DIAL H #13

Review by: IthoSapien

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174
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Avg Rating: 4.4
 
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Story by China Mieville
Art by Alberto Ponticelli & Dan Green
Colors by Tanya Horie & Richard Horie
Letters by Taylor Esposito
Cover by Brian Bolland

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

@Metamorphic and @Harpier have already reviewed this issue pretty succinctly but I just wanted to add my own thoughts since we’re so close to the end of this issue.

I was pretty tripedatious going into this with what everyone had already said and when I first stated reading it. Its essentially Mieville introducing all the new characters and explaining their powers. Too bad he didn’t do that before he just dropped them into the story. Some issues of this series give me a headache, last issue being one of them. The problem to me is Mieville being too opaque in his writing, some of it I have trouble understanding. Here there was no confusion really, it’s essentially a “bottle episode” where We (the readers) get the answers to what’s been going on for the last several issues behind the scenes. This is a first for me, I’ve never had a writer just STOP the plot and give me most of the answers to my questions before, and I didnt care for that part. For one I still have questions, two I still don’t understand the villains entirely.

Now the actual story, which involves Open Window Man interacting with a ChalkZone like universe and training a faux Bruce Wayne (while also explaining what’s happened in the previous issues). This I liked, when the story isn’t all meta mumbo jumbo and 4th dimension languages the story and characters can be really clever. Speaking of, the solution to how the heroes get the J-Dial (which they need to advance the plot and move on to the next issue) is pretty freaking awesome. It’s like something out of Dr.Who.

The art I feel is better here than it’s been for awhile. I don’t hate Ponticelli’s pencils but here I felt they matched the story really well.

Other than the other characters just standing around and not totally grasping the Fixer this was a ok issue for me. Mieville has essentially given me a Grant Morrison story without jamming down my eyeballs like Grant Morrison is wont to do from time to time. What I mean is it’s not out of the blue anything that happened here, I’ve come to expect it almost.

While I may have complaints and gripes with this series, it has it’s moments and it’s original. I wish it wasn’t getting canceled but I’ll be picking up the last 2 issues knowing I stuck with it and had an very interesting ride.

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 3 - Good

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