, instead of the red, or at least reddish-blonde it should be. Fun little book, right from the cover I knew there was New Gods involvement.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DESAAD, ARE YOU WEARING PLATFORMS?"
TITLE: Superman/Batman (DC).
ISSUE: 42.
CULPRIT: Dustin Nguyen (penciller).
DISSECTION: Darkseid is pictured as slightly taller than characters like Desaad or Superman, when, as said before, he's 8'9".
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BIZARRO AM NOT HATING SUNLIGHT!"
TITLE: Titans East Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: Bizarro is weakened by a burst of sunlight from Starfire... uh... that only works on the Bizarros from Smallville and All Star Superman. Good book, though, and I like the fact that it paves the way for a book with a classic line-up. Although I already see problems with the cover for Titans #1; namely, Starfire's straight hair (yes, she could have done it on purpose), and Nightwing's gloves colored incorrectly... but we'll wait and see.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'VE GOT A GOOD INTERDIMENSIONAL CALLING PLAN."
TITLE: Titans East Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: How the hell does Cyborg contact Donna Troy? Isn't traveling through parallel universes supposed to be hard? I'd guess communicating through them would be difficult as well.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. I predict a low average for this column.
<-------------------------------->
"THE TRACTOR BEAM PROBLEM."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer) and Terry Dodson (penciller).
DISSECTION: So, Gail Simone is here, and her start in this book is... promising, though nothing to write home about. Too early to tell. My first problem is that one of four prisoners Hippolyta keeps on Paradise Island (who have apparently been there for centuries, or millennia) gives her a "gift" to mock her, a wooden crown that reads "OUR QUEEN"... in plain English.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, perhaps there is a point to this.
<-------------------------------->
"AN ISLAND OF WARRIOR WOMEN, NO DEFENSES."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: Captain Nazi tells Wonder Woman (well, he just thinks it's Agent Diana Prince) that he and his new "Society" (a Nazi group, of course) wanted a country to remake, one that is "too foolish to have even the mildest of defenses"... so he sends his troops to conquer "Themyscira", which really, even after the scattering of all the Amazons, would probably have better defenses than most places in Earth, not to mention the impenetrable barrier Granny Goodness (posing as Athena) placed around it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS NAZI INVASION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE THULE SOCIETY."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Wonder Woman, powered by the Olympian gods, can't breach Granny's barrier, but some two-bit Nazi stormtroopers can?
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YEAH... UH... THEY'RE TRAINING UNIFORMS... YES, THAT'S IT!"
TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 25.
CULPRIT: Scot Eaton (penciller).
DISSECTION: The New X-Men appear in this issue, wearing uniforms that are significantly different from the ones they got in the previous issue of their own book (ones that were kind of like classic New Mutant uniforms, in turn based in classic X-Men ones). Rockslide wears a shirt, X-23 (or is it Talon?) and Surge have cleavage, different emblems, etc... The cover and previews for New X-Men #44 show them wearing the uniforms with the old-school vibe, and while they could be wearing some kind of training uniforms, it's more than likely that Eaton had no reference (or was provided with no reference, to be exact) on how to dress them... still, the uniforms look nothing like the ones they wore before getting new ones.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
The average wasn't that low, it was 6.0 Bazzars... it's too high to be low, but to low to be high. Let's go with the Moments Of The Week, alright? First up we have Robin's hairy legs from the classic Teen Titans era... guess he either never wore pantyhose, like Burt Ward did, or he'd just forgotten to shave. EWWWWWW!!!!
Then, in what would obviously have qualified as a DAYAMN! moment a few weeks ago, over at Punisher (MAX), Barracuda shoots a baby in the head:
Speaking of the Punisher, I don't remember where, in what boards, I had a discussion about Punisher MAX and Punisher War Journal. I maintained that MAX was not part of the 616 Marvel Universe, that it was its own, non-superhero ridden continuity, and other people just argued that it was part of it, but it just chose to tell more realistic stories. Finally, I have proof for my claims. In Punisher (current volume) #52, same issue from where the above panel was taken, Punisher mentions that his family was killed thirty years ago, something that does not fit at all with the timeline of the regular Marvel Universe.
According to Quesada (I think it was him), about only 10 years have passed since Peter Parker became Spider-Man, and according to more sensible takes, it's probably been 15 years since the spider bite. Another thing with that book, is that it presents an interesting analysis of the Punisher's mindset: he didn't come back home from the war to his family; he was just on vacation in peacetime, and when his family was killed, he want back home: to war. Interesting point of view, this had never occurred to me, at least not consciously.
Now, personal vindication time is over, so let me show the last Moment Of The Week. In another example of the funny dialogue Atomic Robo has, but wouldn't fit in the quote of the week:
That's just masterful, that silent panel and the "That's super." line just cracks me up. Well then, it's over for now, remember to vote in the Autopsy Awards; I was thinking of giving you time till next Sunday, but if I see that there's not enough votes (and hint, there isn't yet), I'll extend the voting period a few days.
That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"They're giant insects. Of course they have eye-beams." Tesladyne field operative, Atomic Robo #02.
What's going on? Why am I not getting more votes for the Autopsy Awards? This is outrageous! Get your lazy asses over to your e-mails and send those votes (see last column, the third Special for the nominees) to lordmagnusen at gmail.com! Still up to date, here's the column on last week's comics, but let me tell you first that NOBODY found the Dissect This! from last week! The problem was that Donna Troy's boots did not have heels people... I know it's not Mary Marvel, but still...
Before moving on to the picks, you'll see something new in the Dissections. Each book title now has the publisher's name next to it, in parenthesis. Why? Because I had to go over almost 50 columns to see which company had the most dissections; and even though the figures are accurate as to how they relate to each other, they're still only approximated... and I want to have an easier time counting them for next years Autopsy Awards. Same thing with the authors, I'm going to start counting their dissections after finishing each column, to save myself the trouble next time.
Time for The Dissector's Picks Of The Week! Best book of the week was, once again, Atomic Robo, this time with its second issue. Yes, it's still a Hellboy homage (I want to stop using the word "rip-off"", it's not nice), but it's definitely one of the better books out there. Brian Clevinger writes an interesting, if simple story, which not only has great, funny dialogue (see the Quote Of The Week up there, or the Moments Of The Week at the end of this column for an example), but also touching moments that show that in a very effective way make you care for Robo. The art by Scott Wegener is cartoony, but fittingly so, and beautifully rendered, and Ronda Pattison's colors are perfect for Wegener's art.
A good read for the whole family, I think I'm going to start reading this book to my three year old son. If you need more than my suggestion to pick up Atomic Robo, go check this preview of the second issue, along with a preview of this week's first issue of Red 5 Comics' new book, Midknight. Worst book of the week? The "thank God it's over" last part of JLA: Classified's "The Ghost Of Mars", with issue #46. A story that should have been done in two issues, at most, sub par art by the usually good Rick Leonardi (with Sean Philips), and even worse dialogue for something to feels like a bad rehash of the "Baron Harkonnen takes over Alya" plot from Dune. That said lets go with the dissections for this week... AND GO VOTE FOR THE AUTOPSY AWARDS!!!
<-------------------------------->
"TELL ME, WHAT'S WRONG?"
TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).
DISSECTION: Well, a passable first issue for this (grrr) "new" book. Of course, the Dissector couldn't be quiet, and I found a couple of errors. One of them is in these two panels, tell me if you can find it. Clue, look at the culprit.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.<-------------------------------->
"WELL, I'M ACTUALLY FROM THE BRAZILLIAN RAIN FOREST."
TITLE: Batman And The Outsiders V2 (DC).
ISSUE: 01.
CULPRIT: Chuck Dixon (writer).
DISSECTION: On page ten Grace refers to herself as an "Amazonian", when the correct name for her race is "Amazon". Yes, she could be joking, but I don't think she'd make that mistake. She's a bruiser, sure, but she's not an idiot.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I JUST SNUCK IN WEARING ATOM SMASHER'S COSTUME, I'M JUST A STRIPPER."
TITLE: Black Adam: The Dark Age (DC).
ISSUE: 04 of 06.
CULPRIT: Nathan Eyring (colorist).
DISSECTION: Atom Smasher's eyes are colored black instead of blue, and his hair is colored as black instead of red.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, and it counts as two separate nits.
<-------------------------------->
"MARY, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Derenick is, without a doubt, one of the best pencillers working on Countdown. However, he still makes mistakes. Mary Marvel stands side by side with Darkseid, and he looks less than a head taller than her... when he's 8'9" and she's 5'6".
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars,
<-------------------------------->
"SNAP!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers) and/or Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: TWP (Superman, ok) Prime kills Earth-15 J'onn J'onzz by snapping his neck, something that shouldn't be possible given that J'onn's a shapeshifter.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"APOKOLIPS IS LIKE HEEL!"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 24.
CULPRIT: Tom Derenick (penciller).
DISSECTION: Mary Marvel's boots, on page 13, have regular heels instead of stiletto ones, and they're not lace-up boots, as they've been shown to be.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars, at least she has heels.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'RE GIVING YOU THE BOOT!"
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Cliff Chiang (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: On the cover, Black Canary's boots are wrong, as well as in the inner pages.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO ARE WE?"
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: The narration boxes say that Oliver Queen is a captive of the Amazons, when these women are, ostensibly, Athena/Granny Goodness' fake Amazons.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"OH, SO IT'S A NEW ONE...."
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: So, if this is Themyscira... why does "Athena" call it "New Themyscira" on page six. This even supports the facts that the ladies here are not the real Amazons. Yes, she could be referring to the fact that Themyscira was rebuilt, but that doesn't seem likely.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"COVER YOURSELF UP, CHILD. NEVERMIND THE FACT THAT WE ARE GOING TO AN ISLAND OF HALF-NAKED WARRIOR CHICKS..."
TITLE: Green Arrow / Black Canary (DC).
ISSUE: 02.
CULPRIT: Cliff Chiang (penciller/inker) and Trish Mulvihill (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the cover and inside the book, Speedy's arrow emblem on her chest is slightly smaller than it should be, and it's painted yellow as if it was fabric, when it's been show in the past to actually be open, as cleavage (great going there Ollie, letting the former prostituted minor, who's still a minor, mind you, go out like that).
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHY YOU SO FORMAL, MAN?"
TITLE: House Of M: Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01 of 05.
CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer).
DISSECTION: Luke Cage's childhood friend calls him "Lucas" in the flashbacks, when that was Luke's last name (Carl Lucas). This seems unlikely.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE'RE A LITTLE OVERCROWDED, YOU KNOW?"
TITLE: House Of M: Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01 of 05.
CULPRIT: Christos N. Gage (writer).
DISSECTION: Why does somebody caught with drugs in New York get sent to a prison in Florida?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS GETTING O.L.D.!"
TITLE: Marvel Comics Presents V2 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 03.
CULPRIT: Rich Koslowski (writer) and/or Dave Sharpe (letterer).
DISSECTION: USAGent, yeah.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CONTACTS, PROFESSOR X GAVE ME SOME OF HIS."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36 and several issues before.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist).
DISSECTION: The Guvnor alerted me to the fact that Wolvie's eyes are being colored brown in this book too. Of course, badge for the Guvnor. In fact, now that I look at my notes for issue 36 in particular, McCaig colored his eyes orange in one page, only to color then blue in the next one. Does he not even pay attention to what he's doing?!?!?
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, Wolverine is one of the stars of this book (not to mention one of Marvel's top characters, appearing in half of the company's books any given week), and it's been done over and over again. Ooooh... I got it... this is not actually Wolverine... it's one of the many stand-ins he hires to be able to appear in all those comics!
<-------------------------------->
"MARVEL COMICS' NEW ADVERTISERS: CONTACT LENSES COMPANIES!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist).
DISSECTION: The Black Widow's eyes are colored green, when they should be blue.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. MARVEL.COM/UNIVERSE, DAVE!!!!!!!!
<-------------------------------->
"I'M A NON NUDE."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Wolverine surprises Spider-Woman in the shower (hehehe), and of course, she's nekkid. She's still naked when the Black Widow (who by the way, wears white panties with a black bra) comes in to borrow deodorant, and seconds later, when Wolvie jumps out of the window, Spider-Woman is wearing panties.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars, she COULD have put them on while Wolvie jumped, but...
<-------------------------------->
"PACMAN-MAN!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: On the last page, Luke Cage and his Avengers bring backup to face The Hood and his gang, including the FF, the Mighty Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. capekillers and the X-Men. Angel is there, but he's wearing a costume with an emblem that looks like a hollow Pacman instead of like a halo.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THE OTHER COSTUME WAS IN THE LAUNDRY."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Dave McCaig (colorist)
DISSECTION: Angel's costume is colored red (almost burgundy), like the variation of the current (and old) blue one, that he used to wear years ago. This one even has yellow gloves and boots, like an iteration of that costume he wore while with the Champions.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HE KNOWS QUACK-FU!"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: So, backup, right? X-Men, Fantastic Four, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Punisher, the other Avengers, Daredevil, even some gamma goodness with Doc Samson... but what the hell is Howard the Duck doing there?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TONY, REED, IS THAT ANOTHER OF YOUR CLONES?"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: The Silver Surfer is there too, when he's supposed to be in deep space.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NIGHTHAWK? SERIOUSLY?"
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Nighthawk is part of the backup too, but he's gone back to being a villain with the Squadron Sinister.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, this guy has gone back and forth between hero and villain a couple of times.
<-------------------------------->
"SEEING VISIONS..."
TITLE: New Avengers (Marvel).
ISSUE: 36.
CULPRIT: Brian Michael Bendis (writer) or Leinil Yu (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: The Vision is already there, which is odd, considering that the rest of the Young Avengers aren't.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JLA'S BUYING SURPLUS TELEPORTING EQUIPMENT."
TITLE: Nightwing (DC).
ISSUE: 138.
CULPRIT: Fabian Nicieza (writer).
DISSECTION: Nightwing declines Batman's offer of his JLA teleporter code, only to show that he actually knows it, commenting that he "was saving that card for another time" or something to that effect. Well, it was pretty stupid of him to do that, instead of just letting Batman tell him the code, but that's not the problem here. Problem is, he teleports into Wayne Manor's yard, instead of directly into the cave, saying that he'd rather not risk teleporting into the Giant Penny (I just noticed that letterer Steve Wands doesn't use all caps for Nightwing's narration boxes... I like that).
Dick, you think the JLA teleporter wouldn't have some kind of guidance system to teleport in a fixed spot in the cave not occupied by a stupid trophy, or sensors that would allow it to find a clean spot for you to rematerialize? It is made of the best technology Earth, Krypton, Mars, Thanagar and God knows where else have to offer. The only point in Dick teleporting outside the house is to face Tiger Moth, Silken Spider and Dragonfly.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO DISSECT, DIVINE."
TITLE: The Nitpicker (Studio Robota).
ISSUE: 42.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Matías N. spotted a ni... dissection to be made in one of the nominees for the Autopsy Awards. In a JLA nit among the Best Writing Dissection nominees, I wrote "intestinal flora, despite its name, it's made of plants, it's made of bacteria.", when I should have said "it's NOT made of plants".
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, you can still understand what I wanted to say, particularly from the context.
<-------------------------------->
"I DYED IT IN PRISON."
TITLE: Salvation Run (DC).
ISSUE: 01 of 07.
CULPRIT: John Kalisz (colorist).
DISSECTION: Mammoth's hair is colored a bright yellow, instead of the red, or at least reddish-blonde it should be. Fun little book, right from the cover I knew there was New Gods involvement.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DESAAD, ARE YOU WEARING PLATFORMS?"
TITLE: Superman/Batman (DC).
ISSUE: 42.
CULPRIT: Dustin Nguyen (penciller).
DISSECTION: Darkseid is pictured as slightly taller than characters like Desaad or Superman, when, as said before, he's 8'9".
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BIZARRO AM NOT HATING SUNLIGHT!"
TITLE: Titans East Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: Bizarro is weakened by a burst of sunlight from Starfire... uh... that only works on the Bizarros from Smallville and All Star Superman. Good book, though, and I like the fact that it paves the way for a book with a classic line-up. Although I already see problems with the cover for Titans #1; namely, Starfire's straight hair (yes, she could have done it on purpose), and Nightwing's gloves colored incorrectly... but we'll wait and see.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'VE GOT A GOOD INTERDIMENSIONAL CALLING PLAN."
TITLE: Titans East Special (DC).
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: How the hell does Cyborg contact Donna Troy? Isn't traveling through parallel universes supposed to be hard? I'd guess communicating through them would be difficult as well.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. I predict a low average for this column.
<-------------------------------->
"THE TRACTOR BEAM PROBLEM."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer) and Terry Dodson (penciller).
DISSECTION: So, Gail Simone is here, and her start in this book is... promising, though nothing to write home about. Too early to tell. My first problem is that one of four prisoners Hippolyta keeps on Paradise Island (who have apparently been there for centuries, or millennia) gives her a "gift" to mock her, a wooden crown that reads "OUR QUEEN"... in plain English.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, perhaps there is a point to this.
<-------------------------------->
"AN ISLAND OF WARRIOR WOMEN, NO DEFENSES."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: Captain Nazi tells Wonder Woman (well, he just thinks it's Agent Diana Prince) that he and his new "Society" (a Nazi group, of course) wanted a country to remake, one that is "too foolish to have even the mildest of defenses"... so he sends his troops to conquer "Themyscira", which really, even after the scattering of all the Amazons, would probably have better defenses than most places in Earth, not to mention the impenetrable barrier Granny Goodness (posing as Athena) placed around it.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS NAZI INVASION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE THULE SOCIETY."
