The Dial H relaunch is over, but we are left with a couple of epilogues… sort of. First we have to answer the question: whatever happened to the Dial H kids?
New Teen Titans vol.2 #45 (1988)
by Marv Wolfman & Eduardo Barreto
It was only a matter of time before the kids met the Titans, considering they were created by Marv Wolfman. However it doesn’t happen in the first blockbuster volume with George Perez, but in the somewhat lesser know follow-up series.
We first meet Chris being attacked by a woman with fire powers. He’s explicitly stated to have been in a relationship with Vicki when they were both 16, which would’ve been about a year about the end of the relaunch.
You might recall wasn’t the case when the relaunch ended; you’ll soon see Wolfman is basically ignoring everything he didn’t personally write.
The woman then attacks Chris with water powers, and as he flees the subway he comes across the Teen Titans.
A brief fight ensues, with the woman now made of water, until she’s forced to escape.
Once the Titans take Chris back to Titans Tower, their headquarters, he provides his backstory.
I do have to question the idea that the CBI… the rarely used FBI equivalent of the DC Universe… would know who Chris was. Unless he straight up told them after the end of the series.
He reveals that the fire-and-woman was one of Vicki’s transformations.
Chris doesn’t answer Nightwing’s question on whether he still has his watch-dial.
Chris and Vicki then broke up when they went to college…
…and then Vicki turned into an overly attacked ex-girlfriend AND into a giant lizard woman.
Chris managed to escape, and we have the confirmation that he DID still own the watch-dial… except Vicki stole it.
One of the things that unites DC and Marvel is the scarcity of superheroes with a public address, because this kind of stuff keeps happening.
After a bunch of soap-opera subplots… it is the Titans after all… we check up on Vicki.
Who has gone through some traumatic stuff that we’ll touch upon later.
She’s basically addicted to using the dial to cope with her trauma. Confusingly, she’s dialing O.R.E.H. when she’s in human form, although that should have no effect on her.
Instead it helps her go on a rampage.
She ends up completely trashing Cyborg.
We interrupt this story about personal trauma because if Eduardo Barreto wants to draw hot women working out, he’s gonna do it.
Vicki crashes into Titans Tower, and hilariously she’s helped in the fight by the fact that the Titans keep discussing their plans out loud.
After a prolonged fight, Vicki defeats the Titans and leaves with Chris to take him to the real bad guys: the Children Of The Sun.
New Teen Titans vol.2 #46 (1988)
by Marv Wolfman & Eduardo Barreto
That is one ugly transformation.
Not all the Titans have lost Chris: Jericho has the power to transfer his mind into another person’s body, so he’s inside Chris now.
Wolfman goes a bit overboard in this one, at least for my tastes.
First he introduces the idea that when Vicki went to college in San Francisco she got mixed up with, let’s say, some stuff that the Comics Code wouldn’t approve.
Including apparently going to a strips show?
Not to be a prude or anything, but am I the only one who finds this a bit exploitative?
“Let’s take the goody-two-shoes 14 year old kid and show that as an adult she goes to strip clubs and sleeps around” is NOT where I would have expected Dial H to go!!!
So let me get this straight: if you’re on drugs when you dial O.R.E.H. it still gives you powers but makes you insane!?
Sounds legit.
And if you thought that turning Vicki into a promiscuous drug user was bad enough, she ALSO got herself mixed up with a satanic sex cult.
When the Titans show up (called by Jericho), Vicki demonstrates that even without transforming she’s strong enough to beat up STARFIRE.
Really!? She’s strong enough to be a challenge for someone with near Kryptonian-level powers!?!?
To be fair, Starfire has the upper hand literally next panel, but still… the whole point of the dials is to turn ordinary people into super-powered beings, why would you make Vicki super-strong without it!?
The Titans take Vicki to Star Labs for… uhm, I’m not entirely sure why… but she reveals that she can now transform even without using the dial.
