Dial H, Volume 2: Exchange (New 52!)

I really enjoyed the first volume. A down on his luck every man finds a rotary dial that turns him into an unlimited assortment of super heroes. Added to the mix is a former user of the dial, whose taken upon herself to train the newcomer into becoming a superhero while reliving her glory days during an every-other day use agreement.

That formula continues in this volume for a brief season. A villain whose got the dial in his sights, a clandestine military project that’s seeking to create an army of dialers, and a new dial that turns the user into a sidekick continue the fantastic story from volume 1. However once we get the sidekick dial out of our system, the story takes a downward spiral involving the origin of the dials.

I’m glad to have finally found out where the dial came from. I’d been reading Dial H for Hero stories since I was a little kid. I was ecstatic when DC decided to include this series in their New 52 format. The origin of the dials and how some of them wound up on earth as well as other planets was awesome. The ethical question as to whether the dials steal power from the super heroes they call up is admirable. But the changing scenery of wasteland dimension is nauseating. There’s even one hero whose dial is stuck and they change identities almost every panel. It makes for some very hard to follow reading.

Adding to the confusion is that I thought we had a decent conclusion to the series only to have the insertion of Justice League of America #23.3. This story has a group of kids who come across a dial of their own on the run from some quasi-cops/drug dealer amalgam. It’s hard to tell who these baddies are. I’ve never encountered them before and they keep changing costumes from what look like cops to rejects from Miami Vice. It’s only in the last 3 or 4 pages do we finally get a tie-in from that issue to the Dial H series do things seem to fall into place. That is until the sudden shock ending that reveals a new character I’ve never even heard of? Is it the every man of his elderly mentor? I’m not sure, it’s never revealed. I guess it’s an open ended ending.

The art was very good. It continued the high standards of volume 1. Sadly, the story-lines of this volume are nowhere near as superior as they are in their predecessor. A good conclusion to a classic DC story, but it’s not fantastic.

I give it an “eh?!”

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars