The Dissector #52.
The Atom and the Amazon, lobsters, giant lizards, The Ultimates V3 (at long last!), tiny chairs, Batmen, surfing Kryptonians, and yes, what you’ve all been expecting: Granny Goodness and her rod.
DISCLAIMER (angry creators, please read)
[[WARNING! THIS COLUMN MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!]]
Atom (Ryan Choi, flying grabbing Wonder Woman’s belt): “I… I feel I should let you know I dreamt this once”
Wonder Woman: “… Yes. Thank you for sharing that with me. I appreciate truthfulness in all forms.”
Atom (the ( ) means thinking): “(God help me, I can’t seem to shut up around her.) I also had this dream once, where you and Power Girl…”
Wonder Woman: “I get that a lot, actually.”
Atom: “(Somebody shoot me, please. Stop me before I say something even stupider!) And this one time? There was you and you had this big thing of whipped cream, and…”
Wonder Woman: “I’m just guessing here, but you spend a lot of time on the internet, am I correct?”
Atom: “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m… I’m not normally like this. (Well, not out loud.)”
The previous dialogue is from All-New Atom #18. Best. Dialogue. Ever. To. Grace. A. Comic. Book. Ok, so maybe I am exaggerating, but it was very funny, and the quote of the week turned again into the dialogue of the week. For All-New Atom. Once more. Issue #18 is also The Dissector’s Pick Of The Week for Best Book; for the third or fourth time. Again Gail Simone spins a solid story, with great dialogue and very funny humor, with the solidity coming from the verisimilitude of all it… you believe this is happening, even among all the weirdness that goes on around Ryan Choi.
Mike Norton and Andy Smith as usual (well, for Norton) provide great pencils, giving us a great B-movie atmosphere, as well as rendering Wonder woman as both a gorgeous woman and a warrior. Trevor Scott and Keith Champagne add great inking, all and even if Alex Bleyaert’s colors are too bright for my personal taste, they’re appropriate for this kind of book. I’m sad that Simone and Norton are leaving the book after two more issues, but it was a good run.
Worst Book of the week? Well, unsurprisingly, Infinity Inc. V2 #4. Milligan, Fiumara, Southworth et al deliver a boring and confusing plot, muddy art, and everything makes less and less sense every issue. I think any hopes I had of this getting better are slowly fading away… Last week’s Dissect This was deftly spotted by Miss Kitty Fantastico, and it was the fact that Donna Troy’s eyes are colored incorrectly. I quote “are Donna Troy’s eyes supposed to be all white? She doesn’t have some kind of eye-glowy superpower, does she (like, whenever her eyes light up her origin story gets retconned)?” Yet another Badge for MKF, who is one away from being our first Lt. Commander!
There are still some people who owe their votes for the Autopsy Awards, so I’m still not revealing those. As of this week’s column, I’m not writing up all of the dissections; boring or minor ones like a wrong eye color or a misspelled word won’t usually get but a mention in the write-up for a more interesting dissection. So, on with the goof-ups!
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“SMALL, BUT…”
TITLE: All-New Atom (DC).
ISSUE: 18.
CULPRIT: Gail Simone (writer).
DISSECTION: The Atom is in a small (action figure) size, yet with enough density to hit and render unconscious an enemy. If he’s so dense, how does a child pick him up with no effort?
DISSECT-O-METER: 5 Bazzars.
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“THAT’S NOT MONARCH!”
TITLE: Countdown: Arena (DC).
ISSUE: 02 of 04.
CULPRIT: Scott McDaniel (penciller).
DISSECTION: This one was reported by Dominik B., and I can’t believe I missed it. Monarch’s mask eye-slits are showing normal eyes and skin through them, when they should be silver, as in Captain Atom’s.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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“SEE! IT’S NOT EVEN THE SAME GUY ONE MOMENT TO THE OTHER!”
TITLE: Countdown: Arena (DC).
ISSUE: 02 of 04.
CULPRIT: Guy Major (colorist).
DISSECTION: Major manages to color Monarch’s eyes (incorrectly drawn by McDaniel, see above) blue in one panel, and brown two panels down.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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“UNA COSTUME, UNA VEZ MAS…”
TITLE: Countdown To Infinite Crisis (DC).
ISSUE: 21.
CULPRIT: Jamal Igle (penciller)
DISSECTION: Una’s costume is drawn incorrectly, wrong boots, wrong bracelets. There’s a couple more dissections not worth mentioning; in fact, I wasn’t even going to mention this one, but then I noticed I wasn’t mentioning any Countdown To Infinite Crisis dissections.
DISSECT-O-METER: 8 Bazzars.
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“I RAN SO FAST I LOST THEM…”
TITLE: Justice Society Of America V3 (DC).
ISSUE: 11.
CULPRIT: Dale Eaglesham (penciller).
DISSECTION: Jay Garrick’s boots are missing the little wings. Also, on a separate dissection, Ted Grant’s hair is once more colored incorrectly.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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“THEY’LL NEVER DISCOVER US!”
TITLE: Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus (Dark Horse).
ISSUE: 04 of 05.
CULPRIT: Mike Mignola (writer) and Jason Armstrong (artist).
