Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Dissector #101.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"No more munchkins" Scarlet Witch Of The West, Avengers Fairy Tales #4.

No more munchkins... in my roleplaying games, thank you. Welcome to another issue of The Dissector; this time around with comics published on 11/12 (yes, yes, I'm still more than a month behind. Before we get on with the actual column; I'd like to say that last issue I made a mistake on how I wrote about Psylocke's powers. Snakebyte brought it to my attention; and I did argue with him about the finer points of the issue; I conceded that it was a mistake on my part. However, I do not think it merits an entry in this column, nor a rating; like I do sometimes with other errors that I notice or are brought to my attention.

Snakebyte, unfortunately, decided that he could tell me how to write my column and that if I did not report this mistake of mine as a dissection, I was an hypocrite and accused me of having claimed that I was infallible. I politely told him that he had no right to tell me how to write my column, or to call me a hypocrite, and that I never claimed to be perfect, quite the contrary. This lead to him saying he wouldn't read my column any longer... and that's that. You can read the whole thing here.

Well, let's get this party started... first come The Dissector's Picks Of The Week. Best Book Of The Week was Terra #1... fun plot, nice cheesecake art (more on that in the Moments Of The Week). Worst Book Of The Week was Superman & Batman Vs. Vampires & Werewolves... God, even the name is lame...
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"THE JOKRE."

TITLE: Batman Confidential (DC).

ISSUE: 23.

CULPRIT: Andrew Kreisberg (writer) and/or Jared K. Fletcher (letterer).

DISSECTION: The Joker says "exremly", instead of "extremely".

DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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"UNDEAD UNDEAD UNDEAD!"

TITLE: Superman & Batman Vs. Vampires & Werewolves (DC).

ISSUE: 03 of 06.

CULPRIT: Kevin VanHook (writer).

DISSECTION: I don't know what's worse, referring to werewolves as undead, or saying "the undead commune with nature".

DISSECT-O-METER: 10 Bazzars.
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"OPERATION IRKI FREEDOM."

TITLE: Blue Beetle V8 (DC).

ISSUE: 07.

CULPRIT: John Rogers (writer).

DISSECTION: I had to resort to my Vault again, with books from 2006. In this case, the country is called Qurac, not "Qrac".

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also, "por supuesto no" is not a correct Spanish sentence.
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"SALAKCIOUS R. CRUMB."

TITLE: Green Lantern Corps V2 (DC).

ISSUE: 30.

CULPRIT: Peter J. Tomasi (writer).

DISSECTION: Salakk.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars. Also on issue 5, from my Vault, but by Dave Gibbons.
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"STARING INTO YOUR EYES."

TITLE: X-Men: Phoenix Warsong (Marvel).

ISSUE: 02 of 05.

CULPRIT: John Starr (colorist).

DISSECTION: More fun from the Vault. In this case, Ringo's son gives Colossus brown eyes, when his eyes are blue.

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"NO CAREY, POR FAVOR!"

TITLE: X-Men V2 (Marvel).

ISSUE: 192.

CULPRIT: Mike Carey (writer)

DISSECTION: Two wrong uses of the Spanish language by Carey.

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars each.
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"JOVENES MENTIROSOS."

TITLE: Young Liars (DC/Vertigo)

ISSUE: 09.

CULPRIT: Jared K. Fletcher (letterer).

DISSECTION: And another one for Jared; this time, he uses an "Ñ" smaller than the rest of the letters in the sentence, to accomodate for the "accent mark" (which is not, it's a different letter, not an accented "N").

DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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That's all the dissections for now; with an average of 6.9 in ten entries... oh, wait... where's the Dissect This!? It's hidden; it's a mistake of my own; which you'll only catch if you read this column and have read the previous ones... IE, it's not a mistake I made this time, but one made before... which is exposed in this issue. While you ponder that, here are the Moments Of The Week; first up, turning yourself into candy in a post-apocalyptic abandoned mall?


Bad idea, Grunge. Then, Superman's greatest superpower?


His spitcurl! And lastly, we men always enjoy cake:


Cheesecake, that is! Thank you, Amanda Conner. That's it for now, until next time, I'll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes...

THE DISSECTOR!

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

The Dissector #100.

DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)

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

"And Chas, no pressure or nothing, but if I and when I ever get back to London, I'm fully expecting to find the same shit-hole that was there when I left-- and not a pile of smoldering ruins, okay?" John Constantine, Hellblazer Presents: Chas-The Knowledge #5.