TITLE: Wonder Woman V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 14.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Wonder Woman, powered by the Olympian gods, can't breach Granny's barrier, but some two-bit Nazi stormtroopers can?
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YEAH... UH... THEY'RE TRAINING UNIFORMS... YES, THAT'S IT!"
TITLE: X-Factor V4 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 25.
CULPRIT: Scot Eaton (penciller).
DISSECTION: The New X-Men appear in this issue, wearing uniforms that are significantly different from the ones they got in the previous issue of their own book (ones that were kind of like classic New Mutant uniforms, in turn based in classic X-Men ones). Rockslide wears a shirt, X-23 (or is it Talon?) and Surge have cleavage, different emblems, etc... The cover and previews for New X-Men #44 show them wearing the uniforms with the old-school vibe, and while they could be wearing some kind of training uniforms, it's more than likely that Eaton had no reference (or was provided with no reference, to be exact) on how to dress them... still, the uniforms look nothing like the ones they wore before getting new ones.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
The average wasn't that low, it was 6.0 Bazzars... it's too high to be low, but to low to be high. Let's go with the Moments Of The Week, alright? First up we have Robin's hairy legs from the classic Teen Titans era... guess he either never wore pantyhose, like Burt Ward did, or he'd just forgotten to shave. EWWWWWW!!!!
Then, in what would obviously have qualified as a DAYAMN! moment a few weeks ago, over at Punisher (MAX), Barracuda shoots a baby in the head:
Speaking of the Punisher, I don't remember where, in what boards, I had a discussion about Punisher MAX and Punisher War Journal. I maintained that MAX was not part of the 616 Marvel Universe, that it was its own, non-superhero ridden continuity, and other people just argued that it was part of it, but it just chose to tell more realistic stories. Finally, I have proof for my claims. In Punisher (current volume) #52, same issue from where the above panel was taken, Punisher mentions that his family was killed thirty years ago, something that does not fit at all with the timeline of the regular Marvel Universe.According to Quesada (I think it was him), about only 10 years have passed since Peter Parker became Spider-Man, and according to more sensible takes, it's probably been 15 years since the spider bite. Another thing with that book, is that it presents an interesting analysis of the Punisher's mindset: he didn't come back home from the war to his family; he was just on vacation in peacetime, and when his family was killed, he want back home: to war. Interesting point of view, this had never occurred to me, at least not consciously.
Now, personal vindication time is over, so let me show the last Moment Of The Week. In another example of the funny dialogue Atomic Robo has, but wouldn't fit in the quote of the week:
That's just masterful, that silent panel and the "That's super." line just cracks me up. Well then, it's over for now, remember to vote in the Autopsy Awards; I was thinking of giving you time till next Sunday, but if I see that there's not enough votes (and hint, there isn't yet), I'll extend the voting period a few days.That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The Dissector Special #03.
I got your Autopsy Awards nominees right here! The voting will be via e-mail, because I couldn't manage to set up them damn web polls... Send your votes to lordmagnusen at gmail.com, in the following form (each nomination has a code): "W01, A03, C02..."
Some of the awards are not subject to vote, as they are given solely on a numeric basis (most Dissected company, etc), or specially awarded for extraordinary "merit". Of course, the text for each dissection is the original one from when they were published, but I've added (mostly) new comments for all. Let's get started with the Best Writing Dissection nominees:
<-------------------------------->
W01-"UNITED SOCIALIST SOVIET KINGDOMS."-#12
COMMENT: This is the worst historical-related plot nit I've ever found.
TITLE: Books Of Doom.
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).
DISSECTION: From page 10, I quote Gustav the gipsy "The King has the backing of the Russians now." WTF????!?!?!??! Since this "Russians" they speak of are the USSR (we know it's so, because they refer to them as the Soviets on page 23), and the Soviets would have NEVER, EVER, backed a monarch, this is so hare-brained a plot device I can't even begin to think what the hell Brubaker is aiming at.
DISSECT-O-METER: This gets 10 Bazzars, it's as stupid as saying that there's a KKK chapter formed by black people...
<-------------------------------->
W02-"GOTHAM CITY, CITY STATE?"-#17
COMMENT: This goes to show how some people have no idea how the world works...
TITLE: 52.
ISSUE: Week 14.
CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer) and/or Greg Rucka (writer most likely in charge of this section).
DISSECTION: When Renee Montoya's passport is stamped in Khandaq (page 2, panel 8), it reads "U.S. Embassy, Gotham City, United States"... wtf? I thought Gotham went back to being part of the USA after the No Man's Land. Since when countries have embassies in their own cities?
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, big mistake, but not story-affecting.
<-------------------------------->
W03-“NINJAS, SMINJAS!”-#23
COMMENT: One of the many examples of why Chris Claremont should have retired.
TITLE: Exiles.
ISSUE: 93.
CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).
DISSECTION: Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that Claremont is back on his feet. But he keeps on making stupid mistakes that could be avoided with a little research and attention to detail. In this issue, he confuses the word "ninja" (you know, those sneaky guys who kill people) with "gaijin" (a somewhat derogatory term Japanese use for foreigners).
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Chris, it's NINJAS, for God's sake!
<-------------------------------->
W04-“FASTER THAN A RAY OF LIGHT!”-#23
COMMENT: This just left me speechless.
TITLE: Battlestar Galactica V4.
ISSUE: 08.
CULPRIT: Greg Pak (writer).
DISSECTION: This series sucks. Not only the art is horrible, but the plot is very, very, lame. On top of all that, on page 19 a ship filled with old Cylon Centurions and one number 8 jumps towards "the heart of the Cylon Empire", and arrives "Ten seconds later on the other side of the universe."
What?!?!? An FTL in the new BSG universe, not even a Cylon FTL, can't travel to the other side of the galaxy, let alone the OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE in ten seconds.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Come on!
<-------------------------------->
W05-"MATH IS DIFFERENT IN THE FUTURE."-#30
COMMENT: Something doesn't add up...
TITLE: (Supergirl And) The Legion Of Super-Heroes V5.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Tony Bedard (writer) and/or Travis Lanham (letterer).
DISSECTION: Legion of Super-Heroes election results (page 9): Brainiac 5: 7%, Cosmic Boy: 23%, Lightning Lad: 26%, Supergirl: 54%. So, it adds up to 110%! What?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
W06-"MY, MY, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!!"-#37
COMMENT: Physics, and how writers disregard them for fun and profit.
TITLE: Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious.
ISSUE: 01 of 02.
CULPRIT: Sam Kieth (writer/artist).
DISSECTION: Meh. That's what this book's caused in me so far, it's readable, but nothing out of the ordinary. Only one nit, but a fairly big one; on page 48, the entity that possesses women (the one Lobo and Batman are fighting) tells her current host that she's "entering another orbit" and that her "body mass will change with it." Sam, it's your weight that changes with gravity, not your mass, since weight is a product of your mass times the gravity of the place you are in. For those of you who never paid attention in junior high physics, experiencing changes in your mass would mean that you actually grow or shrink. Colloquially, we refer to mass as "weight", but I'd never seen it the other way around.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
W07-"SCIENCE IS HARD!"-#42
COMMENT: Ah, biology is also neglected!
TITLE: Justice League Of America.V2.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Dwayne McDuffie (writer).
DISSECTION: On page fourteen, Poison Ivy attacks Green Lantern (John Stewart) by multiplying part of his intestinal flora (mycobacterium paratuberculosis, to be precise)... but intestinal flora, despite its name, it's made of plants, it's made of bacteria.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, dammit, if you wanna do science fiction, read up on science. Anyone who's finished high school and paid some attention should know that intestinal flora is made of bacteria.
<-------------------------------->
I already know which is my favorite. Let's go on with the nominees for Best Art Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
A01-"REACH OUT AND TOUCH..."-#07
COMMENT: I sometimes wonder if pencillers actually read the scripts they're working on.
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 182
CULPRIT: Salvador Larroca (penciller).
DISSECTION: Larroca is almost back at his previous standards, but he screwed up big time here... on page 19 he draws Pulse and Rogue talking to each other, and Rogue "realizes" he's touching her (his hand on her arm). Thing is, they're both wearing full bodysuits.... Nothing happen because apparently Pulse's powers cancel Rogues... or MAYBE it's BECAUSE they're NOT ACTUALLY TOUCHING!!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, Larroca really screwed up here.
<-------------------------------->
A02-"HELP! I'M SHRINKING!"-#13
COMMENT: This is just... well.... it's like drawing a Wolverine that stands 7 feet tall...
TITLE: X-Men: The 198.
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Jim Muniz (penciller).
DISSECTION: Page 20. Panel 3. Shadowcat's shoulder. Lockheed. Muniz, get this straight: LOCKHEED IS NOT THE SIZE OF A HUMAN HEAD, MUCH LESS THE SIZE OF A HUMAN FIST AS YOU DREW HIM HERE!!!! Not only you're repeating the mistake you did last issue, you're worsening it!
Here's a tip: before using a character in a book you're drawing, look at the references, at least read a single comic where that character has appeared, or check the character’s Handbook entry.
DISSECT-O-METER: God, this only gets 10 Bazzars because I can't give it an 11... I'm so tempted to make an exemption....
<-------------------------------->
A03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM."-33
COMMENT: There seems to be at least one error each week in Countdown, and this has been the worst. Oh, it was my first (and only, so far, 20 Bazzars).
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel García (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have García or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
<-------------------------------->
Yes, I know, there's less nominations for this category... most have three, except for a couple of the categories, where I just couldn't choose. On with the nominees for Best Coloring Dissection, with my all favorite nit of all times:
<-------------------------------->
C01-"THE INCREDIBLE COLOR-CHANGING CAPE"-#02
COMMENT: This is wonderful, other nits that came after it got 10 Bazzars, but this will always be my favorite. Jeromy Cox, the culprit, will visit us every now and then. In retrospect, this probably should have gotten a 10, but I was too meek back then, too much in control of the Nitpicker, as the beast called itself those days.
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 29.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: Alright, we all know that before Tim Drake, Robin's costume sucked ass. The scaly green speedos, the bare legs (or skin-colored pantyhose in Burt Ward's case), the insufferably bright colors of the yellow cape and red tunic, all that made for one of the worst costumes in comic book history. So when Robin II (Jason Todd, previously thought dead), currently Red Hood, decided to make some changes to his old costume (same one Dick Grayson wore before him), I thought, ok, that's cool.
You see, Jason is all nutso, and appears in his Red Hood garb before Robin III (the aforementioned better-costumed Tim Drake), but takes off his villainous costume to reveal a Robin suit underneath, and challenges Tim to a fight. How the heck did he keep that cape from bulking up on the back of his tight leather jacket, is beyond me. Thing is, Jason decided he was leg-shy, and threw in a pair of yellow tights to cover his legs (maybe he hadn't shaved) and instead of the elf-slippers, a pair of elf-boots.
Apparently, as we see in page, he borrows a page from Tim's book, and also wears a yellow-on-the-inside and black-in-the-outside cape. Makes sense, you can hide in the shadows better (never mind the yellow tights). But... on the next page, his cape is yellow, inside and out. But... in the last panel of that page, it's black outside, yellow inside again!
In page 10's first panel it's all yellow, then in the third panel it's yellow inside, black outside (although that could be a shadow), because in the last panel it's yellow outside again. It's still all yellow for all of page 11, and when we see it again on page 14, and apparently it's still all yellow in pages 15 through 17, and then he's gone. What gives?
DISSECT-O-METER: I'm tempted to give this a 10, but it's not a nit that affects the story. Still, it's pretty major, so it gets the highest score so far, the first-ever 9 Bazzars!
<-------------------------------->
C02-"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GREEN OR WHITE!"-#07
COMMENT: Ah, Jeromy Cox and his crazy coloring... he's the only person with more than one nomination!
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 32.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page eight, panel six, Beast Boy's communicator (I really prefer Changeling, Beast Boy sounds like a Legion Of Super-Heroes name, which I love, but this is the Titans) beeps in the middle of his meeting with the Doom Patrol; and in panel seven, they do a close-up of his hand holding the device... and his skin is not green, it's white (ok, not chalk white, but Caucasian).
DISSECT-O-METER: This is a big mistake, it gets 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
C03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM.-#33
COMMENT: Same thing as before, but from a coloring point of view.
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel García (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have García or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
<-------------------------------->
My vote is already cast. Let's go with the nominees for Best Lettering Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
L01-"I DON'T THINK WE'RE SUPOSSED TO MENTION THAT IN FRONT OF TONY, HE MIGHT GO AND TELL HIS DRINKING BUDDIES..."-#08
COMMENT: Lettering gone wild!
TITLE: New Avengers.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Albert Deschesne (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 9, last panel, Ms. Marvel talks to Captain America and mentions "(...) the whole House of M thing.", but the words "House of M" are striked-out with a red line. This happens again in the first panel of page 10, but then in that same page, in the third panel "House of M" is normal; then in panel six it's striked out again.
All the sentences except one work without the words "House of M", so I'm guessing that at the last minute Brian Michael Bendis (the book's writer) decided that the conversation between Ms. Marvel and Cap should be sort of more secretive, and told the letterers to remove the words; they striked them out in red to remember to remove them... but didn't remove them. And they missed one, because that phrase didn't make sense without it...
DISSECT-O-METER: This is kind of big, so it gets 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
L02-"COCONUT PLANTATIONS ARE ILEGAL IN THE DC UNIVERSE."-#16
COMMENT: Languages people, languages.
TITLE: The Question Quarterly.
ISSUE: 1.
CULPRIT: Dennis O'Neil (writer) or Willie Schubert (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 11, Vic Sage (aka The Question) tells a criminal who's captured him "And you're (...) growing COCO plants." and the criminal answers "Which get processed into a very profitable commodity." Uh... I think they meant COCA, which gets processed for cocaine (but you can also make legal and benign products out of coca... like Coca-Cola), as it's later stated that the guy is a drug lord. Coco is coconut.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
L03-"OH D?OS M?O!"-30
COMMENT: It's incredible nobody realized something was wrong.
TITLE: Blue Beetle V7.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Phil Balsman (letterer), and maybe also John Rogers (writer).
DISSECTION: When I pick up Blue Beetle, not only do I know it's going to be a good read, I also know it's going to have at least one Spanish language related nit!
In this case, on page 10, panel two, Paco starts reciting the Hail Mary in Spanish, but he says "Dios et salve, Mar? a (...)" instead of "Dios te salve María(...), which means "God save you Mary", the equivalent of "The Lord is with thee".
Two things are wrong here, the first is "et" instead of "te"; and the second one is the tilde on "María" being replaced by "? ". This is something that happens sometimes with fonts or programs with character sets that don't include Latin characters such as the accented vowels (I think that's the reason).
In any case, I'm going to give props to John Roger for trying to get this right. In this case, it seems like an honest error. It's still funny, so I'm gonna show you the image. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can notice there's something wrong there:
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars (it's an honest error, but still, how could you not notice there's a question mark in the middle of a word?).
<-------------------------------->
L04-"WHA?"-39
COMMENT: They even make impossible things happen!
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men.
ISSUE: 490.
CULPRIT: VC's Joe Caramagna (letterer).
DISSECTION: On the credits for the Endangered Species story, colorist Raúl Treviño's first name is incorrectly given as having the tilde on the "R", something that's not only wrong, but impossible.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Some jewels there, huh? Now let's check out the nominees for Best Other Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
O01-"THEY SHOT MFK!"-#21.
COMMENT: The best example of editors not doing their job, continuity-wise.
TITLE: Amazing Spider-Man.
ISSUE: 539.
CULPRIT: Axel Alonso (editor).
DISSECTION: When Spider-Man has Mary Jane register Aunt May (shot down by the Kingpin's sniper) in the hospital, he tells her to use May's maiden name "Fitzgerald"... but as far as we know, her maiden name is "Reilly". What gives?
Credit where credit is due, I did not realize this on my own, I only realized it after I read this post on Newsarama. Thanks BradE!!!!
Once more I go out of my way and point out an editor as the culprit. Why? Because in Newsarama's Cup of Joe for March 30, Axel Alonso said: "That was an error. Just slipped through the cracks. JMS emailed us to fact-check Aunt May's maiden name, and in a glitch, we gave him the wrong name. It was one of those "D'oh!" moments that just got past everyone here. We've fixed it for the second print and the trade."
Fitzgerald, as I found out the other day, is the maiden name of Mary Parker, Peter's mother. So, having too much Spidey knowledge actually made Axel and his people go wrong?
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, Reilly being May's maiden name is the whole point of the Spidey-Clone calling himself Ben Reilly.
<-------------------------------->
O02-"EVEN THE REST OF HER POWERS ARE INVISIBLE!"-#21.
COMMENT: This book was a proof that a couple more proofreads before print, preferably by sober people, are a good idea.
TITLE: Civil War: Battle Damage Report.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Anthony Flamini (head writer/coordinator) and/or Ronald Byrd (writer), and Michael Hoskin (proofing coordination).
DISSECTION: Page 22, Fantastic Four's profile, the Invisible Woman's powers are described as "can render herself and other objects wholly or partially invisible by mentally bending all wavelengths of light in the vicinity around herself or the target in question."
Huh? What happened to her power to project force fields??!?! We're only talking about one of the most important characters in the Marvel Universe, heck, it's one of the first four characters we can call part of the Marvel Universe, and were not added to it by retcon.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Simply outrageous.
<-------------------------------->
O03-"52 UNIVERSES CERTAINLY ISN'T ENOUGH..."-#46
COMMENT: Why do some people get jobs like "Creative Director" and are put in charge of stuff they know nothing about?
