Status
Available
Call number
Publication
New York : DC Comics, 2013.
Description
Hugo Award-winning novelist China Mieville breathes new life into a classic DC Comics series as part of the second wave of DC Comics - The New 52. In the small run-down town of Littleville, CO, a troubled young man stumbles upon the lost H-Dial and all of the secrets and power it possesses. It has been many years since the H-Dial has been seen, though legions of villains have been scouring the globe looking for it and its ability to transform users into a variety of superheros and take on their powers and psyches. Will our hero be able to harness the power of the H-Dial and protect it from falling into the hands of evil? Will this newfound power plunge our hero to madness? And will we ever discover where the H-Dial came from and its true meaning?… (more)
Media reviews
Mieville doesn't apologize for the fundamental absurdity of the premise. Instead, he turns it up to 11. And then he turns it up to 12.
User reviews
LibraryThing member -Eva-
When his only friend is attacked, slacker Nelson Jent tries to call for help, but rather than getting the police, the phone box he stumbles into contains the mysterious H-Dial which temporarily turns the user into a Superhero. What makes this really intriguing is that the H-Dial will turn you into
The story in itself gets a little convoluted at times and, in places where a novel would have filled in details, it gets downright confusing. The various heroes and the villains are the real appeal, though, so it doesn't matter too much and, although I don't want to spoil, there are a few genius heroes that nobody but Miéville could have come up with (Captain Lachrymose, anyone?!). I also want to mention Mateus Santolouco's art, which is absolutely stunning - just take a look at the Abyss and you'll know what I mean.
Show More
a powerful superhero, but it'll be a different one each time you use it and you have no way of knowing beforehand who you will be - some of them are quite a bit more bizarre than the others. I'm hardly surprised this is the DC comic Miéville wanted to revamp and, being who he is, he unsurprisingly took an originally odd story and made it even odder. The story in itself gets a little convoluted at times and, in places where a novel would have filled in details, it gets downright confusing. The various heroes and the villains are the real appeal, though, so it doesn't matter too much and, although I don't want to spoil, there are a few genius heroes that nobody but Miéville could have come up with (Captain Lachrymose, anyone?!). I also want to mention Mateus Santolouco's art, which is absolutely stunning - just take a look at the Abyss and you'll know what I mean.
Show Less
LibraryThing member johnplatt
Dial H contains more ideas per panel than most comics have in an entire issue. The problem, though, is the panel-to-panel transitions. The storytelling here is rather muddy and convoluted. The story doesn't flow and the dialog feels choppy. I have also read the issues that follow this collection
Show More
and things improve dramatically, so the weaknesses may lie more on the shoulders of the artist, who is good, but maybe not good enough quite yet. Show Less
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Weird. Very dark and grim (well, of course, comics are like that these days). I loved the 1980 version with Chris and Vicki - this one has far less appealing heroes, far nastier villains, and a mysterious danger behind it all (no, not the Master, much more mysterious and grimmer). The hero is
Show More
Nelson, a fat schlub, ex-factory worker whose life fell apart on him before he accidentally found and dialed the H Dial. And then it all fell apart much worse. The heroine is Manteau, or Roxie - she's been dialing for ages - she's - oh, sixty perhaps? Gray-haired and wrinkle-skinned. She's got a lot more experience with the dial, and can actually, more or less, fix a broken one. But when hers is destroyed (in the hands of a villain) during a major fight, she and Nelson have to share his (which got broken and she fixed it). Which causes all sorts of extra problems - personality problems, they don't mesh well. Yeah. I'm mildly interested in reading the rest of the series, but I won't be buying any more books (well, for more than 10 cents, anyway). Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This started slow for me, mainly b/c I had such a difficult time understanding the abyss. The concept of the dailers is really interesting and I really liked issue 0. The twist it adds to where the heroes come from is definitely an interesting one. I'm curious to see where the series is going.
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This started slow for me, mainly b/c I had such a difficult time understanding the abyss. The concept of the dailers is really interesting and I really liked issue 0. The twist it adds to where the heroes come from is definitely an interesting one. I'm curious to see where the series is going.
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This started slow for me, mainly b/c I had such a difficult time understanding the abyss. The concept of the dailers is really interesting and I really liked issue 0. The twist it adds to where the heroes come from is definitely an interesting one. I'm curious to see where the series is going.
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This started slow for me, mainly b/c I had such a difficult time understanding the abyss. The concept of the dailers is really interesting and I really liked issue 0. The twist it adds to where the heroes come from is definitely an interesting one. I'm curious to see where the series is going.