So now she has electric powers.
During the fight, she uses electricity to possess the equipment in the lab and change into the abomination from the cover. Although it’s not a separate transformation.
Chris manages to get her dial, but she just leaves. And since she still has his watch-dial, we’re back to square one.
Despite Chris vowing to help Vicki, he doesn’t get around to it within that series.
SERIOUSLY.
We’ll see how Vicki gets cured next time, in a completely different series from 1997 (!!!).
Chris is listed by the DC Database as having cameos in a bunch of stories in the “New Titans” series, but I just can’t find him there.
So unless he DOES show up in those and it’s such a minor thing I can’t even see it, we wouldn’t see Chris until…
JLA/Titans #2 (1998)
by Devin Grayson & Phil Jimenez
This is a HUGE storyline that features basically everyone that has been part of either team, or even that has a very minor association with them.
And I do mean EVERYONE, including Chris seen here in his best Madrox cosplay.
I took me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to find that cameo!!! Even the DC Database doesn’t list it.
I have seen various resources say that Chris is now transforming without the dial, but:
A) he’s not seen transforming
B) I couldn’t find a prior appearance where we are told any of this
Titans Secret Files and Origins #2 (2000)
written by Jay Faerber & Geoff Johns
pencils by Ben Herrera
This is supposedly the last appearance of Chris to date.
And it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it one, inside a two-page spread that details the fate of several extremely minor Titans.
He’s completely out of the superhero business now.
Notice the mention of another H-Dialer; we’ll talk about him next time, because he’s the reason why Vicki was eventually cured.
So skipping ahead a little bit, let’s see the last Vicki appearance to date AFTER her cure (which, again, we’ll cover in detail next time).
Wonder Woman vol.2 #175 (2001)
by Phil Jimenez & Brandon Badeaux
cover by Jim Lee
This is part of the absolutely atrocious “Joker’s Last Laugh” event, but let’s not talk about that.
The story includes a cameo by E-V-E-R-Y superheroine and supervillainess of the DC Universe. And that includes Vicki.
Most of the villains of the story are mind-controlled by Circe. But since the caption identifies her as having dialed V.I.L.L.A.I.N., I’m not going to count this transformation.
Also, we’ll see next time that by this point Vicki had lost the medallion, so I have no idea how she transformed. Especially since, if you recall, her version of the dial couldn’t even dial V.I.L.L.A.I.N.!!!
Historical significance: 2/10
This does have a little bit of significance for the next H-Dial user, but even he won’t stick around for long.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
I’m just talking about the Titans issues because I barely talked about the others, and we’re steering in a completely different direction.
Does it stand the test of time?: 3/10
Again, speaking just for the Titans. There’s some good stuff there: the artwork is great even if it does have some truly unnecessary fanservice, some of the fights are entertaining, and while I didn’t touch upon it the soap opera element is fine (although definitely a downgrade from the original run). The problem is really how the Dial H kids were treated.
The whole situation with Vicki really seems to be in bad taste: she’s given one massive trauma after the other, goes completely insane, and then she just leaves!
It’s pretty clear Wolfman intended to continue the story, but got sidelined by the other hundred subplots and either lost interest or plain forgot about it.
Poor Vicki had to wait in limbo for 10 years before someone recalled her story was left unresolved!
Dial K for King transformations: 75
Dial V for Vicki transformations: 74
Dial R for Robby Reed identities: 54
Dial N for Nick identities: 4
I’m counting both the fire woman and the water woman as the same transformation, considering they happen VERY closely. So perhaps “Fire-Water Woman” can turn into various elements.
Then there’s “Giant Lizard Woman”, the surprisingly overpowered Diamond, and “Elecric Lady”.
As mentioned her last apperance doesn’t count because SOMEHOW she dialed V.I.L.L.A.I.N., which means she’s just one transformation behind Chris.
But as mentioned I skipped a couple apperances that we’ll see next time, so she still has time.