Adventure Comics #479 (1981)
by Marv Wolfman & Carmine Infantino
Thirteen years after the end of the original Dial H run, and five years after the embarrassing Plastic Man cameo, DC decided to relaunch the franchise.
And what DC writer would’ve been a better choice to write teenagers than New Teen Titans superstar Marv Wolfman?
As for the artist… basically anyone would’ve been better than 1981’s Infantino.
This is the only issue of the Adventure Comics relaunch that I plan to review in full… you’ll see why by the end of this.
We begin with an alien invasion, when interstellar villain Flying Buttress lands on Earth.
One of the gimmicks of the relaunch was that villains would be based on fan submissions.
Flying Buttress in particular was created by the 17 year old Steve Mattson. Interestingly, Mattson would eventually become a DC writer and in 1997 he re-introduced Flying Buttress in “Superboy and the Ravers”. I’m not familiar with that series, but it’s cool that Mattson got to re-use his old creation. And that series has another connection to Dial-H that I’ll touch upon at the very end of the retrospective.
But going back to 1981, we get to meet one of our two new protagonists when he learns of the potential invasion through our old friend Plot Convenience Radio.
Plot Convenience Radio: we solve more crimes than Batman
We don’t get a proper origin story right now. But one of our protagonists is Chris King, who transforms thanks to a new form of H-Dial that is part of his watch.
The other gimmick of the relaunch is that the heroes would be fan creations as well.
His co-protagonist is fellow high school student Vicki Grant. Who instead of using a watch transforms through a very conspicuous pendant.
Interestingly, she doesn’t have to dial H.E.R.O.I.N.E. like Suzy did: dialing H.E.R.O. works just fine.
If you were expecting Marv Wolfman to write this at the same level of quality of New Teen Titans… you’re in for a disappointment.
It might be because he has to deal with transformations and villains he doesn’t create, but this completely lacks the depth of his Titans in every possible way.
Then again, any writer would struggle writing a compelling story centered around G.L.U.N.K.
But hey, at least Wolfman can give an interesting personality to our co-protagonists, right?
It’s not like they’re just good guys because they read on a note that they should be good guys.
So we have them fight a bunch of evil alien robots to save Flying Buttress.
There’s a major difference between the watch and pendant dials, as opposed to the original H-Dial: the transformations only last 1 hour, and then the user is automatically return to the original form.
Other than the idea of having multiple dials, that’s basically the only thing from the relaunch that sticks to future incarnations of the franchise.
Also, once the transformation wears out you can’t just immediately dial into a new form: you have to wait another full hour before you can.
It’s at this point that I should reveal that the relaunch is so formulaic, and the main characters are so shallow and uninteresting, that I’m going to focus almost entirely on how many transformations these two get.
The fact that these are VERY short stories is also a factor. This issue has three stories, but the first one is just ten pages long!
And it all boils down to “good alien lands asking for help, the heroes beat up the bad aliens, the end”.
The second story has them fight reader creations, Silver Fog and Red Death.
Admittedly Silver Fog has an interesting power.
Turns out Chris King’s father is a cop. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t recognize him, sure, but how do people not make a connection between Vicki’s transformations when they all wear that giant pendant?
Is it just me or Wolfman really, REALLY struggles writing the civilian lives of his characters when he’s not writing the Titans? Because their private lives were typically quite interesting, but Wolfman seriously missed the mark elsewhere… his Nova and Spider-Man were pretty bad in that aspect. And he’s doing the same with the Dial H kids.
Wolfman is also indulging in a bit of fourth wall breaking, because Chris is shown to be a fan of the New Teen Titans comic.
If this were Marvel it would make total sense… the fact that superhero comics exist was set up in the early Silver Age… but I’m not familiar enough with DC to be sure if the same applies.
SHOULD there be in-universe Teen Titans comic books?
Much like Spider-Man, the kids aren’t safe at school because it’s attacked by supervillains.
Leading to more transformations. At least this time Vicki is placing the pendant on her belt.
If you thought Red Death was ripping off Red Skull, you’d be wrong.
He’s ripping off half of Spider-Man villains.
The second story ends with Red Death’s defeat (they trick him into using his power against his own hands), and we learn two things. First, that Vicki is bad at the whole secret identity thing…
…and that you can still dial O.R.E.H. if you want to change back before the one hour is over.
In the third and final story, Wolfman continues to try making the civilian lives interesting.
Not that it works, but he tries.
Also, Chris and Vicki are a couple.
This series has streamline how the dials work a bit… now there’s a reason for when and how the changes work… and with very few exceptions, now the kids will always immediately know their powers and names.
Which I guess was inevitable considering how short these stories are.
The villain is Silver Fog again, whose origin is being Doctor Manhattan but sucking.
The heroes don’t exactly fight him, though. For sheer dumb luck, Chris just happened to gain the exact kind of superpower that would turn Silver Fog human again.
Silver Fog is the most interesting thing to come out of this story! Which naturally means this is his last appearance.
Marv Wolfman must’ve been fond of the idea, though, because in 1988 he created the SECOND Silver Fog on Teen Titans.
And we close the issue with a new gimmick: not only you could design new heroes and villains… you could also design the furniture for the King family.
Clearly what the kids were looking for in superhero comics.
Designing furniture.
Historical significance: 6/10
Chris and Vicki stick around for a while, but their impact isn’t that great. However it DOES introduce the 1 hour limit to the transformations, something that sticks for a long time.
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
It lacks the charm, but the very random villains and the lack of depth feels very retro.
Does it stand the test of time?: 2/10
I think you can see why this is the only issue of the Adventure Comics relaunch that I plan to review in full. And even then I skipped so much because this is just… so… boring. And shallow.
I get what they were going for: this is a Saturday Morning cartoon.
“Tune in next week to see what new transformations and wacky villains we can come up with!”, which COULD work if given enough effort.
The protagonists are just Average Boy #1 and Average Girl #2 and their civilian lives are uninteresting. SOME effort is put into the powers and villains, but everything is way too rushed.
And of course the artwork… is 1981 Infantino. It’s not as bad as his Supergirl series, but it’s still awful. It’s also inconsistent: sometimes Vicki looks like she’s twelve, other times she looks like a grown woman.
Dial K for King transformations: 5
Dial V for Vicki transformations: 5
Both teenagers change into five superheroes each.
Dial O for other superhero identities: 20
Adding the Chris and Vicky transformations to the 2 transformations by Suzy and the Justice League transformations… in total we’ve had 20 superhero transformations done by people other than Robby.
Which is why I’m renaming the original counting as:
Dial R for Robby Reed identities: 51