TITLE: All DCU titles I read the week of 10/24.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Richard Bruning (DC Creative Director, writer of that week's DC Nation).
DISSECTION: Bruning talks about Zuda, and says "What in the 52 multiverses..." There's not 52 multiverses, there's one multiverse, and 52 universes.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Now for the nominees for the first of the homegrown categories, Best Quote:
<-------------------------------->
Q01-"Electricity can only be replenished by whisky. This is actual physics. Don't argue with me, I am a doktor." Doktor Sleepless, Doktor Sleepless #1 (#33).
COMMENT: Instant classic.
<-------------------------------->
Q02-"Look at the Concorde: you used to be able to cross the Atlantic in three hours flat. Then the cunts stuck the future in a museum." Billy Butcher, The Boys #9 (#35).
COMMENT: Progress, crippled.
<-------------------------------->
Q03-"From the state of ridiculously tall and gorgeous amazons with perfect skin. Alba-chusetts, West Jessicabiel-burg. Stupid Alba-chussets." Brenda Del Vecchio, Blue Beetle V7 #18 (#37).
COMMENT: Teen dialogue at its best.
<-------------------------------->
Q04-"Super-friction, Brainiac. Super-friction creates static electricity. Super-static-electricity creates... Shakkaboom. (...) My dream, my rules, you clockwork moron." Superman, Superman V1 #666 (#37).
COMMENT: Silver Age retro is good, sometimes.
<-------------------------------->
Q05-"That is, without a doubt, the nastiest tasting stuff I ever put in my mouth." Wonder Girl II, Countdown #32 (#41).
COMMENT: I love out of context quotes.
<-------------------------------->
Q06-"I'm getting lectured on CHILD SAFETY from a man who's gone through FOUR ROBINS?" Wally West (obviously to Batman), The Flash V2 (#46).
COMMENT: You tell him, Wally!
<-------------------------------->
Alright, now for the last in-house category, the nominees for Best Moment:
<-------------------------------->
M01-Peter Parker pwns Kingpin (#33).
COMMENT: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
<-------------------------------->
M02-Superman kills Lex Luthor with a superloogie (#37).
COMMENT: He indeed is a powerful visitor with mysterious powers.
<-------------------------------->
M03-Matter-Eater Lad shows you why pointing is rude (#37).
COMMENT: Makes me hungry, for some reason.
<-------------------------------->
M04-Tek-Knight humps a meteorite (#39).
COMMENT: Chika-chika-bow-bow.
<-------------------------------->
M05-Namor rips off Venom’s tongue (#42).
COMMENT: OW!
<-------------------------------->
M06-Earth Green Lanterns swear their oath (#44).
COMMENT: Way cool.
<-------------------------------->
OK, get voting, you have until Wednesday, November 28th, more or less, to do so. Catch you next Thursday with the regular column, hopefully. Remember, nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
I got your Autopsy Awards nominees right here! The voting will be via e-mail, because I couldn't manage to set up them damn web polls... Send your votes to lordmagnusen at gmail.com, in the following form (each nomination has a code): "W01, A03, C02..."
Some of the awards are not subject to vote, as they are given solely on a numeric basis (most Dissected company, etc), or specially awarded for extraordinary "merit". Of course, the text for each dissection is the original one from when they were published, but I've added (mostly) new comments for all. Let's get started with the Best Writing Dissection nominees:
<-------------------------------->
W01-"UNITED SOCIALIST SOVIET KINGDOMS."-#12
COMMENT: This is the worst historical-related plot nit I've ever found.
TITLE: Books Of Doom.
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).
DISSECTION: From page 10, I quote Gustav the gipsy "The King has the backing of the Russians now." WTF????!?!?!??! Since this "Russians" they speak of are the USSR (we know it's so, because they refer to them as the Soviets on page 23), and the Soviets would have NEVER, EVER, backed a monarch, this is so hare-brained a plot device I can't even begin to think what the hell Brubaker is aiming at.
DISSECT-O-METER: This gets 10 Bazzars, it's as stupid as saying that there's a KKK chapter formed by black people...
<-------------------------------->
W02-"GOTHAM CITY, CITY STATE?"-#17
COMMENT: This goes to show how some people have no idea how the world works...
TITLE: 52.
ISSUE: Week 14.
CULPRIT: Travis Lanham (letterer) and/or Greg Rucka (writer most likely in charge of this section).
DISSECTION: When Renee Montoya's passport is stamped in Khandaq (page 2, panel 8), it reads "U.S. Embassy, Gotham City, United States"... wtf? I thought Gotham went back to being part of the USA after the No Man's Land. Since when countries have embassies in their own cities?
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, big mistake, but not story-affecting.
<-------------------------------->
W03-“NINJAS, SMINJAS!”-#23
COMMENT: One of the many examples of why Chris Claremont should have retired.
TITLE: Exiles.
ISSUE: 93.
CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).
DISSECTION: Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that Claremont is back on his feet. But he keeps on making stupid mistakes that could be avoided with a little research and attention to detail. In this issue, he confuses the word "ninja" (you know, those sneaky guys who kill people) with "gaijin" (a somewhat derogatory term Japanese use for foreigners).
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Chris, it's NINJAS, for God's sake!
<-------------------------------->
W04-“FASTER THAN A RAY OF LIGHT!”-#23
COMMENT: This just left me speechless.
TITLE: Battlestar Galactica V4.
ISSUE: 08.
CULPRIT: Greg Pak (writer).
DISSECTION: This series sucks. Not only the art is horrible, but the plot is very, very, lame. On top of all that, on page 19 a ship filled with old Cylon Centurions and one number 8 jumps towards "the heart of the Cylon Empire", and arrives "Ten seconds later on the other side of the universe."
What?!?!? An FTL in the new BSG universe, not even a Cylon FTL, can't travel to the other side of the galaxy, let alone the OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE in ten seconds.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Come on!
<-------------------------------->
W05-"MATH IS DIFFERENT IN THE FUTURE."-#30
COMMENT: Something doesn't add up...
TITLE: (Supergirl And) The Legion Of Super-Heroes V5.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Tony Bedard (writer) and/or Travis Lanham (letterer).
DISSECTION: Legion of Super-Heroes election results (page 9): Brainiac 5: 7%, Cosmic Boy: 23%, Lightning Lad: 26%, Supergirl: 54%. So, it adds up to 110%! What?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
W06-"MY, MY, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!!"-#37
COMMENT: Physics, and how writers disregard them for fun and profit.
TITLE: Batman/Lobo: Deadly Serious.
ISSUE: 01 of 02.
CULPRIT: Sam Kieth (writer/artist).
DISSECTION: Meh. That's what this book's caused in me so far, it's readable, but nothing out of the ordinary. Only one nit, but a fairly big one; on page 48, the entity that possesses women (the one Lobo and Batman are fighting) tells her current host that she's "entering another orbit" and that her "body mass will change with it." Sam, it's your weight that changes with gravity, not your mass, since weight is a product of your mass times the gravity of the place you are in. For those of you who never paid attention in junior high physics, experiencing changes in your mass would mean that you actually grow or shrink. Colloquially, we refer to mass as "weight", but I'd never seen it the other way around.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
W07-"SCIENCE IS HARD!"-#42
COMMENT: Ah, biology is also neglected!
TITLE: Justice League Of America.V2.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Dwayne McDuffie (writer).
DISSECTION: On page fourteen, Poison Ivy attacks Green Lantern (John Stewart) by multiplying part of his intestinal flora (mycobacterium paratuberculosis, to be precise)... but intestinal flora, despite its name, it's made of plants, it's made of bacteria.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, dammit, if you wanna do science fiction, read up on science. Anyone who's finished high school and paid some attention should know that intestinal flora is made of bacteria.
<-------------------------------->
I already know which is my favorite. Let's go on with the nominees for Best Art Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
A01-"REACH OUT AND TOUCH..."-#07
COMMENT: I sometimes wonder if pencillers actually read the scripts they're working on.
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 182
CULPRIT: Salvador Larroca (penciller).
DISSECTION: Larroca is almost back at his previous standards, but he screwed up big time here... on page 19 he draws Pulse and Rogue talking to each other, and Rogue "realizes" he's touching her (his hand on her arm). Thing is, they're both wearing full bodysuits.... Nothing happen because apparently Pulse's powers cancel Rogues... or MAYBE it's BECAUSE they're NOT ACTUALLY TOUCHING!!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars, Larroca really screwed up here.
<-------------------------------->
A02-"HELP! I'M SHRINKING!"-#13
COMMENT: This is just... well.... it's like drawing a Wolverine that stands 7 feet tall...
TITLE: X-Men: The 198.
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Jim Muniz (penciller).
DISSECTION: Page 20. Panel 3. Shadowcat's shoulder. Lockheed. Muniz, get this straight: LOCKHEED IS NOT THE SIZE OF A HUMAN HEAD, MUCH LESS THE SIZE OF A HUMAN FIST AS YOU DREW HIM HERE!!!! Not only you're repeating the mistake you did last issue, you're worsening it!
Here's a tip: before using a character in a book you're drawing, look at the references, at least read a single comic where that character has appeared, or check the character’s Handbook entry.
DISSECT-O-METER: God, this only gets 10 Bazzars because I can't give it an 11... I'm so tempted to make an exemption....
<-------------------------------->
A03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM."-33
COMMENT: There seems to be at least one error each week in Countdown, and this has been the worst. Oh, it was my first (and only, so far, 20 Bazzars).
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel García (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have García or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
<-------------------------------->
Yes, I know, there's less nominations for this category... most have three, except for a couple of the categories, where I just couldn't choose. On with the nominees for Best Coloring Dissection, with my all favorite nit of all times:
<-------------------------------->
C01-"THE INCREDIBLE COLOR-CHANGING CAPE"-#02
COMMENT: This is wonderful, other nits that came after it got 10 Bazzars, but this will always be my favorite. Jeromy Cox, the culprit, will visit us every now and then. In retrospect, this probably should have gotten a 10, but I was too meek back then, too much in control of the Nitpicker, as the beast called itself those days.
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 29.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: Alright, we all know that before Tim Drake, Robin's costume sucked ass. The scaly green speedos, the bare legs (or skin-colored pantyhose in Burt Ward's case), the insufferably bright colors of the yellow cape and red tunic, all that made for one of the worst costumes in comic book history. So when Robin II (Jason Todd, previously thought dead), currently Red Hood, decided to make some changes to his old costume (same one Dick Grayson wore before him), I thought, ok, that's cool.
You see, Jason is all nutso, and appears in his Red Hood garb before Robin III (the aforementioned better-costumed Tim Drake), but takes off his villainous costume to reveal a Robin suit underneath, and challenges Tim to a fight. How the heck did he keep that cape from bulking up on the back of his tight leather jacket, is beyond me. Thing is, Jason decided he was leg-shy, and threw in a pair of yellow tights to cover his legs (maybe he hadn't shaved) and instead of the elf-slippers, a pair of elf-boots.
Apparently, as we see in page, he borrows a page from Tim's book, and also wears a yellow-on-the-inside and black-in-the-outside cape. Makes sense, you can hide in the shadows better (never mind the yellow tights). But... on the next page, his cape is yellow, inside and out. But... in the last panel of that page, it's black outside, yellow inside again!
In page 10's first panel it's all yellow, then in the third panel it's yellow inside, black outside (although that could be a shadow), because in the last panel it's yellow outside again. It's still all yellow for all of page 11, and when we see it again on page 14, and apparently it's still all yellow in pages 15 through 17, and then he's gone. What gives?
DISSECT-O-METER: I'm tempted to give this a 10, but it's not a nit that affects the story. Still, it's pretty major, so it gets the highest score so far, the first-ever 9 Bazzars!
<-------------------------------->
C02-"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GREEN OR WHITE!"-#07
COMMENT: Ah, Jeromy Cox and his crazy coloring... he's the only person with more than one nomination!
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 32.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page eight, panel six, Beast Boy's communicator (I really prefer Changeling, Beast Boy sounds like a Legion Of Super-Heroes name, which I love, but this is the Titans) beeps in the middle of his meeting with the Doom Patrol; and in panel seven, they do a close-up of his hand holding the device... and his skin is not green, it's white (ok, not chalk white, but Caucasian).
DISSECT-O-METER: This is a big mistake, it gets 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
C03-"I ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE VIGILANTISM.-#33
COMMENT: Same thing as before, but from a coloring point of view.
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 40.
CULPRIT: Manuel García (penciller) and Thomas Chu (colorist).
DISSECTION: Oh. My. God. Look at the image below, this is supposed to be the Question, aka Renee Montoya:
ARGH! DAMMIT! Have García or Chu NEVER read a Question comic? Did they even read 52? Where they at least given reference materials on how the Question's mask is supposed to look like? It doesn't bloody look like the answer to any of those questions is yes. First of all, even if we leave aside the exaggerated depth of the eyes on the mask, there's too many wrinkles, it looks too much like a mask, and not like real-looking artificial skin.
Second, both for Vic Sage and for Montoya, the Mask stops where their hairline starts, so it looks like a featureless face. This looks like Montoya is wearing an opaque condom on her head with her pony tail coming out of the hole. Lastly, and not worse than the shape of the mask, is the color Chu's given this. Again people, it's SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FEATURELESS FACE, LIKE REAL SKIN!!!! Not like an obvious rubber mask!
For the umpteenth time, LOOK AT THE FUCKING REFERENCES FOR THE CHARACTERS YOU'RE GOING TO DRAW OR COLOR!!!
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, in fact, this is going to count double. Yes, double, as if it was a 20, fuck dammit all to hell!
<-------------------------------->
My vote is already cast. Let's go with the nominees for Best Lettering Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
L01-"I DON'T THINK WE'RE SUPOSSED TO MENTION THAT IN FRONT OF TONY, HE MIGHT GO AND TELL HIS DRINKING BUDDIES..."-#08
COMMENT: Lettering gone wild!
TITLE: New Avengers.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Albert Deschesne (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 9, last panel, Ms. Marvel talks to Captain America and mentions "(...) the whole House of M thing.", but the words "House of M" are striked-out with a red line. This happens again in the first panel of page 10, but then in that same page, in the third panel "House of M" is normal; then in panel six it's striked out again.
All the sentences except one work without the words "House of M", so I'm guessing that at the last minute Brian Michael Bendis (the book's writer) decided that the conversation between Ms. Marvel and Cap should be sort of more secretive, and told the letterers to remove the words; they striked them out in red to remember to remove them... but didn't remove them. And they missed one, because that phrase didn't make sense without it...
DISSECT-O-METER: This is kind of big, so it gets 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
L02-"COCONUT PLANTATIONS ARE ILEGAL IN THE DC UNIVERSE."-#16
COMMENT: Languages people, languages.
TITLE: The Question Quarterly.
ISSUE: 1.
CULPRIT: Dennis O'Neil (writer) or Willie Schubert (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 11, Vic Sage (aka The Question) tells a criminal who's captured him "And you're (...) growing COCO plants." and the criminal answers "Which get processed into a very profitable commodity." Uh... I think they meant COCA, which gets processed for cocaine (but you can also make legal and benign products out of coca... like Coca-Cola), as it's later stated that the guy is a drug lord. Coco is coconut.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
L03-"OH D?OS M?O!"-30
COMMENT: It's incredible nobody realized something was wrong.
TITLE: Blue Beetle V7.
ISSUE: 16.
CULPRIT: Phil Balsman (letterer), and maybe also John Rogers (writer).
DISSECTION: When I pick up Blue Beetle, not only do I know it's going to be a good read, I also know it's going to have at least one Spanish language related nit!
In this case, on page 10, panel two, Paco starts reciting the Hail Mary in Spanish, but he says "Dios et salve, Mar? a (...)" instead of "Dios te salve María(...), which means "God save you Mary", the equivalent of "The Lord is with thee".
Two things are wrong here, the first is "et" instead of "te"; and the second one is the tilde on "María" being replaced by "? ". This is something that happens sometimes with fonts or programs with character sets that don't include Latin characters such as the accented vowels (I think that's the reason).
In any case, I'm going to give props to John Roger for trying to get this right. In this case, it seems like an honest error. It's still funny, so I'm gonna show you the image. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can notice there's something wrong there:
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars (it's an honest error, but still, how could you not notice there's a question mark in the middle of a word?).
<-------------------------------->
L04-"WHA?"-39
COMMENT: They even make impossible things happen!
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men.
ISSUE: 490.
CULPRIT: VC's Joe Caramagna (letterer).
DISSECTION: On the credits for the Endangered Species story, colorist Raúl Treviño's first name is incorrectly given as having the tilde on the "R", something that's not only wrong, but impossible.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Some jewels there, huh? Now let's check out the nominees for Best Other Dissection:
<-------------------------------->
O01-"THEY SHOT MFK!"-#21.
COMMENT: The best example of editors not doing their job, continuity-wise.
TITLE: Amazing Spider-Man.
ISSUE: 539.
CULPRIT: Axel Alonso (editor).
DISSECTION: When Spider-Man has Mary Jane register Aunt May (shot down by the Kingpin's sniper) in the hospital, he tells her to use May's maiden name "Fitzgerald"... but as far as we know, her maiden name is "Reilly". What gives?
Credit where credit is due, I did not realize this on my own, I only realized it after I read this post on Newsarama. Thanks BradE!!!!
Once more I go out of my way and point out an editor as the culprit. Why? Because in Newsarama's Cup of Joe for March 30, Axel Alonso said: "That was an error. Just slipped through the cracks. JMS emailed us to fact-check Aunt May's maiden name, and in a glitch, we gave him the wrong name. It was one of those "D'oh!" moments that just got past everyone here. We've fixed it for the second print and the trade."
