New Adventures of Superboy #49 (1984)
by E.Nelson Bridwell & Bob Rozakis
pencils by Howard bender
We are finally at the end of the relaunch, and we get answers to one of the biggest questions of this entire effort: who is The Master?
Unfortunately the other question, “How could this relaunch suck so much?”, remains unanswered.
With a special guest: the ghost of The Wizard. Yes, seriously.
And he holds something special: the ORIGINAL H-Dial!
Then the ghost dials (!!!) on behalf of The Master.
This reveals the real identity of The Master: ROBBY REED.
Robby wasn’t just The Master THE WHOLE TIME, he was also The Wizard!
After a recap of the original Dial H run, which includes a nice showcase of all his transformations…
…Robby then narrates his LAST adventure, which involved a wizard from another world.
Taking the identity of the hero Circumference.
He has the power to create round shaped energy constructs.
(Ring Lantern?)
The alien wizard tricks Robby into a rather odd trap: a random place on the ground in the middle of nowhere that acts as a trigger for all the weapons of the world, SOMEHOW.
As random as that is, it’s not a bad premise for a superhero conundrum.
What’s Robby going to do, keep dialing until he finds a helpful transformation? Remember the original H-Dial didn’t have a time limit.
No, instead he decides to dial S.P.L.I.T., which separates Robby into two people.
I think there was some miscommunication with the artist, because I have absolutely no clue how Robby is disarming this “weapon”.
As if dialing S.P.L.I.T. wasn’t weird enough, Evil Robby then dials H.I.D.E.Y.O.U.R.S.E.L.F.
Which I believe is still, to this day, both the longest command ever dialed AND the most convoluted use of the H-Dial.
With his vaguely defined powers (we’ll get to those later) The Wizard easily defeats the alien, uhm, wizard.
And that’s the backstory to the whole relaunch: Robby, now turned into The Master, creates clones in an attempt to retrieve the H-Dial. And The Wizard created the new H-Dials adding the new limitations.
But now that the H-Dial has merged both The Master and The Wizard back into Robby… he’s had enough of this whole dialing business.
And finally, he decides that Nick is going to be the heir of the original H-Dial.
That’s how the relaunch ends: with the original hero officially passing the torch to the new generations.
That means the three H-Dials will have lots of adventures with those kids, right?
Well… let’s start by learning the fate of Chris’s dial, the very next issue.
Superboy vol.2 #50 (1984)
written by Paul Kupperberg
pencils by Kurt Schaffenberger & Keith Giffen
cover by Keith Giffen
You might remember I already reviewed this one.
You might also remember that that story started with a 30th century thief stealing the H-Dial from a museum. But that wasn’t the ORIGINAL H-Dial: it was one of the new ones.
Specifically, it was Chris’s watch.
The thief modifies the dial so that he can transform at will, as well as transforming other people.
So while he does still dial H.E.R.O., he only transforms himself and others into supervillains: none of them are sadly added to the transformation count.
That story ends with Krypto destroying the H-Dial watch.
That happened in Superboy’s time, and as we’ve seen Chris and Vicki live in Superman’s time.
So the timeline of the H-Dial watch is like this:
1) The Wizard creates it
2) Chris finds it and uses it throughout the series
3) at some point Chris loses it, because he’s NOT shown with it in later appearances
4) in the 30th century, the watch is in a museum and is stolen
5) the watch is taken back in time by the thief and broken by Krypto
6) the remaining pieces are brought back to the 30th century by Chameleon Boy
That story ends with the revelation that there is another H-Dial in the 30th century, but it doesn’t specify which one.
Is it Vicki’s pendant or the original H-Dial? Because it DOES show up in a big way in the Legion reboot, but that’s a whole other continuity.
We will keep track of Vicki’s pendant, starting a new phase of the retrospective that will answer the question… whatever happened to the H-Dial kids?
Just a teaser for it: while Chris and Vicki do have a bunch of minor appearances… NICK NEVER SHOWS UP AGAIN IN ANYTHING.
So much for being the one personally chosen by Robby to keep the original dial!
Did you even notice that, in the middle of all this nonsense, we were never even given an explanation for why he had a special connection to the dial???
Historical significance: 2/10
You would think this would have more of an impact, but not only Nick never shows up again… this is the last appearance of the pre-Crisis Robby Reed, and yet it will be completely ignored by ALL following continuities that bring him back!!!
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
That is one heck of a backstory.
Does it stand the test of time?: 0/10
Is this is even a story? It’s more like a recap of one. If it was given enough pages across multiple issues MAYBE it could have worked, but it’s FAR too little MUCH too late.
Dial K for King transformations: 75
Dial V for Vicki transformations: 70
Dial R for Robby Reed identities: 54
Dial N for Nick identities: 4
The kids get no new transformations, but Robby gains three: The Wizard, Circumference and also Great Jupiter from #36, since that was The Master transforming.
Speaking of which, The Master does NOT count because he’s a superVILLAIN and I’m just counting heroes.
Dial S for SOCKAMAGEE! : 100
Robby casually dropping two SOCKAMAGEES! brings the count to a round number.
Dial C for the superpowers count: 77
Great Jupiter doesn’t add new powers: he’s just super-strong, shoots energy and generates gas, all of which were already in the count.
Circumference is pretty straightforward: he makes energy constructs. That’s plus one.
But how to count The Wizard? I’m not counting just “magic”, that’s boring.
Looking at what he actually DOES as The Wizard, I’m counting SIX separate powers!
1) H-Dial creation. Robby is smart, but not smart enough to create those.
2) Dragon conjuration
3) Ghost body
4) Invisibility bestowal: remember how he made the chest invisible to anyone but the kids?
5) Clairvoyance: he knew everything about he kids BEFORE meeting them!
He also flies and shoots the alien wizard with energy blasts, but that’s nothing new.
Dial D for dialing options: 9
Adding S.P.L.I.T. and H.I.D.E.Y.O.U.R.S.E.L.F.