Shoot, I forgot to mention back in column #97, published on November 11; that that date was The Dissector's third anniversary! 11/11/05 marked the first appearance of The Nitpicker in the now defunct CBEM (which you can still read in archives)... well, happy birthday to me! Well, this is column #100 and I have... nothing special prepared. So, there.

All that said, the DT! from last column was spotted by Snakebyte; the word "fuselage" refers to a part of an airplane, the writer meant "fusillade". Now, what are The Dissector's Picks Of The Week? Best Book Of The Week was Justice Society Of America #20; I can't even remember why, it was probably just fun. The Worst Book Of The Week was Star Wars-The Clone Wars-Shipyards Of Doom... just plain boring and awful. Dissections ensue:
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"I KIND OF FORGET STUFF..."

TITLE: Adventure Comics Special-The Guardian (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: James Robinson (writer).

DISSECTION: Jimmy Olsen speaks of the clone Newsboy Legion as if he hasn't seen them in ages, when they helped him during Countdown.

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES?"

TITLE: Avengers-The Initiative Special (Marvel).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Tom Brevoort (editor) and/or Jeanine Schaefer (associate editor).

DISSECTION: Christos N. Gage is credited as "writers". Who would have thought he used ghost writers?

DISSECT-O-METER: 2 Bazzars.
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"CHECK IT, MATE."

TITLE: The Dissector (Studio Robota).

ISSUE: 99.

CULPRIT: MaGnUs (writer).

DISSECTION: I wrongly labeled Checkmate #31 as #1 in the Picks. Thanks Snakebyte for calling me on this; two more badges and you make High Admiral. Just in case, and because some have asked for it, here are the roster and ranks of the Honorary Dissector Scout Corps:

Ranks:

High Admiral 53-infinite
Admiral 47-52
Rear Admiral 41-46
Vice Admiral 36-40
Commodore 31-35
Captain 26-30
Commander 21-25
Lieutenant Commander 16-20
Lieutenant 6-15
Ensign 1-5

Current Roster:

Grand Admiral MaGnUs
High Admiral Nysie (Honorary)
Commodore Snakebyte 34
Cmdr. Dominik B. 23
Lt. Cmdr. Miss Kitty Fantastico 16
Lieutenant Guvnor 13
Lieutenant Sully 9
Lieutenant Snarf5181 6
Lieutenant DrSilent 7
Ensign Roy 5
Ensign Bea 3
Ensign Bored 3
Ensign Lucas Siegel 3
Ensign Tylo 2
Ensign Shadz 2
Ensign Mato 2
Ensign Matt Brady 1
Ensign Paul O'Brien 1
Ensign Trasgo 1
Ensign Mean Jeff 1
Ensign Ilustr8r 1
Ensign leahcim 1
Ensign TokerTheKid 1
Ensign Teukro 1
Ensign Wolfie 1
Ensign Jordan 1

DISSECT-O-METER: 4 Bazzars.
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"FOGOSA."

TITLE: Final Crisis: Resist (DC).

ISSUE: One-shot.

CULPRIT: Greg Rucka (writer).

DISSECTION: Rucka finally gets Fire's last name correct, da Costa; but gives her first name as "Beatrice", when it's Beatriz.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars. There's also a couple more typos or wrong words.
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"GEOFFJOHNS."

TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3 (DC).

ISSUE: 20.

CULPRIT: Geoff Johns (writer) and/or Rob Leigh (letterer)

DISSECTION: Power Girl is named incorrectly as "Powergirl".

DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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"MY BULLETS ARE MADE OF LEAD AND TEFLON, THAT'S WHY THEY CAN'T KILL YOU."

TITLE: New Exiles (Marvel).

ISSUE: 14.

CULPRIT: Chris Claremont (writer).

DISSECTION: Among other things; Psylocke says that her psi-sword is made of "TK energy", and "that it cannot cut" someone. Err... no, the sword is made of psionic energy, that's why it affects minds; it would be able to cut people if it was made of telekinetic energy.

DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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No DT! this time, I didn't feel like it, there was no dissection that could work. We had 5.3 Bazzars average in twelve dissections; pretty normal. Now, the Moments Of The Week. First up, the return of one of my favorite legionnaires:


That's Tellus, in case anyone's wondering, telepath and telekinetic. Next up, Kraven shows a glam killer's best weapon:


Nipple lazors! And look at those pants... To finish, Rockslide again shows his sensitive nature:


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

THE DISSECTOR!