Fitzgerald, as I found out the other day, is the maiden name of Mary Parker, Peter's mother. So, having too much Spidey knowledge actually made Axel and his people go wrong?
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, Reilly being May's maiden name is the whole point of the Spidey-Clone calling himself Ben Reilly.
<-------------------------------->
O02-"EVEN THE REST OF HER POWERS ARE INVISIBLE!"-#21.
COMMENT: This book was a proof that a couple more proofreads before print, preferably by sober people, are a good idea.
TITLE: Civil War: Battle Damage Report.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Anthony Flamini (head writer/coordinator) and/or Ronald Byrd (writer), and Michael Hoskin (proofing coordination).
DISSECTION: Page 22, Fantastic Four's profile, the Invisible Woman's powers are described as "can render herself and other objects wholly or partially invisible by mentally bending all wavelengths of light in the vicinity around herself or the target in question."
Huh? What happened to her power to project force fields??!?! We're only talking about one of the most important characters in the Marvel Universe, heck, it's one of the first four characters we can call part of the Marvel Universe, and were not added to it by retcon.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. Simply outrageous.
<-------------------------------->
O03-"52 UNIVERSES CERTAINLY ISN'T ENOUGH..."-#46
COMMENT: Why do some people get jobs like "Creative Director" and are put in charge of stuff they know nothing about?
TITLE: All DCU titles I read the week of 10/24.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Richard Bruning (DC Creative Director, writer of that week's DC Nation).
DISSECTION: Bruning talks about Zuda, and says "What in the 52 multiverses..." There's not 52 multiverses, there's one multiverse, and 52 universes.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Now for the nominees for the first of the homegrown categories, Best Quote:
<-------------------------------->
Q01-"Electricity can only be replenished by whisky. This is actual physics. Don't argue with me, I am a doktor." Doktor Sleepless, Doktor Sleepless #1 (#33).
COMMENT: Instant classic.
<-------------------------------->
Q02-"Look at the Concorde: you used to be able to cross the Atlantic in three hours flat. Then the cunts stuck the future in a museum." Billy Butcher, The Boys #9 (#35).
COMMENT: Progress, crippled.
<-------------------------------->
Q03-"From the state of ridiculously tall and gorgeous amazons with perfect skin. Alba-chusetts, West Jessicabiel-burg. Stupid Alba-chussets." Brenda Del Vecchio, Blue Beetle V7 #18 (#37).
COMMENT: Teen dialogue at its best.
<-------------------------------->
Q04-"Super-friction, Brainiac. Super-friction creates static electricity. Super-static-electricity creates... Shakkaboom. (...) My dream, my rules, you clockwork moron." Superman, Superman V1 #666 (#37).
COMMENT: Silver Age retro is good, sometimes.
<-------------------------------->
Q05-"That is, without a doubt, the nastiest tasting stuff I ever put in my mouth." Wonder Girl II, Countdown #32 (#41).
COMMENT: I love out of context quotes.
<-------------------------------->
Q06-"I'm getting lectured on CHILD SAFETY from a man who's gone through FOUR ROBINS?" Wally West (obviously to Batman), The Flash V2 (#46).
COMMENT: You tell him, Wally!
<-------------------------------->
Alright, now for the last in-house category, the nominees for Best Moment:
<-------------------------------->
M01-Peter Parker pwns Kingpin (#33).
COMMENT: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
<-------------------------------->
M02-Superman kills Lex Luthor with a superloogie (#37).
COMMENT: He indeed is a powerful visitor with mysterious powers.
<-------------------------------->
M03-Matter-Eater Lad shows you why pointing is rude (#37).
COMMENT: Makes me hungry, for some reason.
<-------------------------------->
M04-Tek-Knight humps a meteorite (#39).
COMMENT: Chika-chika-bow-bow.
<-------------------------------->
M05-Namor rips off Venom’s tongue (#42).
COMMENT: OW!
<-------------------------------->
M06-Earth Green Lanterns swear their oath (#44).
COMMENT: Way cool.
<-------------------------------->
OK, get voting, you have until Wednesday, November 28th, more or less, to do so. Catch you next Thursday with the regular column, hopefully. Remember, nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Dissector #48.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"Kid... You're fired. We get back to Earth, you're demoted to Excalisuck or some damn team." Wolverine, to Armor, Astonishing X-Men V3 #23.
Alright, so this column is actually out on time; as I'm finishing it on early Wednesday morning when it's due on Thursday. Yet, all this rushing to get on track did make me forget that... this past Sunday, November 11th (not 12th, as I said a few weeks ago), was the column's second birthday!!! Yes, two years ago The Nitpicker's Column made it's first appearance, in issue #549 of the now sadly extinct Comic Book Electronic Magazine (or CBEM, for shorts, you can check the still read-worthy archive here).
Editor David LeBlanc generously accepted my offer of writing this new column, and said in his editorial, about the first one "The Emag is also on the move, ever-changing, ever-evolving. After the recent success of COMICS OBSCURA in our pages we were offered another new column which should prove a bit interesting. Some of you may react strongly - either agree or disagree with the analysis offered. My criteria is that it is on topic and written well. Check out THE NITPICKER starting this week and see if you have an opinion."
I, myself, opened the first column with "Hello, welcome to The Nitpicker's Column, where in a (hopefully) weekly basis I'll bring to your attention bring some mistakes, goofs, mix-ups and the like, that I find on the comics I read that week.". A lot has changed, like a converted Muslim, the column has a new name; that first installment didn't have a closing comment or Bazzar average; and of course, things like the Picks Of The Week, or the Quote Of The Week weren't even a glimmer in my eye. In fact, I was usually unable to keep a weekly schedule, and that first column only has 7 nits! What was I reading? Who was featured in that first column?
Well, there were Star Wars books, Infinite Crisis, House Of M, Warren Ellis, Greg Rucka, Brian Michael Bendis, and some guy name Haden Blackman, who I haven't heard of again, and frankly, I don't regret that, since I didn't like how he wrote Rogue Squadron. And on my own front? Well, let's say my writing style wasn't even half as good as the humble attempts at wordsmithing I do today, so it's kind of painful to read that column, in a sense. Thanks David, for that early shot at writing, and to Jeffery D. Sykes, editor of the Kryptonian Cybernet, where I published my first piece of comic criticism, a Silver Age Superman review.
A lot has changed in my life since that first Nitpicker, too. I've changed jobs, to a new, much better one; I've traveled to Australia, one of the places I've always wanted to visit; I've been offered to write in a couple of books; my son has grown up beautifully, and I've gained a sizeable amount of loyal readers. Enough reminiscing, I don't want to bore you all. I know I promised that this week we'd have a column with my favorite nits, but I just didn't have the time. If work is nice to me, I'll try to have the nominees to the Autopsy Awards for best dissections in each category for you, my faithful readers to vote on. Then, after a week or two of voting, by the end of the month, I'll publish a special column with the results of the Awards.
So, before going on with the column, I must admit that last week's dissection about Psylocke being in that X-Men pin-up wasn't as accurate as I'd like. Matías N., fellow writer from ICS.net pointed out that the Asian girl in that group shot is probably meant to be Armor (as evidenced by the haircut and sleeveless costume), who joined Cyclops' team in Astonishing X-Men. Still, if that's the case, Djurdjevic still goofed up when he colored her hair purple, when it's black. Furthermore, as Astonishing happens before the current storylines, Armor does not appear to be a part of the senior X-Men squads; and in fact, there have been a few indications that point to her once more being part of the younger team, the New X-Men. Badge for you, Matías.
With that out of the way, let me tell you that the Guvnor Paul C figured out (amidst several shots) that the problem with last column's Dissect This! was that Himmler's eyeballs are about the size of a human fist in one panel, then normal-sized in the following ones (and they had been normal in the pages and issues before). Good job Guvnor, here's another badge for ya! So, you want to know which are the Dissector's Picks Of The Week? Sure thing; best book of the week was without doubt All-New Atom #17, and it's about the second or third time this book is picked as best of the week; even those weeks where it wasn't, it was still of the top five reads.
Gail Simone doesn't miss a bit with her story, and when there's a fill-in, it's still entertaining and well-crafted. The same can be said about Mike Norton's art, simple but consistent, well inked by Trevor Scott, and superbly colored by Alex Bleyaert, who understands that "simple" does not mean "bland" or "insufferably bright:. This particular issue shows how human, young, and still naive (but at the same time believing in human potential) is Ryan Choi, and how jaded some of DC's older guard heroes have become. Read it, you'll like it.
The worst book is one that was already kind of bad with the first issue, and that unfortunately, doesn't show any signs of getting better. I'm talking about Infinity Inc. V2, with a confusing story by Peter Milligan, along with bad art from Max Fiumara & Travel Foreman, which makes the story even more difficult to follow, because it's hard to tell the difference between some characters. Add on top of that that Dom Regan's colors are really stomach-turning, and you've got yourself an awful comic. Alright, let's get on with this week's dissections, shall we?
<-------------------------------->
"WHO SAID THAT?"
TITLE: 2001 Maniacs Hornbook.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Uncredited letterer.
DISSECTION: This is not from a new book; or rather, it kind of is. A few months ago, Avatar published a preview book for 2001 Maniacs, with previews of the story, interviews, making of, etc. But on page ten of the book, second one of the story preview, they omitted one the character's speech balloons, and gave him another one's. See below:
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"APOKOLIPS WILL DRESS YOU UP FOR SLAVE LABOR."
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis.
ISSUE: 25.
CULPRIT: Ron Lim (penciller).
DISSECTION: Well, I was beginning to fear that I would have no nits for this issue! But Matt Brady from Newsarama (another badge for him, not that he cares), for asking Adam Beechen and Mike Carlin the following: "Well, hey - there must be some labor - obviously, there must be some - he (Jimmy Olsen) was beaten out of his clothes in #26, and here he's fully dressed.", to which Beechen and Carlin responded, respectively "On Apokolips all molecules immediately become unstable." and "Ha-- or so that charlatan Professor Richards would have you believe!"
Yeah, keep sidestepping the questions guys. On a happier note, it seems, based on that same interview, that Giffen is still doing layouts. Perhaps he just missed a couple of issues of layouts (or at least complete layouts) and had to be billed only as story consultant.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT IT... IN RED!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Rain.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Kelley Jones, Eric Battle & Angel Unzueta (pencillers).
DISSECTION: I'm not familiar enough with styles of any of those pencillers to sort out who did what page (in fact, I don't think I'd ever heard of Battle before), but try to spot the pretty easy dissection in this page.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"VAMPIRES ARE NOT REAL!!!! COME, LET'S FLY THANKS MY ALMOST-MAGICALLY POWERED RING, YOU DARK AVENGER WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Rain.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Peter Johnson (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Jason Todd and Kyle Rayner, who each have more than enough experience with the supernatural, are attacked by long-fanged, point-eared, bestial-faced hobos, yet they don't believe they've found vampires? Right.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SO MANY CRISIS(ES)!"
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 47.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: I just caught myself doing this mistake when I was about to save the draft for this column (as if it was finished); and corrected it. However, I wondered, have I made this mistake in last column too? Turns out that yes, when talking about the worst book of the week, I called it "Countdown to INFINITE Crisis", when it should be "Final Crisis". Say, a question... do you think I should go back and correct my mistakes (when I notice them a good time after posting), or leave them as they are?
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"METAL BALLOONS."
TITLE: Metal Men V4.
ISSUE: 04 of 08.
CULPRIT: Pat Brosseau (letterer).
DISSECTION: Gold's speech balloon on page 8 is wrongly placed.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHE'S RIPPED."
TITLE: Midnighter.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Jon Landry (penciller).
DISSECTION: On the first panel of page 19, Midnighter rips off most of the front part of Rosie's shirt, leaving her breasts exposed, which she covers with her arms. Yet by the second to last panel of that page, her shirt covers all of her midriff, when there didn't seem to be enough fabric to do that. In fact, by the following page, we can see that she's tied up her shirt, leaving her midriff exposed.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I JUST QUICK-BOOM TUBED TO APOKOLIPS, AND GOT MY CLOTHES REGENERATED, LIKE JIMMY!"
TITLE: Midnighter.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Jon Landry (penciller).
DISSECTION: Same situation as above, Rosie's shirt's been torn to shreds by Midnighter from the collar down, yet on page 20 the only area of the garment that shows that level of deterioration is the knotted-up lower-half.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HE. IS. ALFRED."
TITLE: Robin V2.
ISSUE: 168.
CULPRIT: Peter Milligan (writer).
DISSECTION: Damian, Batman's son, is enough of a Ninja Badass (TM) to beat R'as' best guards, and to kick the snot out of Robin (twice), yet Alfred can sneak up on him AND push him?
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BADGERING."
TITLE: Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Vulcans.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Josep Maria Beroy (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Most of the badges in the book don't have the department insignia, as it's usual for IDW's Star Trek books. I'm tired of this, as in fact, some characters are not even wearing badges at all at times. This comic was actually good, if nothing extraordinary.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"KAN'T KAUSE ME INKOVINIENCE WITH YOUR FAKE KRYPTONITE!"
TITLE: Superman V1.
ISSUE: 670.
CULPRIT: Kurt Busiek (writer).
DISSECTION: This was a better installment (and the final one) of the "Third Kryptonian" storyline, but Busiek has Superman, Supergirl, and Power Girl, all affected by synthetic Kryptonite flechettes, when Power Girl, as a denizen of Earth-2, should not be affected by this universe's Kryptonite.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. It might just be that this synth-K has less power, but a broader spectrum than real K.
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S A KITCHEN GLOVE."
TITLE: Superman V1.
ISSUE: 670.
CULPRIT: Rick Leonardi (penciller) and Alex Sinclair (colorist).
DISSECTION: Batman fights the guy hunting down Kryptonians, using the Fortress of Solitude's arsenal, and ends up wounded, and with his costume damaged, to the point of losing his left-hand glove. Yet on page 30, he's got some weird kind of red glove on his hand, but with blue "forearm spikes", when it had been show that he had lost his glove and sleeve almost up to the elbow.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. A red glove??!!?
<-------------------------------->
"PET PEEVE #1"
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men.
ISSUE: 492.
CULPRIT: Billy Tan (penciller).
DISSECTION: Beast.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS OF NO USE TO S.H.I.E.L.D.."
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Several Marvel issues this last week included some bonus material, including a section of supposedly secret data that Nick Fury collected for use as leverage on the X-Men if he should need it. First of all, there's some information that's not "in character" data, such as X-Men references in a Weird Al song, or how Storm was originally conceived as a different character by Dave Cockrum. Those are pieces of information nick Fury could use as leverage, because to him, they're not even real.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YEAH, SOME LEVERAGE."
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Some of the information, such as the fact that Wolverine's claws don't come out of any permanent holes but rather create wounds every time they are unsheathed, are not things that can be used as leverage of any kind.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TONY, YOU DRUNK BASTARD, QUIT STEALING MY DESIGNS!"
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Now for a specifically factual error; the "file" says that Nightcrawler's image inducer was invented by Tony Stark, when it was actually designed by Charles Xavier (probably based on Sh'iar tech), and then built by Stark Enterprises.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO'S THAT MORPH?"
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Tom Grummett (writer of comments on his own sketches, since he'll be artist for New Exiles).
DISSECTION: Another section of the bonus material is character sketches and descriptions for the upcoming first issue of New Exiles (did we need another #1? No, we didn't... GAHHH!!!), and it includes a description of Morph, that says, among other things "MORPH is Morph.". but no, he's NOT Morph, he's actually a version Proteus that believes he's Morph, something Claremont had been ignoring in Exiles. He finally made a passing reference to him not being Morph in the most recent issue of "X-Men: Die By The Sword".
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"ARTIE, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!"
TITLE: Infinity Inc. V2.
ISSUE: 03.
CULPRIT: Dom Regan (colorist).
DISSECTION: In addition to how bad this book's been, on page 2, the psychologist's skin is colored a bright pink. Normal humans don't have that skin color.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Short and sweet column that puts me up to date, and hopefully, I'll be able to spend the next days finishing the prep work for the Autopsy Awards (apart from reading this week's books, of course). The average was 6.6 Bazzars, not bad for such a short column (to be fair, there's a handful of books I haven't received yet). As mentioned before, soon (on Sunday, most likely) I'll post the nominees for the categories that are up for vote. Before I forget, here's the Moment Of The Week, which is actually kind of retro, as it comes from the Jimmy Olsen special DC released with Jack Kirby stories from Jimbo's own book. Check it out, it's a creature genetically engineered from Jimmy's DNA, some gamma rays, and the King's own eyebrow-DNA!
That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"Kid... You're fired. We get back to Earth, you're demoted to Excalisuck or some damn team." Wolverine, to Armor, Astonishing X-Men V3 #23.
Alright, so this column is actually out on time; as I'm finishing it on early Wednesday morning when it's due on Thursday. Yet, all this rushing to get on track did make me forget that... this past Sunday, November 11th (not 12th, as I said a few weeks ago), was the column's second birthday!!! Yes, two years ago The Nitpicker's Column made it's first appearance, in issue #549 of the now sadly extinct Comic Book Electronic Magazine (or CBEM, for shorts, you can check the still read-worthy archive here).
Editor David LeBlanc generously accepted my offer of writing this new column, and said in his editorial, about the first one "The Emag is also on the move, ever-changing, ever-evolving. After the recent success of COMICS OBSCURA in our pages we were offered another new column which should prove a bit interesting. Some of you may react strongly - either agree or disagree with the analysis offered. My criteria is that it is on topic and written well. Check out THE NITPICKER starting this week and see if you have an opinion."