LibraryThing member DanieXJ
This book was the weirdest comic book I've ever read (and I've read both the Harley Quinn TPBs as well as the Deadpool ones), and at times it made all the stuff in the Animal Man and Swamp Thing comics, the Green, Red, Rot stuff, look positively sane.
This one has something to do with nothingness
What the dialer does is somehow gives powers to the person who dials the number, either super powers or lame powers, for a bit of time and it's a different power/set of powers each time.
Again, the elements were totally weird, but I did really like the characters. They were all so vivid. Of course, that does make sense, since this is a China Melville TPB.
This one has something to do with nothingness
Show More
and a necromancer and then some 'dials' by some mystery figure called 0, who somehow helped create the phone system? There's also a 'hero' who calls itself Manteu and can sort of fix these dials. One of which a down and out guy named Nelson is in way over his head with.What the dialer does is somehow gives powers to the person who dials the number, either super powers or lame powers, for a bit of time and it's a different power/set of powers each time.
Again, the elements were totally weird, but I did really like the characters. They were all so vivid. Of course, that does make sense, since this is a China Melville TPB.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rickklaw
Reminiscent of the late 1980s second British invasion titles from the likes of Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol, Animal Man), Jamie Delano (Hellblazer), and Peter Milligan (Shade, The Changing Man), the Hugo and Nebula winner China Miéville makes his comics writing debut with the surprisingly
Show More
apolitical Dial H Vol. 1: Into You. Nelson Jent, unemployed and out of shape, discovers that dialing H-E-R-O at a mysterious phone booth will transform him into a unique, short lived, superhero. Each new spin creates a new persona with a new set of powers. Miéville playfully manipulates the originally Silver Age comics concept by interjecting some truly bizarre and different heroes: Boy Chimney, who literally spews black smoke out of his stovepipe head; Captain Lachrymose, who derives strengths from others tears; CONTROL-ALT-DELETE; and countless others. Jent discovers someone who also uses a H-Dial and helps him master the strange powers. After a slow start, Miéville and artist Santolouco find their creative rhythm as they slowly uncover the history of the mysterious dials. Sadly, the lack of much needed political commentary, especially from the avowed Socialist Miéville, diminish the impact of the otherwise excellent comic. Show Less
LibraryThing member quondame
Strange superheros are pretty standard in GNs these days but when China Miéville sets out to come up with weird, silly, upsetting or surreal superheros he can do it. Not a pretty book and only fun in a how weird can it get way, this is too chaotic over the edge for me.
LibraryThing member ragwaine
China Mieville is one of my favorite authors. I've read almost all his books, and even though I didn't love all of them, a couple of them are probably in my top 10 books ever. So I was pretty excited to find out he was writing comics.
This had some of his trademark strangeness and some of his
Looking forward to Vol 2.
This had some of his trademark strangeness and some of his
Show More
incomprehensible-ness to go along with it via alien intelligences speaking almost gibberish. Some of the hero ideas were absolutely ridiculous and really strange, but they were a ton of fun and we get some of the background behind "Dial H" (which I had never read before).Looking forward to Vol 2.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dukedom_enough
I don't read many graphic novels, but, hey, China Mieville. Nelson Jent is down on his luck, unemployed, overweight, and just had a heart attack before his 30th birthday. He accidentally discovers that dialing H-E-R-O in a certain disused public phone booth (remember phone booths?) will turn him
Th artist team here provides suitably vivid renderings of Mieville's ideas. Lots of pages with story panels interspersed on top of a full-page image, so that the reader must figure out the reading sequence. Dramatic and active, but sometimes a bit of a chore to read.
Note that DC Comics cancelled this series, unfinished, after one more volume.
Show More
into a superhero. But the transformation is only temporary, the dial won't always work - and Nelson becomes a different superhero each time. Captain Lachrymose, for example, paralyzes criminals with grief by bringing their saddest memories back irresistably. Mieville's fabulous imagination supplies numerous weird, funny, and sometimes disgusting, superpowers. Nelson must confront criminals, a rival dial-driven superhero, and entities from other dimensions as he seeks to understand what's going on.Th artist team here provides suitably vivid renderings of Mieville's ideas. Lots of pages with story panels interspersed on top of a full-page image, so that the reader must figure out the reading sequence. Dramatic and active, but sometimes a bit of a chore to read.
Note that DC Comics cancelled this series, unfinished, after one more volume.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2013-04-23
ISBN
9781401237752
DDC/MDS
| 741.5 |