The Dial-H relaunch on Adventure Comics is a real slog to get through.
Let’s just go over the transformations to see how many superheroes Chris and Vicki turn into, and I’ll quickly cover whatever interesting thing happens.
Spoiler alert: it ain’t much.
Adventure Comics #480 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
They were really desperate to get fans to design ANYTHING for this series. We had the heroes and villains, the furniture (???) and now also the clothes that Chris and Vicki wear.
I’d design better proportions for Chris, look at those legs!
Seriously, you could design A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G for this comic!
One thing we do find out is that Vicki’s parents are rich enough to be worthy of being kidnapped for ransom.
The kids rush through four transformations this issue.
This issue also has the release form for submitting ideas. I don’t understand much about this kind of stuff, but I believe this means DC keeps all the rights.
The submission form is also bizarre. I understand they’re asking interests as a survey to target the demographic, but… why do you care about the names of the pets? What, are you planning to use those names in a story too???
If anyone who got his/her idea accepted and received the T-shirt ever contacts me, it will make this entire retrospective worth the effort.
Adventure Comics #481 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
Still no real origin for the kids, just the fact that they found the dials.
At least the new dials don’t look like dials 100% of the time, they transform whenever the kids want. I still think that Vicki’s pendant attracts too much attention.
Chris is a high school student that barely gets by in school and has a genius brother.
Marv Wolfman is used to writing teenage heroes: before the New Teen Titans he created Nova… a student who barely gets by in school and has a genius brother.
I checked: Wolfman doesn’t have a brother, but he has an older sister. I wonder if she was the school genius of the family?
Chris is stuck at home studying for part of the issue, so he lags behind Vicki: she gets four new identities, he only gets three.
It’s also a VERY rare moment of depth for this series, because she fails to save a woman from drowning despite her powers.
Or a least that’s what Vicki thinks for a few panels.
Adventure Comics #482 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
The kids have been FAR luckier than Robby with their transformations so far, until Chris changes into Mister Thin. The others are pretty standard; four transformations each.
The idea of having readers send concepts for heroes, villains and even plots was apparently a great success. But I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that people weren’t sending furniture designs.
Adventure Comics #483 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Don Heck
cover by Ross Andru
Good news: this issue is not drawn by 1981 Carmine Infantino.
Bad news: it’s from 1981 Don Heck.
Something of importance FINALLY happens: Chris’ father is shot.
Also: the kids are fourteen! I can believe that for Chris and for 50% of Vicki’s scenes.
Among the kids, Chris seems to have the worst luck with transformations.
Six new heroes each, but a couple are in a one-panel montage.
Adventure Comics #484 (1981)
written by Marv Wolfman
pencils by Don Heck (first part) & Carmine Infantino (second part)
cover by George Perez
This issue introduces the big bad guy of the relaunch: The Master, who is behind several supervillains.
People who have read this series and more importantly the “New Adventures of Superboy” sequel: no spoiler on the real identity of The Master, please, until I get to the reveal.
Also: is Chris’ father suspecting that the two are superheroes? He’s already been shot once, if he keeps this up he’s at risk of succumbing to the dreaded Mentor Figure Disease.
Just three transformations each this time.
No wonder Silver Fog was by far the best part of #479: he was created by freaking HARLAN ELLISON.
Which means somebody probably got sued because Ellison thought he was being ripped off.
Adventure Comics #485 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
cover by George Perez
We learn this issue that The Master has a connection with the dials.
Four transformations each.
I completely agree with Frank’s letter here.
Historical significance: 0/10
The Master is introduced, but honestly nothing is done with him until much later.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
The randomness and the formulaic approach are turned up.
Does it stand the test of time?: 0/10
While this isn’t a proper review, I feel confident enough to call this a trainwreck.
Dial K for King transformations: 29
Dial V for Vicki transformations: 30
Dial R for Robby Reed identities: 51
The only Dial H for Hero series I ever read was the 2003 series, which was very good until the last few issues, where it just turned into generic dumb fights between guys with ill-defined powers.
The opinion I’m forming is that the original series had a compelling horror and mystery element with the bizarre transformations, a dial whose capabilities and characteristics were not completely known, and heroes who lacked an origin or civilian identity – just strange detached powers and concepts that Robbie turns into. Robbie having to figure out how to use his strange new body and powers to fight villains was interesting. What it was missing was making Robbie into a protagonist readers could identify with and understand through characterization. Silver Age added that which is why it was so great. We really needed to get into Robbie’s head, and there were only brief moments of that (especially when he showed off his deductive skill) in the original run.
This one seems to drop the horror, the mystery, the characterization, the bizarre heroes, and just leaves a showcase of a bunch of superheroes for a few panels each. All we see is their powers and costumes. I can see how it’d be exciting to have your superhero concept published and they’d get so many submissions, but there isn’t much for readers here other than a gallery of character designs, is there?
It was reader engagement. The stories might have been dumb (by the standards of today’s adults) but the idea that they might see their names and ideas published on panel was a great draw for the target audience.
There’s no origin in these stories because the story of how Chris and Vicki found the dials is in the preview, an insert found in LSH volume 2, #272. Ironically, an H-dialer would become an almost-member of the reboot Legion.
The other character introduced in an insert stuck into a Legion issue was Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, who would also become involved with the Legion further down the line.
Yeah in retrospect I should probably have covered that first. It’s a bit weird, the first pages of the insert are new material but the latter ones are the same scenes of #479 but drawn differently.
But I’m trying to rush past the Adventure Comics issues as fast as I can, so I’ll quickly cover the insert after I’ve done the #486-490 batch.
Wasn’t MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE also insert-intro in LEGION 293 or did JLA 208 and NTT 25 publish earlier?
OMG, Zeep the Living Sponge created by Stephan DeStefano??!! I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, but he was a minor character in the humorous 6-issue “Hero Hotline” series, drawn by that very same Stephen DeStefano. I had no idea he had been a prior creation!
Honestly, the more I look at it, the more I think that the main reason Dial H has never really took off as a character/franchise in DC is what you are exposing in this review : the endless amount of disposalbe identities and powers. The fact that everytime the user uses the dial they get a brand new random transformation hurts the concept, because it prevetns them from becoming something iconic and identifiable. How would any reader, seeing one of the dozens of generic hero costumes, know it’s actually the Dial user and not a super obscure DC hero ?
I think to remedy that Dial H needs to take a page from their animated counterpatrs, where they have a set and limited number of transformation and with their own insigna on the tranformed body. That way, you an immediately identify it as part of their franchise and as the character you want to follow. The same needs to be done with the H Dial. Take its most famous, useful, powerful or goofy transformations, and have the user only access them and nothing else. Of course, the selection is still random, but you know that whatever they’re going to get, you’ll recognize it.