I, myself, opened the first column with "Hello, welcome to The Nitpicker's Column, where in a (hopefully) weekly basis I'll bring to your attention bring some mistakes, goofs, mix-ups and the like, that I find on the comics I read that week.". A lot has changed, like a converted Muslim, the column has a new name; that first installment didn't have a closing comment or Bazzar average; and of course, things like the Picks Of The Week, or the Quote Of The Week weren't even a glimmer in my eye. In fact, I was usually unable to keep a weekly schedule, and that first column only has 7 nits! What was I reading? Who was featured in that first column?
Well, there were Star Wars books, Infinite Crisis, House Of M, Warren Ellis, Greg Rucka, Brian Michael Bendis, and some guy name Haden Blackman, who I haven't heard of again, and frankly, I don't regret that, since I didn't like how he wrote Rogue Squadron. And on my own front? Well, let's say my writing style wasn't even half as good as the humble attempts at wordsmithing I do today, so it's kind of painful to read that column, in a sense. Thanks David, for that early shot at writing, and to Jeffery D. Sykes, editor of the Kryptonian Cybernet, where I published my first piece of comic criticism, a Silver Age Superman review.
A lot has changed in my life since that first Nitpicker, too. I've changed jobs, to a new, much better one; I've traveled to Australia, one of the places I've always wanted to visit; I've been offered to write in a couple of books; my son has grown up beautifully, and I've gained a sizeable amount of loyal readers. Enough reminiscing, I don't want to bore you all. I know I promised that this week we'd have a column with my favorite nits, but I just didn't have the time. If work is nice to me, I'll try to have the nominees to the Autopsy Awards for best dissections in each category for you, my faithful readers to vote on. Then, after a week or two of voting, by the end of the month, I'll publish a special column with the results of the Awards.
So, before going on with the column, I must admit that last week's dissection about Psylocke being in that X-Men pin-up wasn't as accurate as I'd like. Matías N., fellow writer from ICS.net pointed out that the Asian girl in that group shot is probably meant to be Armor (as evidenced by the haircut and sleeveless costume), who joined Cyclops' team in Astonishing X-Men. Still, if that's the case, Djurdjevic still goofed up when he colored her hair purple, when it's black. Furthermore, as Astonishing happens before the current storylines, Armor does not appear to be a part of the senior X-Men squads; and in fact, there have been a few indications that point to her once more being part of the younger team, the New X-Men. Badge for you, Matías.
With that out of the way, let me tell you that the Guvnor Paul C figured out (amidst several shots) that the problem with last column's Dissect This! was that Himmler's eyeballs are about the size of a human fist in one panel, then normal-sized in the following ones (and they had been normal in the pages and issues before). Good job Guvnor, here's another badge for ya! So, you want to know which are the Dissector's Picks Of The Week? Sure thing; best book of the week was without doubt All-New Atom #17, and it's about the second or third time this book is picked as best of the week; even those weeks where it wasn't, it was still of the top five reads.
Gail Simone doesn't miss a bit with her story, and when there's a fill-in, it's still entertaining and well-crafted. The same can be said about Mike Norton's art, simple but consistent, well inked by Trevor Scott, and superbly colored by Alex Bleyaert, who understands that "simple" does not mean "bland" or "insufferably bright:. This particular issue shows how human, young, and still naive (but at the same time believing in human potential) is Ryan Choi, and how jaded some of DC's older guard heroes have become. Read it, you'll like it.
The worst book is one that was already kind of bad with the first issue, and that unfortunately, doesn't show any signs of getting better. I'm talking about Infinity Inc. V2, with a confusing story by Peter Milligan, along with bad art from Max Fiumara & Travel Foreman, which makes the story even more difficult to follow, because it's hard to tell the difference between some characters. Add on top of that that Dom Regan's colors are really stomach-turning, and you've got yourself an awful comic. Alright, let's get on with this week's dissections, shall we?
<-------------------------------->
"WHO SAID THAT?"
TITLE: 2001 Maniacs Hornbook.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Uncredited letterer.
DISSECTION: This is not from a new book; or rather, it kind of is. A few months ago, Avatar published a preview book for 2001 Maniacs, with previews of the story, interviews, making of, etc. But on page ten of the book, second one of the story preview, they omitted one the character's speech balloons, and gave him another one's. See below:
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"APOKOLIPS WILL DRESS YOU UP FOR SLAVE LABOR."
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis.
ISSUE: 25.
CULPRIT: Ron Lim (penciller).
DISSECTION: Well, I was beginning to fear that I would have no nits for this issue! But Matt Brady from Newsarama (another badge for him, not that he cares), for asking Adam Beechen and Mike Carlin the following: "Well, hey - there must be some labor - obviously, there must be some - he (Jimmy Olsen) was beaten out of his clothes in #26, and here he's fully dressed.", to which Beechen and Carlin responded, respectively "On Apokolips all molecules immediately become unstable." and "Ha-- or so that charlatan Professor Richards would have you believe!"
Yeah, keep sidestepping the questions guys. On a happier note, it seems, based on that same interview, that Giffen is still doing layouts. Perhaps he just missed a couple of issues of layouts (or at least complete layouts) and had to be billed only as story consultant.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT IT... IN RED!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Rain.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Kelley Jones, Eric Battle & Angel Unzueta (pencillers).
DISSECTION: I'm not familiar enough with styles of any of those pencillers to sort out who did what page (in fact, I don't think I'd ever heard of Battle before), but try to spot the pretty easy dissection in this page.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"VAMPIRES ARE NOT REAL!!!! COME, LET'S FLY THANKS MY ALMOST-MAGICALLY POWERED RING, YOU DARK AVENGER WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer: Red Rain.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Peter Johnson (writer).
DISSECTION: So, Jason Todd and Kyle Rayner, who each have more than enough experience with the supernatural, are attacked by long-fanged, point-eared, bestial-faced hobos, yet they don't believe they've found vampires? Right.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SO MANY CRISIS(ES)!"
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 47.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: I just caught myself doing this mistake when I was about to save the draft for this column (as if it was finished); and corrected it. However, I wondered, have I made this mistake in last column too? Turns out that yes, when talking about the worst book of the week, I called it "Countdown to INFINITE Crisis", when it should be "Final Crisis". Say, a question... do you think I should go back and correct my mistakes (when I notice them a good time after posting), or leave them as they are?
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"METAL BALLOONS."
TITLE: Metal Men V4.
ISSUE: 04 of 08.
CULPRIT: Pat Brosseau (letterer).
DISSECTION: Gold's speech balloon on page 8 is wrongly placed.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHE'S RIPPED."
TITLE: Midnighter.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Jon Landry (penciller).
DISSECTION: On the first panel of page 19, Midnighter rips off most of the front part of Rosie's shirt, leaving her breasts exposed, which she covers with her arms. Yet by the second to last panel of that page, her shirt covers all of her midriff, when there didn't seem to be enough fabric to do that. In fact, by the following page, we can see that she's tied up her shirt, leaving her midriff exposed.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I JUST QUICK-BOOM TUBED TO APOKOLIPS, AND GOT MY CLOTHES REGENERATED, LIKE JIMMY!"
TITLE: Midnighter.
ISSUE: 13.
CULPRIT: Jon Landry (penciller).
DISSECTION: Same situation as above, Rosie's shirt's been torn to shreds by Midnighter from the collar down, yet on page 20 the only area of the garment that shows that level of deterioration is the knotted-up lower-half.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HE. IS. ALFRED."
TITLE: Robin V2.
ISSUE: 168.
CULPRIT: Peter Milligan (writer).
DISSECTION: Damian, Batman's son, is enough of a Ninja Badass (TM) to beat R'as' best guards, and to kick the snot out of Robin (twice), yet Alfred can sneak up on him AND push him?
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BADGERING."
TITLE: Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Vulcans.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Josep Maria Beroy (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Most of the badges in the book don't have the department insignia, as it's usual for IDW's Star Trek books. I'm tired of this, as in fact, some characters are not even wearing badges at all at times. This comic was actually good, if nothing extraordinary.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"KAN'T KAUSE ME INKOVINIENCE WITH YOUR FAKE KRYPTONITE!"
TITLE: Superman V1.
ISSUE: 670.
CULPRIT: Kurt Busiek (writer).
DISSECTION: This was a better installment (and the final one) of the "Third Kryptonian" storyline, but Busiek has Superman, Supergirl, and Power Girl, all affected by synthetic Kryptonite flechettes, when Power Girl, as a denizen of Earth-2, should not be affected by this universe's Kryptonite.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars. It might just be that this synth-K has less power, but a broader spectrum than real K.
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S A KITCHEN GLOVE."
TITLE: Superman V1.
ISSUE: 670.
CULPRIT: Rick Leonardi (penciller) and Alex Sinclair (colorist).
DISSECTION: Batman fights the guy hunting down Kryptonians, using the Fortress of Solitude's arsenal, and ends up wounded, and with his costume damaged, to the point of losing his left-hand glove. Yet on page 30, he's got some weird kind of red glove on his hand, but with blue "forearm spikes", when it had been show that he had lost his glove and sleeve almost up to the elbow.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. A red glove??!!?
<-------------------------------->
"PET PEEVE #1"
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men.
ISSUE: 492.
CULPRIT: Billy Tan (penciller).
DISSECTION: Beast.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS OF NO USE TO S.H.I.E.L.D.."
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Several Marvel issues this last week included some bonus material, including a section of supposedly secret data that Nick Fury collected for use as leverage on the X-Men if he should need it. First of all, there's some information that's not "in character" data, such as X-Men references in a Weird Al song, or how Storm was originally conceived as a different character by Dave Cockrum. Those are pieces of information nick Fury could use as leverage, because to him, they're not even real.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YEAH, SOME LEVERAGE."
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Some of the information, such as the fact that Wolverine's claws don't come out of any permanent holes but rather create wounds every time they are unsheathed, are not things that can be used as leverage of any kind.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"TONY, YOU DRUNK BASTARD, QUIT STEALING MY DESIGNS!"
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Uncredited writer.
DISSECTION: Now for a specifically factual error; the "file" says that Nightcrawler's image inducer was invented by Tony Stark, when it was actually designed by Charles Xavier (probably based on Sh'iar tech), and then built by Stark Enterprises.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO'S THAT MORPH?"
TITLE: Several Marvel titles released the week of 11-07.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Tom Grummett (writer of comments on his own sketches, since he'll be artist for New Exiles).
DISSECTION: Another section of the bonus material is character sketches and descriptions for the upcoming first issue of New Exiles (did we need another #1? No, we didn't... GAHHH!!!), and it includes a description of Morph, that says, among other things "MORPH is Morph.". but no, he's NOT Morph, he's actually a version Proteus that believes he's Morph, something Claremont had been ignoring in Exiles. He finally made a passing reference to him not being Morph in the most recent issue of "X-Men: Die By The Sword".
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"ARTIE, HOW YOU'VE GROWN!"
TITLE: Infinity Inc. V2.
ISSUE: 03.
CULPRIT: Dom Regan (colorist).
DISSECTION: In addition to how bad this book's been, on page 2, the psychologist's skin is colored a bright pink. Normal humans don't have that skin color.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Short and sweet column that puts me up to date, and hopefully, I'll be able to spend the next days finishing the prep work for the Autopsy Awards (apart from reading this week's books, of course). The average was 6.6 Bazzars, not bad for such a short column (to be fair, there's a handful of books I haven't received yet). As mentioned before, soon (on Sunday, most likely) I'll post the nominees for the categories that are up for vote. Before I forget, here's the Moment Of The Week, which is actually kind of retro, as it comes from the Jimmy Olsen special DC released with Jack Kirby stories from Jimbo's own book. Check it out, it's a creature genetically engineered from Jimmy's DNA, some gamma rays, and the King's own eyebrow-DNA!
That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Dissector #47.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I've got Nazi all over my suit! And I just had it cleaned..." Wildcat (Ted Grant), JSA: Classified 31.
Here I am trying to catch up, so I'll make the intro to this column (devoted to comics published on 10-13) short and sweet. Last week's Dissect This! was that Wolverine's eyes were colored brown, instead of blue. This week's Dissector's Pick for Best Book goes to Superman Confidential #8, in which Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning tell a story of Superman's first meeting with the New Gods, with excellent art by Chris Batista (inked by Cam Smith and colored by Jason Wright), which reminds of me of a good Jack Kirby yarn.
A special mention goes to New X-Men V2 #43, which has a nice original New Mutants vibe to it, including the new costumes for the kids. The worst book, surprisingly, is Countdown To Infinite Crisis #26... the whole issue is just a frakking recap. I hate that kind of thing. Time for the dissections, my friends.
<-------------------------------->
"RED, YELLOW, WHO CARES?"
TITLE: Action Comics.
ISSUE: 858.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Yeah, well... I can't make this the worst issue of the week, because it's got the classic LSH, and the story in itself it's not so bad. But I just can't take the stupid new continuity, with a (again) smoking Perry White, and worse, a clumsy Clark who's regarded as a klutz by everyone, and pitied by Perry. No, no, no, no. Clark Kent is a MAN, a real person, married to a beautiful woman, a successful reporter and novelist, while Superman is just a disguise.
FUCK YOU DC FOR TURNING HIM BACK INTO A SHADOW OF A MAN!!! *Sigh* Sorry about that... channeling my inner rage... The dissection in this case is that Superman arrives at the 30th Century and never, for a moment, until he's shot at, realizes that Earth's sun is red by then. He should have felt it immediately.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHIFTING GREEN."
TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.
ISSUE: 01 of 06.
CULPRIT: Dave Baron (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the last page, Kyle Rayner's gloves are colored green, when his new uniform has white gloves.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JASON, YOU SHOT ME SO HARD YOU TURNED MY EYES WHITE!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.
ISSUE: 01 of 06.
CULPRIT: Liam Sharp (penciller).
DISSECTION: Same page, Donna Troy's eyes are completely white.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO'D WIN IN A FIGHT, AN ELEPHANT... OR A HORSE?"
TITLE: Countdown To Adventure.
ISSUE: 03 of 08.
CULPRIT: Adam Beechen (writer).
DISSECTION: This book's been good so far, and it's always a plus to have one of my favorite characters, Animal man, around. Problem is, I don't think Adam Beechen has much knowledge about Animal Man... Buddy is being piled upon by possessed people, and he tells Starfire that he's going to try to "switch from elephant to horse, so I can buck these sad sacks off..."
Uhm.... why switch to a less strong animal? I don't think "bucking like a bronco" is necessarily an animal power, but more of a chosen maneuver by the horse, which can be performed by Buddy in his human form, but with greater strength if he's using an elephant's abilities.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE KNOW EVERYTHING... HEY, WHAT'S THAT?"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis.
ISSUE: 26.
CULPRIT: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers).
DISSECTION: So, the title finally changes to reflect the actual nature of the book... but this recap issue was a piece of crap. Still, it's just one issue, and the book has been getting better. And now Keith Giffen is a "story consultant"? Well, I like that, Giffen has a more solid grasp on comic book storytelling and DCU continuity than head writer Paul Dini, but I will miss his art breakdowns.
In this case, on page eleven, the monitor who killed Duela Dent (it's been assumed that he's the one for Earth-3) says "when we see everything"; yet mere lines above he says that Jimmy Olsen and Karate Kid ("the" Karate Kid, he says, oddly), but he doesn't know who!
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, I admit that on second reading, this might be stretching it, but I couldn't have an issue of Countdown without a dissection...
<-------------------------------->
"ECLIIPSO."
TITLE: Countdown To Mystery.
ISSUE: 02 of 04.
CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer) and/or Ken Lopez (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 26, Eclipso says "lettiing" instead of "letting".
DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
<-------------------------------->
"NOBODY'S PERFECT, CHARLIE BROWN."
TITLE: DC Infinite Halloween Special.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ian Churchill (penciller, The Pumpkin Sinister).
DISSECTION: Hey, I just realized Jon Bogdanove teamed-up with his son, Kal-El for a story! Cool. But that's not the point... in this story where Dan DiDio does a parody of a grown-up Charlie Brown sacrificing Snoopy to summon a pumpkin monster, Churchill draws no zigzag stripe on Charlie's sweater on the first panel of page 58, but it's present on the following panels, seen from a distance.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BLUE, YELLOW, SHE'S DEAD, WHO CARES ABOUT THE GLOVES?"
TITLE: Death Of The New Gods.
ISSUE: 02 of 08.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist)
DISSECTION: On page 24, good old Jeromy again colors Big Barda's gloves blue.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I SHRINK DOWN IN HUMILITY."
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 46.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Bored found these as soon as he saw I had posted the column. To my defense, I was up finishing my column after work (I get home at 7 AM, and stayed up writing up to 9.30 AM, and posting, as my computer is slow as hell, up to 11 AM). On the first part of the column I wrote the word "shrinked" instead of "shrunken", when referring to Titania.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. No wonder the spell checker didn't recognize it, but in my sleepy state I just hit "ignore all".
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS A COLUMN WHO'S AUTHOR MAKES MISTAKES, BUT IS NOT AFRAID OF CONFESSING TO THEM."
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 46.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Another sleepy-head mistake, when mentioning that I'd like Lewis Black's routines, I wrote "who's" instead of "whose". That's two badges for you, Bored.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MISSING REPORTS."
TITLE: The Invincible Iron Man (Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D.) V2.
ISSUE: 23.
CULPRIT: Daniel & Charles Knauf (writers).