DISSECTION: Nazi spies with a swastika tattooed on the palm on their hands? Yup, very stealthy.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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“GIANT LIZARDS? RIGHT, AND NOW YOU’RE GOING TO TELL ME THERE’S ALSO UNDERSEA CIVILIZATIONS!”
TITLE: The Order V2 (I was previously unaware of an existing book named The Order, from 2002) (Marvel).
ISSUE: 05.
CULPRIT: Matt Fraction (writer).
DISSECTION: A car is totally wrecked in a highway, and the driver said it was done by a giant lizard man, and superheroes (one wearing a mecha armor, and another carrying a pseudomagical hammer) don’t believe her at all. In the Marvel Universe. Right.
Also, this week’s “Nick Fury’s Files” are about the Fantastic Four, and contain the usual crap.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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“MURDER SHE WROTE, BUT YOU DIDN’T READ IT.”
TITLE: The Trials Of Shazam (DC).
ISSUE: 10 of 12.
CULPRIT: Judd Winick (writer).
DISSECTION: Freddy Freeman and his guide call on Zatanna to help them find clues on a crime scene, and only after her magic reveals nothing, they see a large-ass message he wrote in his own blood…
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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“ULTIMATE DISSECTION!”
TITLE: The Ultimates V3 (Marvel).
ISSUE: 01 of 05.
CULPRIT: Joe Madureira (artist).
DISSECTION: Dissect me this, dissect me the following image (no, it’s not Cap’s tiny head).
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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“DRESSED FOR BATTLE.”
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 493.
CULPRIT: Billy Tan (penciller).
DISSECTION: So, the Sentinels attack while Warpath and Hepzibah (the X-Men needed another furry besides Beast? I guess is for those who like furry-chicks) are in bed; Warpath jumps right at the mechas in his PJ pants, knives ready (I guess he sleeps with them under the pillow, or Hepbzibah likes it rough). Hepzibah growls while she clutches the covers close to her chest, seeming to be naked at least from the waist up.
Then, after two pages, and what seems to be only five to ten seconds later, she’s jumping through the air (shooting a regular shotgun, instead of some fancy space gun), completely clothed, wearing her top, pants and boots, and even her headband (ok, the headband I understand, you wouldn’t want your hair in your face while you fight).
DISSECT-O-METER: 3 Bazzars.
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“WHO THE HELL GAVE ME SHORTS?”
TITLE: Uncanny X-Men (Marvel).
ISSUE: 493.
CULPRIT: Billy Tan (penciller).
DISSECTION: I shouldn’t even be writing up this one, under the new “policy”, but what the hell. Rockslide is wearing a shirt, when his costume is shirtless; plus he’s wearing short pants and no boots (don’t remember if he actually wore boots, but he sure as hell wore pants, not cycling shorts).
DISSECT-O-METER: 7 Bazzars.
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“HULK SMASH! HULK REBUILD!”
TITLE: World War Hulk: Aftersmash.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Rafa Sandoval (penciller).
DISSECTION: Iron Man sends Damage Control to use the old Avengers Mansion as headquarters, as the sub-levels survived the destruction of the mansion in Disassembled. Problem is, they show the mansion standing, with just a few cracks and broken walls.
DISSECT-O-METER: 9 Bazzars.
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“IRON MAN KILLED HIM, AND NOW HE WANTS TO MAKE IT UP BY GIVING HIM UNDUE CREDIT?”
TITLE: World War Hulk: Aftersmash.
ISSUE: One-shot.
CULPRIT: Greg Pak (writer).
DISSECTION: Tom Foster, nephew of the late Goliath, gets a hold of equipment in the Avengers Mansion and cracks the growth formula his uncle used. Tony Stark (while he’s getting his ass kicked by Foster) says “So you cracked your uncle’s growth formula.”, but that was Hank Pym’s formula Bill Foster used, not his own.
DISSECT-O-METER: 6 Bazzars.
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Even counting the dissections I didn’t go into detail, we only had 17 in total for this week (comics released on 12-05); but they fetched a passable average score of 6.3 Bazzars. You want to know which were the Moments Of The Week? The first one comes from the Best Book of the week, All-New Atom #18, when Wonder Woman presents Atom with a gift (that she’d kept inside her cleavage, so even if it was a paper clip, it’s valuable):
Hell yeah, the JLA needs an Atom! Next up, Batmen from alternate universes size each other up:
Yup, there’s something to be said for high-collared Batmen. Next, one of those moments that make me cringe:
Yes, that is baby Kal-El in Krypton, DC is completely crapping themselves on the definitive Superman origin (Man Of Steel, by John Byrne, in case you’re wondering), and dresses Lara as a Beatles groupie and Jor-El in a House of El body glove. Ech…. And last, but not least, it’s sexual innuendo from Apokolips!
“This will teach you to mess with Granny. YOU WILL LOVE GRANNY!!! TAKE GRANNY’S LOVE UP THE ARSE!!!” *cough* Sorry, channeling Apokolips tough love… That’s it for now, until next week, I’ll be on the outlook for more dissections, because (almost) nothing escapes…
THE DISSECTOR!
