Continuing my rush through the Adventure Comics revival of “Dial H for HERO”.
Will this be more worthwhile than the first part?
Probably not.
Adventure Comics #486 (1981)
written by Marv Wolfman
pencils by Don Heck (Part 1)
pencils by Trevor von Eeden (Part 2)
cover by George Perez
That is a lot of artists.
This one has one of the most insane premises I’ve seen on Dial H, WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING. It’s about a scientist that discovers a “fire resistant gene”…
…and then FREAKING SATAN shows up to use that to create supervillains.
Man, TV procedurals must be WILD in the DC Universe.
It’s a good thing that the new H-Dials can transform you only for one hour…
…because if you remain Enlarger Man for more than four hours, you should definitely see a doctor.
(I am not sorry for that joke)
To be fair, he was named Enlarger Man by a 9 year old kid.
The writer and editor who accepted the name have no such excuse.
Also, it wasn’t FREAKING SATAN earlier, my bad.
It was the Other Son Of Satan.
The transformations are very hot in this issue. No wonder Chris turned into Enlarger Man.
Don’t feel bad, Chris, it’s perfectly natural to need some time to recharge after the first one.
(alright, I can’t make fun of the writers, I’m 12 as well)
The Other Son Of Satan is sent back to Hell at the end, never to be seen again.
There are two Dial H stories in this issue: the villain of the first one is the son of FREAKING SATAN, and the villain of the second is a guy with a jetpack who steals from planes.
Talk about a downgrade!
The H-Dial is starting to come up with useful transformations. He gave them fire powers to fight Other Son Of Satan, and flight powers to defeat Jetpack Guy.
Vicky transforms into Sparrow Hawk this issue, while Chris doesn’t even appear: this means that so far she’s had two tranformations more than him.
Adventure Comics #487 (1981)
written by Marv Wolfman
pencils by Carmine Infantino (Part 1)
pencils by Don Heck (Part 2)
cover by Ross Andru
According to the cover, this is “Comicdom’s most talked-about new series”.
Just to give you an idea of how ludicrous that is, in 1981 there were:
-New Teen Titans by Wolfman & Perez
-The Frank Miller run on Daredevil
-The Byrne run on Fantastic Four
-The Claremont run on X-Men
-The Michelinie & Layton run on Iron Man
Heck 1981 is the debut of the Dazzler series, and I’m fairly sure even THAT was more talked about than Dial-H and its fashion show.
Vicki gets the powers of Dream Girl but worse.
And Chris turns into the Avatar.
By this time, Chris has been friendzoned.
And they have a couple more transformations.
I really like Sea Mist’s costume.
Adventure Comics #488 (1981)
written by Bob Rozakis (Part 1)
written by George Kashdan (Part 2)
pencils by Carmine Infantino (Part 1)
pencils by Trevor von Eeden (Part 2)
cover by Ross Andru
First issue not written by Marv Wolfman.
Chris gets one more transformation than Vicki, reducing the gap.
Noticed how I didn’t event talking about the stories? They’re THAT boring.
Adventure Comics #489 (1982)
written by Bob Rozakis (Part 1)
written by E. Nelson Bridwell (Part 2)
pencils by Carmine Infantino (Part 1)
pencils by Trevor von Eeden (Part 2)
cover by Ross Andru
All you really need to know is that new villains keep coming out of nowhere to attack the kids.
The number of transformations is relatively the same throughout this period, but those latest issues feel like we’re spending less and less time on each one.
This one, however, does have a neat idea. The kids are called to testify in one of their hero identities, which they can’t use twice. So instead they just decide to fake it!
Which is a bit of a stretch… they’d have to testify within one hour, and Vicki’s transformation showed most of her face so she was just lucky to transform into a second heroine that looks similar… but still, FOR ONCE some creativity!!!
But it’s also the same issue that includes a superhero named “Hasty Pudding”.
I don’t get it.
Adventure Comics #490 (1982)
written by E.Nelson Bridwell (Parts 1&3)
written by Bob Rozakis (Part 2)
pencils by Carmine Infantino (Parts 1&3)
pencils by Howard Bender (Part 2)
cover by George Perez
And so we have reached the end of this serial.
Vicki has one of the most imaginative transformations here: Tempest, who CHANGE HER HAIR INTO WEATHER.
That’s both stupidly awesome and awesomely stupid.
Definitely more creative than Chris, whose transformation into Radarman… basically has nothing to do with radar.
The “spaghetti-fingered” villain (Chris’ words, not mine) turns out to be an alien with tentacle fingers.
This time it’s Chris’ time of turning into a superhero without powers.
He also covers the gap, changing into FOUR superheroes in rapid succession…
…while Vicki is stuck in another dimension, where she only gets ONE more transformation.
Chris is already ahead at this point, but he goes the extra mile: once he’s stuck in another dimension himself, he cycles through FIVE heroes in the span of TWO PANELS.
We close the issue with two more tranformations.
Which means that in this issue ALONE, Vicki changed into four superheroines and Chris onto a staggering TWELVE.
But the ending reveals what readers were all waiting for: FURNITURE.
Definitely worth the wait.
Historical significance: 0/10
Chris and Vicki move to the backup feature of “New Adventures of Superboy”, which basically ignores these issues.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time?: 0/10
If anything, these five issues are worse than the previous five. There’s a little more creativity with some of the transformations and the villains are WILD, but other than the scene where the kids have to testify this still feels way too formulaic.
Dial K for King transformations: 56
Dial V for Vicki transformations: 49
Dial R for Robby Reed identities: 51
The last issue sent Chris way ahead of Vicky, but in just ten issues she’s already very very close to the number of transformations that Robby had.