House of Mystery #173 (1968)
by Dick Wood & Charles Nicholas
cover by Jack Sparling
After 18 issues, the Dial H run on “House of Mystery” reaches its end.
The cover (easily the best one so far) is by Jack Sparling, best known for co-creating Immortal Man. To the few who remember Immortal Man, anyway.
But the internal artwork is by Charles Nicholas, which is trickier.
Because that’s a pen name used by three people
-Chuck Cuidera (best known for creating the Blackhawks)
-Charles Wojtkoski (best known for creating the Golden Age Blue Beetle)
-Jack Kirby (who used the pseudonym for the Blue Beetle newspaper comics)
Kirby most definitely didn’t pencil this one, but I couldn’t find a confirmation on whether this is Cuider or Wojtkoski. I’m not familiar enough with either one’s Silver Age work to make the call.
Anyway, we begin with Robby finally putting his detective skill to good use, being part of a sort of “bring your high schooler to work with the police” day, which… please tell me this wasn’t a real thing that actually happened in the 60s.
I don’t know why you’re going through the trouble of gaining access to police radio, Robby, you’ve been getting news about crimes during this entire run anyway.
So Robby transforms into a new superhero, Gill Man.
Who has one of the lamest weaknesses ever: AIR.
He’s not completely useless, though, since he has super-speed.
The criminals are the Speed Boys, who specialize in stealing stuff related to speed. Kind of a lame gimmick, but at least they’re not dumb enough to go against the Flash.
Kind of a shame, though, because we could’ve had a fight between the Flash and their leader, Sonic.
Gill Man jumps straight from the… sea? river?… straight into the van.
Also: wouldn’t “King Neptune” be a far better superhero name than “Gill Man”?
Gill Man really sucks. And he also sucks water.
But then Gill Man *gasp* turns evil!
Either that or he’s having a stroke.
He then blacks out and doesn’t wake up until an hour later. So maybe he IS having a stroke.
Robby gets back home where *gasp* we DON’T get a scene about him missing dinner!!!
Robby decides to trace his steps when he was Gill Man, by turning into Human Icicle.
Who ALSO has a dumb weakness: he has to stay in the cold to avoid melting away.
This time the Speed Boys are targeting a rocket car. How many speed-themed crimes can they commit in a small town!?!?
Remember kids, if it’s too hot outside, you can refresh yourselves in a nice bath in carbon monoxide fumes! This won’t kill you or anything.
I expected Human Icicle to show his ice powers way earlier!!!
But after stopping the criminals, once again Robby decides to go into crime himself.
After YET ANOTHER blackout, Robby decides to turn into another superhero to continue the investigation: Strata Man.
Having the powers of the various layers of rock that make up the ground, Strata Man can fly.
Sounds legit.
But he can also SHOOT RADIATION.
Strata Man also wanted to be a criminal, but he came back to his senses…
…because the reason why he became evil in the first place was the sound of the engines used by the Speed Boys (WTF?!?!?), which have now been destroyed.
And so we end with Robby leading the police to the stolen goods, which are apparently located in a “Robby-cave” that we never saw.
Sounds legit.
And that’s it for the original run! From the following issue, House of Mystery switches genres and becomes a horror anthology.
Robby Reed won’t make any appearances until a pretty random Plastic Man story in 1976, which will be the next review in the retrospective.
Historical significance: 0/10
For the last Silver Age story, it’s incredibly unremarkable.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
No wonder Robby stopped using the H-Dial if it can be disturbed by the sound of an engine!!!
Does it stand the test of time?: 2/10
There was an opportunity to shake up the formula. Too bad the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the final twist is very anticlimactic.
Dial S for SOCKAMAGEE! : 90
Three uses of the catchphrase. He was SO close of saying it a hundred times in the original run!
Dial I for superhero identities: 46
Adding Gill Man, Human Icicle and Strata Man.
Dial C for the superpowers count: 68
There are already plenty of heroes with super-speed, but Gill Man adds breathing underwater AND super-breath.
Human Icicle can fly like so many other heroes, but he also has super vision. You’d think that would already be part of the list, but not quite: we have “tracer vision” from #157, microscopic vision from #163 and remote vision from #169. This is clearly something different an so I’m adding it. Plus he can survive breathing carbon monoxide, which may not be a very useful power but it’s still something superhuman. At this point, the fact that he has the power to create ice is the least of his abilities!
Strata Man can generate radiation, but that’s already in the count since #164. So he doesn’t add anything new.
Interesting letters: one last H-Dial theory.
I don’t know when they decided the Dial H serial would stop here, but I don’t think it was planned when they published this issue. Otherwise, since THIS is the very last letter, it would’ve been a dick move not to say anything.
