Dial H for Hero is a very bizarre concept of a superhero with an interesting past. The concept debuted in 1966 in ‘House of Mystery’ and it was created by Dave Wood and Jim Mooney. Basically the idea is that a kid found a special ‘rotary dial’ (kids ask your parents if you don’t know what that is) where if you dial ‘HERO’ you would change into a random superhero. It’s an interesting idea because you would never be the same superhero twice. DC has tried to revive the series a couple of times in the 80s and 90s but its most recent appearance was a Batman team-up by JMS in the pages of Brave and the Bold. Now with the new 52 in place DC is once again trying its hand at making this concept a household name. So the question that I ask myself is:

Dial H for Hero…..can it possibly work in today’s age?

Apparently this series starts off amazing by the masses by the writer’s name alone. Now I have no idea who China Mieville is but he’s an award winning sci-fi writer and he is a big boon for DC to have. What did I think about this issue? Well I think one word sums it all up: Crazy. This is a crazy issue from start to finish and I’m not saying that is a good thing. Good Crazy is Grant Morrison (We3), Bad Crazy is also Grant Morrison (Action Comics), and Amazing Crazy is Jonathan Hickman (The Manhattan Projects). This issue is in the middle of the road crazy because there are things I really like in this issue but things I don’t like. What I do like it that Mieville has a great imagination for these heroes. Boy Chimney is an interesting monster with a unique power you don’t see very often (smoke) and he is so eccentric it made me laugh. The other hero (both shown on the cover by the way), Captain Lachrymose is like Psycho Pirate but can only make you sad. If this is the type of imagination we’re going to get from this series then creativity is not a problem. What is a problem with this series, I found, was the pacing. While it’s true we never know who provides the Rotary for the regular joes of the series, this guy really got lucky to find it. It felt too convenient for him to find the phone and the pacing is just too damn quick afterwards. Maybe we should have had one hero to introduce instead of two because, as creative as they are, they come and go rather quickly. But there’s also weird moments in this that just aren’t explained: The crazy psychologist, the old lady that spits out black goo, the villain who is barely introduced….I know these things will be explained eventually but if you want to have an easy introducing to this series then this wasn’t executed properly.

This is a rare book in that I have no idea who the writer OR artist is for the series. Mateus Santolouco did a couple of Cthulhu comics for BOOM! until he got his big break with American Vampire #10 in 2010. So with virtually no references for me I am going in blind with this art. For the most part I think his art is the saving grace of this issue because while the story is crazy, Santolouco’s art isn’t. It’s actually quite detailed and beautiful to look at. His style though his utterly unique cause I can’t pinpoint a similar artist to compare. The backgrounds are so detailed from the skylines to where you can see the individual papers pinned on the villain’s hideout. The character models, aside from the Dial H heroes, are a little loose. Almost sketchy at times if I’m being honest. But this mix of detail and sketchiness honestly works for me. What doesn’t work though is the coloring because it’s a bit too brown for me. I take it this city, Littleville (really?), is not a nice city but it could use a bit of color. (I mean Christ, the sun shines in Gotham City sometimes) There’s some moments, especially with Boy Chimney, where the brown blends in too much and it’s hard to distinguish where the ink lines end. It’s not too much of a problem to make it an issue but hopefully it’s rectified in future issues.

It’s a strange book to review because I honestly don’t know if I could recommend it. It’s clear that China Mieville has the chops to write an interesting Dial H comic but his pacing is a bit too quick for this first issue. The art by Mateus Santolouco is quite good and astonishingly detailed but the coloring is pretty much mediocre. I definitely want to give this another go next month with the second issue but I can certainly see why people would bail out after this. I have no idea how long DC honestly expects a Dial H comic to last in the year 2012; but I give them props for trying something new here.