DISSECTION: On page 7, Iron Man finds out that the state of Nebraska has a yearly average of missing people from 1996 to 2006 of 329 people, and a total in the last 12 months of 864. However, some quick research tells me that the NCIC had 834,536 entries for missing persons during 2005. Dividing that by 50, that's more than 16000 people per state per year, and even if Nebraska just gets 10% of that, it's still 1600.
Even if you only take into account the active missing person records at the end of a year, which according to the US Department of justice were 109,531by the end of 2005, that's still more than 2000 per state.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, it COULD be different in the Marvel Universe, I guess.
<-------------------------------->
"LIGHTNING, EVER CHANGING."
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: My god, look at this panel, somebody please break Alex Sanchez hands so he can never draw again!!! Oh, wait, looking at his art, it looks like his hands are already broken!
Anyhoo, he still hasn't got Jay Garrick's chest emblem right, and not only that, but he draws it differently each panel Jay appears:
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NINJA NAZIS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: Are you trying to tell me that all the years the JLA had a moon base, not to mention all the years they had a motherfricking satellite, they never, ever, spotted the Nazi base?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"KRANG, IZZAT YOU?"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: The tank holding Heinrich Himmler's brain breaks, and HIS BRAIN SCREAMS. Not through speakers, but the brain itself, and it continues to talk as it's a puddle of gray (fuchsia, actually) matter on the floor.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, brains can't scream!
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT THIS MESS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: See if you can see what's wrong with these panels (except for Sanchez's horrible art, this is a straight out mistake, and it's not Jay's emblem, and it's not any coloring mistake or anything, it's something Sanchez did wrong:
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"FAIR PLAY MY ASS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: See above too, I'm pretty sure Mr. Terrific wouldn't execute a prisoner.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I BORROWED THESE FROM VICTOR. YEAH, THE CAPE TOO."
TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).
DISSECTION: Man, I'm loving this book, Johns' story is great, and Eaglesham's art is wonderful, not to mention the painted covers by Alex Ross (and some inner pages in this issue). However, as discussed in the comments section a few columns ago (and on some columns proper), Eaglesham takes certain liberties with the characters costumes. In this case, he draws gigantic, Dr. Doom sized cape clasps for Alan Scott.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"FLUID LIGHTNING."
TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).
DISSECTION: Eaglesham still draws Jay Garrick's chest lighting however he pleases. Still not as bad as Sanchez.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YOU'RE NOT MY SON!"
TITLE: Sub-Mariner.
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Phil Briones (penciller).
DISSECTION: One of the Vulc.... I mean Atlantean rebels (Spo... Namor's son, Kamar) has rounded ears on page 30. If anything, since he's three quarters Atlantean, his ears should be even pointier than Namor's.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN WORLD."
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Marc Silvestri (penciller).
DISSECTION: Good start for a much anticipated storyline, but not except of dissections. On page 2, Professor X is in Cerebra with Beast, and the map of the world just looks funky. Not as horrible as that Australia map on the Batman annual some time ago, but when you compare it with an actual map, little details don't really match.
Incidentally, I only found this dissection while trying to match the piece of the map showing South America to a real map, to see if one of the lights indicating a mutant was in Uruguay. And it very well might be! Given the map's deformity, it might be in the Uruguay/Brazil border near the Atlantic Ocean. To my Uruguay readers, it means that we've got ourselves a Chuy mutant who uses his powers to do bagayo! (Bagayo is a word for the petty smuggling of food and clothing goods between the cheaper Brazil and Uruguay for resale.)
Now, to Brubaker's credit (not ignoring Silvestri's pencils, which are much welcomed back to the mutants), he does say that the number of mutants the world is now "a few hundred", therefore reinforcing the fact that "198" is merely a moniker for those mutants identified by the US government, and than there's more mutants all over the world. And despite the map thing, I'd like to commend Marc Silvestri for drawing Beast's correctly, if a little skinny.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Yes, the fictitious countries that exist in Marvel might make the map slightly different, but I'm not talking about political divisions, but the physical outlines of the continents. That could still be different, I admit it, but it's still a dissection to me. In any case, I've lowered from a 6, to a 4 as I considered these things.
<-------------------------------->
"IT SEEMS LIKE IT HAPPENED YEARS AGO."
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).
DISSECTION: Cyclops refers to, on page 32, "the first mutant birth in years", when it's in fact the first mutant birth since M-Day, which definitely wasn't years ago.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!"
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Marko Djurdjevic (artist, X-Men "file" pinup).
DISSECTION: Djurdjevic does a wonderful pin-up, but he shows what appears to be Psylocke as part of the X-Men, when she's not with the team these days.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Alright, as quick as I started, I'll finish, this column was even shorter than usual, with just 22 dissections, and not much text for most of them. The average was a regular 5.7 Bazzars, and here we go with the Moment Of The Week, not very much, but I liked it: Namor pimp slaps a rebel!
That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I've got Nazi all over my suit! And I just had it cleaned..." Wildcat (Ted Grant), JSA: Classified 31.
Here I am trying to catch up, so I'll make the intro to this column (devoted to comics published on 10-13) short and sweet. Last week's Dissect This! was that Wolverine's eyes were colored brown, instead of blue. This week's Dissector's Pick for Best Book goes to Superman Confidential #8, in which Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning tell a story of Superman's first meeting with the New Gods, with excellent art by Chris Batista (inked by Cam Smith and colored by Jason Wright), which reminds of me of a good Jack Kirby yarn.
A special mention goes to New X-Men V2 #43, which has a nice original New Mutants vibe to it, including the new costumes for the kids. The worst book, surprisingly, is Countdown To Infinite Crisis #26... the whole issue is just a frakking recap. I hate that kind of thing. Time for the dissections, my friends.
<-------------------------------->
"RED, YELLOW, WHO CARES?"
TITLE: Action Comics.
ISSUE: 858.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Yeah, well... I can't make this the worst issue of the week, because it's got the classic LSH, and the story in itself it's not so bad. But I just can't take the stupid new continuity, with a (again) smoking Perry White, and worse, a clumsy Clark who's regarded as a klutz by everyone, and pitied by Perry. No, no, no, no. Clark Kent is a MAN, a real person, married to a beautiful woman, a successful reporter and novelist, while Superman is just a disguise.
FUCK YOU DC FOR TURNING HIM BACK INTO A SHADOW OF A MAN!!! *Sigh* Sorry about that... channeling my inner rage... The dissection in this case is that Superman arrives at the 30th Century and never, for a moment, until he's shot at, realizes that Earth's sun is red by then. He should have felt it immediately.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHIFTING GREEN."
TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.
ISSUE: 01 of 06.
CULPRIT: Dave Baron (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the last page, Kyle Rayner's gloves are colored green, when his new uniform has white gloves.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JASON, YOU SHOT ME SO HARD YOU TURNED MY EYES WHITE!"
TITLE: Countdown Presents: Lord Havok And The Extremists.
ISSUE: 01 of 06.
CULPRIT: Liam Sharp (penciller).
DISSECTION: Same page, Donna Troy's eyes are completely white.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO'D WIN IN A FIGHT, AN ELEPHANT... OR A HORSE?"
TITLE: Countdown To Adventure.
ISSUE: 03 of 08.
CULPRIT: Adam Beechen (writer).
DISSECTION: This book's been good so far, and it's always a plus to have one of my favorite characters, Animal man, around. Problem is, I don't think Adam Beechen has much knowledge about Animal Man... Buddy is being piled upon by possessed people, and he tells Starfire that he's going to try to "switch from elephant to horse, so I can buck these sad sacks off..."
Uhm.... why switch to a less strong animal? I don't think "bucking like a bronco" is necessarily an animal power, but more of a chosen maneuver by the horse, which can be performed by Buddy in his human form, but with greater strength if he's using an elephant's abilities.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WE KNOW EVERYTHING... HEY, WHAT'S THAT?"
TITLE: Countdown To Final Crisis.
ISSUE: 26.
CULPRIT: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers).
DISSECTION: So, the title finally changes to reflect the actual nature of the book... but this recap issue was a piece of crap. Still, it's just one issue, and the book has been getting better. And now Keith Giffen is a "story consultant"? Well, I like that, Giffen has a more solid grasp on comic book storytelling and DCU continuity than head writer Paul Dini, but I will miss his art breakdowns.
In this case, on page eleven, the monitor who killed Duela Dent (it's been assumed that he's the one for Earth-3) says "when we see everything"; yet mere lines above he says that Jimmy Olsen and Karate Kid ("the" Karate Kid, he says, oddly), but he doesn't know who!
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, I admit that on second reading, this might be stretching it, but I couldn't have an issue of Countdown without a dissection...
<-------------------------------->
"ECLIIPSO."
TITLE: Countdown To Mystery.
ISSUE: 02 of 04.
CULPRIT: Matthew Sturges (writer) and/or Ken Lopez (letterer).
DISSECTION: On page 26, Eclipso says "lettiing" instead of "letting".
DISSECT-O-METER: 1 Bazzar.
<-------------------------------->
"NOBODY'S PERFECT, CHARLIE BROWN."
TITLE: DC Infinite Halloween Special.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ian Churchill (penciller, The Pumpkin Sinister).
DISSECTION: Hey, I just realized Jon Bogdanove teamed-up with his son, Kal-El for a story! Cool. But that's not the point... in this story where Dan DiDio does a parody of a grown-up Charlie Brown sacrificing Snoopy to summon a pumpkin monster, Churchill draws no zigzag stripe on Charlie's sweater on the first panel of page 58, but it's present on the following panels, seen from a distance.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BLUE, YELLOW, SHE'S DEAD, WHO CARES ABOUT THE GLOVES?"
TITLE: Death Of The New Gods.
ISSUE: 02 of 08.
CULPRIT: Jeromy Cox (colorist)
DISSECTION: On page 24, good old Jeromy again colors Big Barda's gloves blue.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I SHRINK DOWN IN HUMILITY."
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 46.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Bored found these as soon as he saw I had posted the column. To my defense, I was up finishing my column after work (I get home at 7 AM, and stayed up writing up to 9.30 AM, and posting, as my computer is slow as hell, up to 11 AM). On the first part of the column I wrote the word "shrinked" instead of "shrunken", when referring to Titania.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars. No wonder the spell checker didn't recognize it, but in my sleepy state I just hit "ignore all".
<-------------------------------->
"THIS IS A COLUMN WHO'S AUTHOR MAKES MISTAKES, BUT IS NOT AFRAID OF CONFESSING TO THEM."
TITLE: The Dissector.
ISSUE: 46.
CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).
DISSECTION: Another sleepy-head mistake, when mentioning that I'd like Lewis Black's routines, I wrote "who's" instead of "whose". That's two badges for you, Bored.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MISSING REPORTS."
TITLE: The Invincible Iron Man (Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D.) V2.
ISSUE: 23.
CULPRIT: Daniel & Charles Knauf (writers).
DISSECTION: On page 7, Iron Man finds out that the state of Nebraska has a yearly average of missing people from 1996 to 2006 of 329 people, and a total in the last 12 months of 864. However, some quick research tells me that the NCIC had 834,536 entries for missing persons during 2005. Dividing that by 50, that's more than 16000 people per state per year, and even if Nebraska just gets 10% of that, it's still 1600.
Even if you only take into account the active missing person records at the end of a year, which according to the US Department of justice were 109,531by the end of 2005, that's still more than 2000 per state.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars, it COULD be different in the Marvel Universe, I guess.
<-------------------------------->
"LIGHTNING, EVER CHANGING."
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: My god, look at this panel, somebody please break Alex Sanchez hands so he can never draw again!!! Oh, wait, looking at his art, it looks like his hands are already broken!
Anyhoo, he still hasn't got Jay Garrick's chest emblem right, and not only that, but he draws it differently each panel Jay appears:
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"NINJA NAZIS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: Are you trying to tell me that all the years the JLA had a moon base, not to mention all the years they had a motherfricking satellite, they never, ever, spotted the Nazi base?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"KRANG, IZZAT YOU?"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: The tank holding Heinrich Himmler's brain breaks, and HIS BRAIN SCREAMS. Not through speakers, but the brain itself, and it continues to talk as it's a puddle of gray (fuchsia, actually) matter on the floor.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, brains can't scream!
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT THIS MESS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Alex Sanchez (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: See if you can see what's wrong with these panels (except for Sanchez's horrible art, this is a straight out mistake, and it's not Jay's emblem, and it's not any coloring mistake or anything, it's something Sanchez did wrong:
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"FAIR PLAY MY ASS!"
TITLE: JSA: Classified.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Arvid Nelson (writer).
DISSECTION: See above too, I'm pretty sure Mr. Terrific wouldn't execute a prisoner.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I BORROWED THESE FROM VICTOR. YEAH, THE CAPE TOO."
TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).
DISSECTION: Man, I'm loving this book, Johns' story is great, and Eaglesham's art is wonderful, not to mention the painted covers by Alex Ross (and some inner pages in this issue). However, as discussed in the comments section a few columns ago (and on some columns proper), Eaglesham takes certain liberties with the characters costumes. In this case, he draws gigantic, Dr. Doom sized cape clasps for Alan Scott.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"FLUID LIGHTNING."
TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3.
ISSUE: 10.
CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).
DISSECTION: Eaglesham still draws Jay Garrick's chest lighting however he pleases. Still not as bad as Sanchez.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YOU'RE NOT MY SON!"
TITLE: Sub-Mariner.
ISSUE: 05 of 06.
CULPRIT: Phil Briones (penciller).
DISSECTION: One of the Vulc.... I mean Atlantean rebels (Spo... Namor's son, Kamar) has rounded ears on page 30. If anything, since he's three quarters Atlantean, his ears should be even pointier than Namor's.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MODERN WORLD."
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Marc Silvestri (penciller).
DISSECTION: Good start for a much anticipated storyline, but not except of dissections. On page 2, Professor X is in Cerebra with Beast, and the map of the world just looks funky. Not as horrible as that Australia map on the Batman annual some time ago, but when you compare it with an actual map, little details don't really match.
Incidentally, I only found this dissection while trying to match the piece of the map showing South America to a real map, to see if one of the lights indicating a mutant was in Uruguay. And it very well might be! Given the map's deformity, it might be in the Uruguay/Brazil border near the Atlantic Ocean. To my Uruguay readers, it means that we've got ourselves a Chuy mutant who uses his powers to do bagayo! (Bagayo is a word for the petty smuggling of food and clothing goods between the cheaper Brazil and Uruguay for resale.)
Now, to Brubaker's credit (not ignoring Silvestri's pencils, which are much welcomed back to the mutants), he does say that the number of mutants the world is now "a few hundred", therefore reinforcing the fact that "198" is merely a moniker for those mutants identified by the US government, and than there's more mutants all over the world. And despite the map thing, I'd like to commend Marc Silvestri for drawing Beast's correctly, if a little skinny.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars. Yes, the fictitious countries that exist in Marvel might make the map slightly different, but I'm not talking about political divisions, but the physical outlines of the continents. That could still be different, I admit it, but it's still a dissection to me. In any case, I've lowered from a 6, to a 4 as I considered these things.
<-------------------------------->
"IT SEEMS LIKE IT HAPPENED YEARS AGO."
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ed Brubaker (writer).
DISSECTION: Cyclops refers to, on page 32, "the first mutant birth in years", when it's in fact the first mutant birth since M-Day, which definitely wasn't years ago.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!"
TITLE: X-Men: Messiah Complex.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Marko Djurdjevic (artist, X-Men "file" pinup).
DISSECTION: Djurdjevic does a wonderful pin-up, but he shows what appears to be Psylocke as part of the X-Men, when she's not with the team these days.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
Alright, as quick as I started, I'll finish, this column was even shorter than usual, with just 22 dissections, and not much text for most of them. The average was a regular 5.7 Bazzars, and here we go with the Moment Of The Week, not very much, but I liked it: Namor pimp slaps a rebel!
That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
Friday, November 09, 2007
The Dissector #46.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I'm getting lectured on CHILD SAFETY from a man who's gone through FOUR ROBINS?" Wally West (obviously to Batman), The Flash V2.
Yes, I know, this column is about a week late. My lateness is mostly due to the fact that I'm doing an earlier shift at work, which means I arrive there at a busier hour than before, thus having less free time to write. Also, I've been busy with the organization of a charity RPG event last Sunday, which turned out quite well. Check out my deviantArt gallery for pictures of the event, and of Halloween. How was everybody's Halloween? I had a blast, with a party at home a few days before, a small celebration at work, and trick or treating with my kid for the first time around the neighborhood. In fact, I hadn't trick or treated since I left the US, back in 1984 was the last time I went out for candy.
Another factor in my lateness is the fact that the increased workload generates a bit more of stress for me, and I sometimes want to unwind, just reading or posting stuff in forums or other people's blogs. It's not that I don't enjoy writing this column, but... I have to think to write it, and sometimes I just want to enjoy myself. I'm sure you can all understand. This here column is about comics released on 10-24, I'll try to catch up with the one about comics from 10-31 sometime around Monday night... and then, I'll try to be on time with the column for comics out this week.
Allow me to tell you about The Dissector's Picks Of The Week. The best book of the week was Doktor Sleepless #3, with flawless art from Ivan Rodriguez, and a great script from Warren Ellis. The book keeps getting better and better, while the plot thickens, and we get glimpses into Doktor Sleepless' and Nurse Igor's past, and we start to discover what the good Doktor (or his more mundane counterpart in jail) might be.
The worst book of the week wasn't particularly bad in its quality, but rather because of what it represents. I'm talking about Action Comics #857, with dorky kid Clark who looks like Woody Allen, Bizarro world and all that. It's just too cheesy, I can't take it, and they're destroying all that Byrne built...
On another note, while researching something for this column made me stumble upon a comment made by Peter David on the Comic Book Resources board, about readers calling the writers on their continuity mistakes. A poster complained about Titania being in a shrinked state in the first issue of Peter David's She-Hulk run, a point that was made moot by the former writer of the book, Dan Slott (and if it had been a dissection, Miss Kitty Fantastico, who's on that board, and posting on that very same thread, would have alerted me to it).
The poster complains about the writers "not keeping up with the characters, to which Peter David answers "You're being critical of the writer of this issue (namely me) because I didn't know six months ago when I wrote this story about what was happening in an issue of "Fantastic Four" that just came out. Since Marvel doesn't circulate the scripts of every single book to every single writer months ahead of time because such an endeavor would be unwieldy and impractical...what would you suggest I have done in order to "keep up" with a book that wasn't going to come out for half a year?"
Frankly Mr. David, I don't think it's the writers to blame, at least not completely. As I've said in numerous occasions, it's the editors who should pick up most of these continuity errors. I can't believe it's too difficult for the publishers to set up some sort of internal message board or mailing list for the editors and assistant editors to use to compare notes. Then, when a writer wants to use a particular character of whose current status or whereabouts the writer's not sure about, they ask their editor "Hey, Editorperson, can you check if Z-character is available for me to use in my book?"
Editorperson goes and posts a message saying "Hey, is anyone doing anything with Z-character that would bar us from using him?", and if Editorperson2 knows one of his writers has just killed Z-character or imprisoned him in a time loop, he'll tell Editorperson, so the first writer can either look for another character, or come up with a way of using Z-character without ignoring continuity.
In fact, as much as there are wikis with character and plot information available for us mere mortals (that I use extensively when I'm in doubt of something), including an official one for Marvel (publisher in question in Mr. David's statement), there could very well be a similar method of filing for editors and writers to use. Is it a bit of extra work? Yes, it might be, but when you have universes as big as Marvel and DC have (and that's one of the things I like about superhero comics), it's worth to pay a little bit of attention to this little things many fans enjoy seeing done correctly. Or else we have stories like the one Slott and Templeton had as their last for She-Hulk. Rant mode off, sorry, let's get on with this week's dissections.
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S ONE OF THOSE LITTLE WHITE LIES PARENTS TELL THEIR KIDS."
TITLE: Action Comics
ISSUE: 857.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns & Richard Donner (writers).
DISSECTION: On the first page, Clark (age ten or so) goes down the list of his powers... and he's got all of Superman's powers as an adult! Yet recently, Clark told Chris (his foster son) that his powers had developed slowly over time....
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, I'm hating this silveragization like you don't know it. Luckily the following issue with the start of the Legion storyline is better.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO-PERMAN?"
TITLE: Action Comics
ISSUE: 857.
CULPRIT: Eric Powell (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Never mind the horrible art, but on page 19, there's a panel where Powell doesn't bother drawing the "S" on Superman's chest.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"52 UNIVERSES CERTAINLY ISN'T ENOUGH..."
TITLE: All DCU titles I read the week of 10/24.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Richard Bruning (DC Creative Director, writer of that week's DC Nation).
DISSECTION: Bruning talks about Zuda, and says "What in the 52 multiverses..." There's not 52 multiverses, there's one multiverse, and 52 universes.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT YOU, DISSECT ME."
TITLE: Black Panther V4.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Val Staples (colorist).
DISSECTION: Alright, what's wrong with this page?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHITEOUT."
TITLE: Black Panther V4.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Francis Portela (penciller/inker) and possibly Val Staples (colorist) too.
DISSECTION: On page 19, Storm's eyes are completely white, yet she's not using her powers.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, just because they can never get it right.
<-------------------------------->
"MARY, MARY."
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 27.
CULPRIT: Carlos Magno (penciller).
DISSECTION: Mary Marvel's boots, on page 12, have regular heels instead of stiletto ones, as she should have.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, at least she has heels.
<-------------------------------->
"CYCLONE MOVE SO FAST THAT NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHAT HER COSTUME LOOKS LIKE!"
TITLE: Multiple DC titles.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Multiple pencillers and colorists.
DISSECTION: Another badge to Miss Kitty Fantastico for this pretty extensive bit of research: "She's definitely not wearing shorts, that much is certain just from the same issue.
What with all these Cyclone costume goofs, I got curious last night and pulled all the Cyclone appearances I have (everything except the Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime one-shot) and checked them all. You know what? I think she's some kind of jinx - out of fifteen issues she appeared in, only one managed not to get her outfit wrong somehow.
Incidentally, in JSA #1, I also noticed that Power Girl is wearing green lipstick in one panel, where she's hovering in mid-air talking to Maxine. But anyway:
JSA #1, page 24 her pants are the wrong colour, page 36 her neckline is coloured as if it's her top, which we can see from other panels is wrong. #2, page 6 onwards her shirt is tucked in, where it was loose in #1 - that could be explained as saying she tucked it in sometime prior to the final panel of #1, though. Page 12 has the lower hem of her top wrong. In #3, page 13 her tank top is the wrong colour, page 17 the tank top isn't pencilled in, and her sleeves are missing. #4 page 22 her tank top's missing. #5 page 15, her cyclone symbol has a crease in it - the sketch notes in the hardcover specify that the symbol is a solid piece attached to her top, not a design printed onto the top's fabric, and every other close-up view of it has borne that out; on page 21 her tank top is the wrong colour, and on page 22 it's gone missing again.
JSA #6, page 1, her sleeve's missing. #7 page 15 her symbol's missing, maybe concealed by a fold in her top but that's stretching credibility a bit; on page 21 her tank top looks to be missing, though it may just be the angle we see her from - again, that's not very likely, but possible. #8 page 12, her tank top's the wrong colour. #9 page 5 her tank top and drape are the wrong colour, page 13 her sleeves are the wrong colour, and page 14 her sleeves, dress, stockings, shows and symbol are all the wrong colour (bloody hell). And in #10, in addition to the three already noted, her symbol is the wrong colour on page 1.
In other titles, in JLA #8 page 23 her right shoulder strap is the wrong colour, she doesn't appear in #9, in JLA #10 page 24 her tank top is missing, in Brave and the Bold #7 her shoulders are misdrawn and/or miscoloured, and in Green Lantern #24 her tank top's the wrong colour and her sleeves are missing.
Ironically, the only issue to get her right? Countdown #38. Maybe there's some sort of conservation of goofs going on - if Cyclone and Mary Marvel appear in the same issue, only one of them gets her outfit wrong.
Omitting the Superman-Prime special - I'm working on getting a scan of her appearance in that, probably just another one-panel one - she's appeared in 15 issues, on a total of 66 pages, and has racked up 34 errors.
That's got to be worth an honorary Autopsy Award.
I'd say the only way she could escape her costume jinx would be to just ditch the costume and become DC's first nudist superhero... but with her luck, the artists would probably keep forgetting the Brazilian every couple of pages."
Indeed, this will be some kind of Autopsy Award.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, just out of sheer volume.
<-------------------------------->
"GANTHET, SALAKK IS GIVING ME THE FINGER!"
TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2.
ISSUE: 17.
CULPRIT: Patrick Gleason (cover penciller).
DISSECTION: Salakk's gloves are again fingerless, this time on the cover.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"OW, MY EYES!"
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Peter David (writer).
DISSECTION: So, a small-time crook with a tech-suit calls himself "Hi-Lite", and has a light-based gimmick. Lasers, night-vision goggles, the works... yet his goggles don't have compensators for when the lights are turned on. Highly unlikely on a high-tech set of duds such as the ones he's wearing.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HAND ME THE GREEN."
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Avalon's Rob Ro (colorist).
DISSECTION: Miss Kitty Fantastico spotted this one; on page 18, Absorbing Man catches She-Hulk's fist in his left hand, but on one panel her hand is not colored green, as it should. Badge for MKF, of course.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HEAVY METAL."
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Avalon's Rob Ro (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page 24, the Absorbing Man has absorbed the properties of the chassis of a school bus... so if he's made of metal now, why is his skin still flesh-colored?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHY MESS WITH A CLASSIC?"
TITLE: Superman/Batman.
ISSUE: 41.
CULPRIT: Dustin Nguyen (penciller).
DISSECTION: This book is stinking slightly less as of late, and Dustin Nguyen's art is decent. However, he made the same mistake Koi Turnbull did recently on Superman Confidential, that is, drawing treaded soles and heels on Superman's boots. Again, heels might be acceptable, but comic book Superman's costume has never shown treads on the boot soles.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. It's not horrible, but it's a pretty obvious detail of Superman's costume... I've even always assumed him to wear soft boots, almost thick socks...
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S THAT DYE TREND THAT GOES AROUND."
TITLE: Superman/Batman.
ISSUE: 41.
CULPRIT: Randy Mayor (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page 20, Perry White's hair is colored completely brown, without the grey temples he has. In fact, and I'm not considering this other thing a dissection because he's seen in the background, Perry looks too youthful... he looks like Han Solo in the original trilogy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CALIGRAPHIC CRISIS."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Tom Wel... er, Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ethan Van Sciver (cover artist).
DISSECTION: I'll overlook the fact that Van Sciver makes TWP (Tom Welling Prime) look like Superman, as if he were a completely adult man... but he draws a simple "S" as his chest scar, when he "drew" an actual "S-shield" on himself.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CANARY CRY OF FASHION."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Black Canary's uniform (particularly her boots) are not drawn correctly.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THAT STRIPPER SURE GETS AROUND!"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Starfire is in a group shot, when she's supposedly de-powered. However, by now, seeing other characters from that shot, I'm willing to accept that this might be a bit in the future, where she has already regained her powers. Still... I'll be waiting....
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BOOSTER? OH, YOU'RE HERE FOR THE STRIPPER!"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Booster Gold is in that group shot, and I don't know if he should go around doing public hero stuff... still, it's possible, and with Geoff Johns being one of the writers on Booster's book, I'll give this a low rating.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YOU KNOW, RICHARD BRUNING SAYS THERE'S 52 MULTIVERSES...."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Wally West says he can't believe TWP is dumb enough to set foot on Earth again, to which "our hero" answers that "Where else am I going to go. There aren't any other Earths." You'd think he'd know about the 52 universes by now, or at least, about the anti-matter universe, from where HE JUST CAME FROM with the rest of the Sinestro Corps.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MINE WAS IN THE LAUNDRY, SO HAL LENT ME ONE OF HIS."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jerry Ordway (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Ordway draws (apart from the correct scar "S" on TWP's chest) John Stewart with a classic GL uniform, instead of the customized one he's worn for years. Also, I'm not sure if Ordway does only the "classic" flashback scenes here, I think he also does the more recent ones.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I LOOK BETTER IN BLUE, DON'T I?"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book) and Brad Anderson (colorist).
DISSECTION: TWP flies into the sunlight, and one moment he's wearing a Sinestro Corps costume, and the next (even if he rips it up), he has Superman colored tights, briefs, and boots. Yes, he could have ripped off his Sinestro tights and boots too (thus proving that Superman boots are thick socks rather than actual boots), but the panels clearly show him only ripping his shirt. Yes, he can do it at greater speed, but still.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, for the previous reasons.
<-------------------------------->
"I BORROWED ONE OF KAL'S CAPES."
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 52.
CULPRIT: Alé Garza (cover penciller) and (Rod Reis (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the cover, Supergirl's cape is missing the yellow trim.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BRACELETS OR CASTS?"
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 52.
CULPRIT: Alé Garza (cover penciller).
DISSECTION: Wonder Girl's bracelets go almost up to her elbow; when they should go at most to mid-forearm (as interior penciller Igle draws them).
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"EYE CAN'T SEE!!!"
TITLE: The Flash V2.
ISSUE: 233.
CULPRIT: Freddie E. Williams II (penciller) and/or Tanya & Richard Horie (colorists).
DISSECTION: On page 12, Wally's eyes are completely white when he's in costume.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'M STEALING NORMAN'S STUFF."
TITLE: Thunderbolts.
ISSUE: 117.
CULPRIT: Mike Deodato, Jr. (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Doc Samson asks the guards at Thunderbolts Mountain to return his laptop bag and briefcase, yet he entered carrying no such things. Furthermore, when a guard does give him his possessions back, he returns only one item, that seems to be a briefcase (and they don't return him his hat!).
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"LIGHTNING, SO FAST, IT'S GONE."
TITLE: Velocity-Pilot Season.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Uncredited artist.
DISSECTION: In both ads for the pilot season books, Velocity's lighting tattoo is missing from her face. She also appears to be wearing a slightly different uniform, so it might be some sort of new look for her new series, if she gets enough votes. This dissection was brought to you by Miss Kitty Fantastico, who earns yet another badge.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS? PREPOSTEROUS!"
TITLE: Velocity-Pilot Season.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Joe Casey (writer).
DISSECTION: Some military personnel see a speeding bogey on their radar, and say that "nothing" moves that fast. I know this isn't Marvel or DC, but the Top Cow universe does have a large number of superhuman, they shouldn't be so surprised.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"PET PEEVE #1, I THINK IT WAS."
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 204.
CULPRIT: Mike Choi (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Beast.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JEFF'S ANATOMY."
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 204.
CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).
DISSECTION: Mean Jeff wrote a few weeks ago, just after reading the preview pages of this issue: "Herr Dissector,
I realize this is jumping the gun by a week, but my brain is on the verge of IMPLODING beneath the weight of my Lewis Black-esque rage/frustration at more Marvel craptaculaciousness. Seriously, the title 'Editor' apparently is only that, a TITLE, as opposed to an actual job fucking description.
(...)
Put a gander on the first page, with Beast orally citing his notes. Notice he uses medical terms: maxilla, scapula, collarbone (hey, as a doctor, my colleagues and I have been known to use collarbone instead of clavicle many a time so I'll let it slide here), and then 'Upper and Lower Leg Bones'. Upper and lower leg bones? {Sound of pages swishing} No...can't seem to...huh. What d'you know? Ain't no such thing as Upper Leg Bone or Lower Leg Bone in my Marieb or Netter texts. Oh, wait, I know why...CUZ THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE FUCKING CALLED!!! Especially since "lower leg bone" could be one of TWO bones (tibia and fibula, in case you were wondering). What. The. Fuck.
One panel is all it takes to make Beast go from astute egghead doctor type with a 25 cent vocabulary to carries a lunchpail and rides the short bus filler character. Seriously, they'd've done less damage if Beast reported that Cannonball broke "one of his below the waist thingees."
And if Cannonball HAD broken his upper leg bone (which is connected to the hip bone and that's connected to the....back bone and the back bone's connected to the....neck bone.....) why would his leg be supported ALOFT, in a vacuum tube like thingee that's clearly supporting the LOWER leg bone (which is connected to the ankle bone and that's connected to the....) and there's nothing splinting the upper leg--oh for fuck's sake, it's a FEMUR!! FEMUR!!!--so it's obviously NOT broken. Hell, even Joe Thiesmann's looking at this and saying it's fucking wrong.
I spell lazy: M-A-R-V-E-L."
Wow... my readers get very riled up sometimes... but this was the qualified opinion of a physician. Who are we to disagree. I did have to look up who Joe Theismann and Lewis Black are. I wasn't surprised not to know Theissman, with my complete obliviousness to sports in general and American football in particular; but Lewis Black seems to be a comedian who's routines I'd enjoy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. I won't disagree, but it's possible that Sam has broken all of his leg bones; but still, it's not consistent with Beasts vocabulary in the same scene, and in general.
<-------------------------------->
I'm making another change right here and now, there won't be any DAYAMN or WTF moments anymore, just a section called "Moments Of The Week". The moments will range from the "cool!" to the "what where they thinking?", to the "that's weird..." This week we have three moments, starting with more hardcoreness from Green Lantern Corps:
Yes, Kilowog drops an aircraft carrier (which seems oddly small, but it might be a matter of perspective) on Arkillo, then tears off his finger to strip him of his power ring. Kick-ass! The second moment of the week is definitely of the "wow, that's weird" variety, with Starro the Conqueror bringing cupcakes to a bedridden Superman:
Strange things happen... And the last Moment Of The Week would have been a WTF, look at this image from Superman #669's "The Third Kryptonian":
Yes, Kryptonians used lightsabers!!! Well, that's all for this column, we had a pretty high 6.6 Bazzars, and some nice dissections. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
"I'm getting lectured on CHILD SAFETY from a man who's gone through FOUR ROBINS?" Wally West (obviously to Batman), The Flash V2.
Yes, I know, this column is about a week late. My lateness is mostly due to the fact that I'm doing an earlier shift at work, which means I arrive there at a busier hour than before, thus having less free time to write. Also, I've been busy with the organization of a charity RPG event last Sunday, which turned out quite well. Check out my deviantArt gallery for pictures of the event, and of Halloween. How was everybody's Halloween? I had a blast, with a party at home a few days before, a small celebration at work, and trick or treating with my kid for the first time around the neighborhood. In fact, I hadn't trick or treated since I left the US, back in 1984 was the last time I went out for candy.
Another factor in my lateness is the fact that the increased workload generates a bit more of stress for me, and I sometimes want to unwind, just reading or posting stuff in forums or other people's blogs. It's not that I don't enjoy writing this column, but... I have to think to write it, and sometimes I just want to enjoy myself. I'm sure you can all understand. This here column is about comics released on 10-24, I'll try to catch up with the one about comics from 10-31 sometime around Monday night... and then, I'll try to be on time with the column for comics out this week.
Allow me to tell you about The Dissector's Picks Of The Week. The best book of the week was Doktor Sleepless #3, with flawless art from Ivan Rodriguez, and a great script from Warren Ellis. The book keeps getting better and better, while the plot thickens, and we get glimpses into Doktor Sleepless' and Nurse Igor's past, and we start to discover what the good Doktor (or his more mundane counterpart in jail) might be.
The worst book of the week wasn't particularly bad in its quality, but rather because of what it represents. I'm talking about Action Comics #857, with dorky kid Clark who looks like Woody Allen, Bizarro world and all that. It's just too cheesy, I can't take it, and they're destroying all that Byrne built...
On another note, while researching something for this column made me stumble upon a comment made by Peter David on the Comic Book Resources board, about readers calling the writers on their continuity mistakes. A poster complained about Titania being in a shrinked state in the first issue of Peter David's She-Hulk run, a point that was made moot by the former writer of the book, Dan Slott (and if it had been a dissection, Miss Kitty Fantastico, who's on that board, and posting on that very same thread, would have alerted me to it).
The poster complains about the writers "not keeping up with the characters, to which Peter David answers "You're being critical of the writer of this issue (namely me) because I didn't know six months ago when I wrote this story about what was happening in an issue of "Fantastic Four" that just came out. Since Marvel doesn't circulate the scripts of every single book to every single writer months ahead of time because such an endeavor would be unwieldy and impractical...what would you suggest I have done in order to "keep up" with a book that wasn't going to come out for half a year?"
Frankly Mr. David, I don't think it's the writers to blame, at least not completely. As I've said in numerous occasions, it's the editors who should pick up most of these continuity errors. I can't believe it's too difficult for the publishers to set up some sort of internal message board or mailing list for the editors and assistant editors to use to compare notes. Then, when a writer wants to use a particular character of whose current status or whereabouts the writer's not sure about, they ask their editor "Hey, Editorperson, can you check if Z-character is available for me to use in my book?"
Editorperson goes and posts a message saying "Hey, is anyone doing anything with Z-character that would bar us from using him?", and if Editorperson2 knows one of his writers has just killed Z-character or imprisoned him in a time loop, he'll tell Editorperson, so the first writer can either look for another character, or come up with a way of using Z-character without ignoring continuity.
In fact, as much as there are wikis with character and plot information available for us mere mortals (that I use extensively when I'm in doubt of something), including an official one for Marvel (publisher in question in Mr. David's statement), there could very well be a similar method of filing for editors and writers to use. Is it a bit of extra work? Yes, it might be, but when you have universes as big as Marvel and DC have (and that's one of the things I like about superhero comics), it's worth to pay a little bit of attention to this little things many fans enjoy seeing done correctly. Or else we have stories like the one Slott and Templeton had as their last for She-Hulk. Rant mode off, sorry, let's get on with this week's dissections.
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S ONE OF THOSE LITTLE WHITE LIES PARENTS TELL THEIR KIDS."
TITLE: Action Comics
ISSUE: 857.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns & Richard Donner (writers).
DISSECTION: On the first page, Clark (age ten or so) goes down the list of his powers... and he's got all of Superman's powers as an adult! Yet recently, Clark told Chris (his foster son) that his powers had developed slowly over time....
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars, I'm hating this silveragization like you don't know it. Luckily the following issue with the start of the Legion storyline is better.
<-------------------------------->
"WHO-PERMAN?"
TITLE: Action Comics
ISSUE: 857.
CULPRIT: Eric Powell (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Never mind the horrible art, but on page 19, there's a panel where Powell doesn't bother drawing the "S" on Superman's chest.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"52 UNIVERSES CERTAINLY ISN'T ENOUGH..."
TITLE: All DCU titles I read the week of 10/24.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Richard Bruning (DC Creative Director, writer of that week's DC Nation).
DISSECTION: Bruning talks about Zuda, and says "What in the 52 multiverses..." There's not 52 multiverses, there's one multiverse, and 52 universes.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"DISSECT YOU, DISSECT ME."
TITLE: Black Panther V4.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Val Staples (colorist).
DISSECTION: Alright, what's wrong with this page?
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHITEOUT."
TITLE: Black Panther V4.
ISSUE: 31.
CULPRIT: Francis Portela (penciller/inker) and possibly Val Staples (colorist) too.
DISSECTION: On page 19, Storm's eyes are completely white, yet she's not using her powers.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, just because they can never get it right.
<-------------------------------->
"MARY, MARY."
TITLE: Countdown.
ISSUE: 27.
CULPRIT: Carlos Magno (penciller).
DISSECTION: Mary Marvel's boots, on page 12, have regular heels instead of stiletto ones, as she should have.
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars, at least she has heels.
<-------------------------------->
"CYCLONE MOVE SO FAST THAT NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHAT HER COSTUME LOOKS LIKE!"
TITLE: Multiple DC titles.
ISSUE: N/A.
CULPRIT: Multiple pencillers and colorists.
DISSECTION: Another badge to Miss Kitty Fantastico for this pretty extensive bit of research: "She's definitely not wearing shorts, that much is certain just from the same issue.
What with all these Cyclone costume goofs, I got curious last night and pulled all the Cyclone appearances I have (everything except the Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime one-shot) and checked them all. You know what? I think she's some kind of jinx - out of fifteen issues she appeared in, only one managed not to get her outfit wrong somehow.
Incidentally, in JSA #1, I also noticed that Power Girl is wearing green lipstick in one panel, where she's hovering in mid-air talking to Maxine. But anyway:
JSA #1, page 24 her pants are the wrong colour, page 36 her neckline is coloured as if it's her top, which we can see from other panels is wrong. #2, page 6 onwards her shirt is tucked in, where it was loose in #1 - that could be explained as saying she tucked it in sometime prior to the final panel of #1, though. Page 12 has the lower hem of her top wrong. In #3, page 13 her tank top is the wrong colour, page 17 the tank top isn't pencilled in, and her sleeves are missing. #4 page 22 her tank top's missing. #5 page 15, her cyclone symbol has a crease in it - the sketch notes in the hardcover specify that the symbol is a solid piece attached to her top, not a design printed onto the top's fabric, and every other close-up view of it has borne that out; on page 21 her tank top is the wrong colour, and on page 22 it's gone missing again.
JSA #6, page 1, her sleeve's missing. #7 page 15 her symbol's missing, maybe concealed by a fold in her top but that's stretching credibility a bit; on page 21 her tank top looks to be missing, though it may just be the angle we see her from - again, that's not very likely, but possible. #8 page 12, her tank top's the wrong colour. #9 page 5 her tank top and drape are the wrong colour, page 13 her sleeves are the wrong colour, and page 14 her sleeves, dress, stockings, shows and symbol are all the wrong colour (bloody hell). And in #10, in addition to the three already noted, her symbol is the wrong colour on page 1.
In other titles, in JLA #8 page 23 her right shoulder strap is the wrong colour, she doesn't appear in #9, in JLA #10 page 24 her tank top is missing, in Brave and the Bold #7 her shoulders are misdrawn and/or miscoloured, and in Green Lantern #24 her tank top's the wrong colour and her sleeves are missing.
Ironically, the only issue to get her right? Countdown #38. Maybe there's some sort of conservation of goofs going on - if Cyclone and Mary Marvel appear in the same issue, only one of them gets her outfit wrong.
Omitting the Superman-Prime special - I'm working on getting a scan of her appearance in that, probably just another one-panel one - she's appeared in 15 issues, on a total of 66 pages, and has racked up 34 errors.
That's got to be worth an honorary Autopsy Award.
I'd say the only way she could escape her costume jinx would be to just ditch the costume and become DC's first nudist superhero... but with her luck, the artists would probably keep forgetting the Brazilian every couple of pages."
Indeed, this will be some kind of Autopsy Award.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars, just out of sheer volume.
<-------------------------------->
"GANTHET, SALAKK IS GIVING ME THE FINGER!"
TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2.
ISSUE: 17.
CULPRIT: Patrick Gleason (cover penciller).
DISSECTION: Salakk's gloves are again fingerless, this time on the cover.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"OW, MY EYES!"
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Peter David (writer).
DISSECTION: So, a small-time crook with a tech-suit calls himself "Hi-Lite", and has a light-based gimmick. Lasers, night-vision goggles, the works... yet his goggles don't have compensators for when the lights are turned on. Highly unlikely on a high-tech set of duds such as the ones he's wearing.
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HAND ME THE GREEN."
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Avalon's Rob Ro (colorist).
DISSECTION: Miss Kitty Fantastico spotted this one; on page 18, Absorbing Man catches She-Hulk's fist in his left hand, but on one panel her hand is not colored green, as it should. Badge for MKF, of course.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"HEAVY METAL."
TITLE: She-Hulk V2.
ISSUE: 22.
CULPRIT: Avalon's Rob Ro (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page 24, the Absorbing Man has absorbed the properties of the chassis of a school bus... so if he's made of metal now, why is his skin still flesh-colored?
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"WHY MESS WITH A CLASSIC?"
TITLE: Superman/Batman.
ISSUE: 41.
CULPRIT: Dustin Nguyen (penciller).
DISSECTION: This book is stinking slightly less as of late, and Dustin Nguyen's art is decent. However, he made the same mistake Koi Turnbull did recently on Superman Confidential, that is, drawing treaded soles and heels on Superman's boots. Again, heels might be acceptable, but comic book Superman's costume has never shown treads on the boot soles.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars. It's not horrible, but it's a pretty obvious detail of Superman's costume... I've even always assumed him to wear soft boots, almost thick socks...
<-------------------------------->
"IT'S THAT DYE TREND THAT GOES AROUND."
TITLE: Superman/Batman.
ISSUE: 41.
CULPRIT: Randy Mayor (colorist).
DISSECTION: On page 20, Perry White's hair is colored completely brown, without the grey temples he has. In fact, and I'm not considering this other thing a dissection because he's seen in the background, Perry looks too youthful... he looks like Han Solo in the original trilogy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CALIGRAPHIC CRISIS."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Tom Wel... er, Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Ethan Van Sciver (cover artist).
DISSECTION: I'll overlook the fact that Van Sciver makes TWP (Tom Welling Prime) look like Superman, as if he were a completely adult man... but he draws a simple "S" as his chest scar, when he "drew" an actual "S-shield" on himself.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"CANARY CRY OF FASHION."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Black Canary's uniform (particularly her boots) are not drawn correctly.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"THAT STRIPPER SURE GETS AROUND!"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Starfire is in a group shot, when she's supposedly de-powered. However, by now, seeing other characters from that shot, I'm willing to accept that this might be a bit in the future, where she has already regained her powers. Still... I'll be waiting....
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BOOSTER? OH, YOU'RE HERE FOR THE STRIPPER!"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Booster Gold is in that group shot, and I don't know if he should go around doing public hero stuff... still, it's possible, and with Geoff Johns being one of the writers on Booster's book, I'll give this a low rating.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"YOU KNOW, RICHARD BRUNING SAYS THERE'S 52 MULTIVERSES...."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer).
DISSECTION: Wally West says he can't believe TWP is dumb enough to set foot on Earth again, to which "our hero" answers that "Where else am I going to go. There aren't any other Earths." You'd think he'd know about the 52 universes by now, or at least, about the anti-matter universe, from where HE JUST CAME FROM with the rest of the Sinestro Corps.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"MINE WAS IN THE LAUNDRY, SO HAL LENT ME ONE OF HIS."
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Jerry Ordway (penciller for part of the book).
DISSECTION: Ordway draws (apart from the correct scar "S" on TWP's chest) John Stewart with a classic GL uniform, instead of the customized one he's worn for years. Also, I'm not sure if Ordway does only the "classic" flashback scenes here, I think he also does the more recent ones.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I LOOK BETTER IN BLUE, DON'T I?"
TITLE: Tales Of The Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Pete Woods (penciller for part of the book) and Brad Anderson (colorist).
DISSECTION: TWP flies into the sunlight, and one moment he's wearing a Sinestro Corps costume, and the next (even if he rips it up), he has Superman colored tights, briefs, and boots. Yes, he could have ripped off his Sinestro tights and boots too (thus proving that Superman boots are thick socks rather than actual boots), but the panels clearly show him only ripping his shirt. Yes, he can do it at greater speed, but still.
DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars, for the previous reasons.
<-------------------------------->
"I BORROWED ONE OF KAL'S CAPES."
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 52.
CULPRIT: Alé Garza (cover penciller) and (Rod Reis (colorist).
DISSECTION: On the cover, Supergirl's cape is missing the yellow trim.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"BRACELETS OR CASTS?"
TITLE: Teen Titans V3.
ISSUE: 52.
CULPRIT: Alé Garza (cover penciller).
DISSECTION: Wonder Girl's bracelets go almost up to her elbow; when they should go at most to mid-forearm (as interior penciller Igle draws them).
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"EYE CAN'T SEE!!!"
TITLE: The Flash V2.
ISSUE: 233.
CULPRIT: Freddie E. Williams II (penciller) and/or Tanya & Richard Horie (colorists).
DISSECTION: On page 12, Wally's eyes are completely white when he's in costume.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"I'M STEALING NORMAN'S STUFF."
TITLE: Thunderbolts.
ISSUE: 117.
CULPRIT: Mike Deodato, Jr. (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Doc Samson asks the guards at Thunderbolts Mountain to return his laptop bag and briefcase, yet he entered carrying no such things. Furthermore, when a guard does give him his possessions back, he returns only one item, that seems to be a briefcase (and they don't return him his hat!).
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"LIGHTNING, SO FAST, IT'S GONE."
TITLE: Velocity-Pilot Season.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Uncredited artist.
DISSECTION: In both ads for the pilot season books, Velocity's lighting tattoo is missing from her face. She also appears to be wearing a slightly different uniform, so it might be some sort of new look for her new series, if she gets enough votes. This dissection was brought to you by Miss Kitty Fantastico, who earns yet another badge.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS? PREPOSTEROUS!"
TITLE: Velocity-Pilot Season.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Joe Casey (writer).
DISSECTION: Some military personnel see a speeding bogey on their radar, and say that "nothing" moves that fast. I know this isn't Marvel or DC, but the Top Cow universe does have a large number of superhuman, they shouldn't be so surprised.
DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"PET PEEVE #1, I THINK IT WAS."
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 204.
CULPRIT: Mike Choi (penciller/inker).
DISSECTION: Beast.
DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
<-------------------------------->
"JEFF'S ANATOMY."
TITLE: X-Men V2.
ISSUE: 204.
CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer).
DISSECTION: Mean Jeff wrote a few weeks ago, just after reading the preview pages of this issue: "Herr Dissector,
I realize this is jumping the gun by a week, but my brain is on the verge of IMPLODING beneath the weight of my Lewis Black-esque rage/frustration at more Marvel craptaculaciousness. Seriously, the title 'Editor' apparently is only that, a TITLE, as opposed to an actual job fucking description.
(...)
Put a gander on the first page, with Beast orally citing his notes. Notice he uses medical terms: maxilla, scapula, collarbone (hey, as a doctor, my colleagues and I have been known to use collarbone instead of clavicle many a time so I'll let it slide here), and then 'Upper and Lower Leg Bones'. Upper and lower leg bones? {Sound of pages swishing} No...can't seem to...huh. What d'you know? Ain't no such thing as Upper Leg Bone or Lower Leg Bone in my Marieb or Netter texts. Oh, wait, I know why...CUZ THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE FUCKING CALLED!!! Especially since "lower leg bone" could be one of TWO bones (tibia and fibula, in case you were wondering). What. The. Fuck.
One panel is all it takes to make Beast go from astute egghead doctor type with a 25 cent vocabulary to carries a lunchpail and rides the short bus filler character. Seriously, they'd've done less damage if Beast reported that Cannonball broke "one of his below the waist thingees."
And if Cannonball HAD broken his upper leg bone (which is connected to the hip bone and that's connected to the....back bone and the back bone's connected to the....neck bone.....) why would his leg be supported ALOFT, in a vacuum tube like thingee that's clearly supporting the LOWER leg bone (which is connected to the ankle bone and that's connected to the....) and there's nothing splinting the upper leg--oh for fuck's sake, it's a FEMUR!! FEMUR!!!--so it's obviously NOT broken. Hell, even Joe Thiesmann's looking at this and saying it's fucking wrong.
I spell lazy: M-A-R-V-E-L."
Wow... my readers get very riled up sometimes... but this was the qualified opinion of a physician. Who are we to disagree. I did have to look up who Joe Theismann and Lewis Black are. I wasn't surprised not to know Theissman, with my complete obliviousness to sports in general and American football in particular; but Lewis Black seems to be a comedian who's routines I'd enjoy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. I won't disagree, but it's possible that Sam has broken all of his leg bones; but still, it's not consistent with Beasts vocabulary in the same scene, and in general.
<-------------------------------->
I'm making another change right here and now, there won't be any DAYAMN or WTF moments anymore, just a section called "Moments Of The Week". The moments will range from the "cool!" to the "what where they thinking?", to the "that's weird..." This week we have three moments, starting with more hardcoreness from Green Lantern Corps:
Yes, Kilowog drops an aircraft carrier (which seems oddly small, but it might be a matter of perspective) on Arkillo, then tears off his finger to strip him of his power ring. Kick-ass! The second moment of the week is definitely of the "wow, that's weird" variety, with Starro the Conqueror bringing cupcakes to a bedridden Superman:
Strange things happen... And the last Moment Of The Week would have been a WTF, look at this image from Superman #669's "The Third Kryptonian":
Yes, Kryptonians used lightsabers!!! Well, that's all for this column, we had a pretty high 6.6 Bazzars, and some nice dissections. That's it for now, until next week, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...
THE DISSECTOR!
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