Writer: Sam Humphries
Artist and Cover: Joe Quinones
Colorist: Jordan Gibson
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Variant Cover: Nick Derington
Assistant Editor: Andrea Shea
Editors: Mike Cotton
Group Editors: Brian Cunningham
Cover Price: $3.99
On Sale Date: April 24, 2019
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
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Alright
folks, it’s time to buckle up your rotary dials and sync your dial tones…or
something. It’s amazing how this whole telephone aesthetic has completely
changed, along with the reasons and ways that we use them in the first place.
This series should have been “Text [heart] 4 H8rz” and then we can really start
pandering to kids, the Bob Haney way! Instead, we get Dial H for Hero #2, which
I’ve reviewed for your convenience.
Explain It!
Miguel
and Summer have made their way in his uncle’s mayonnaise truck to a diner in Grand
Junction, Colorado, where they are having a tiff over the magical phone while a
clearly stoned waiter looks on. Thing is, it keeps ringing, and Miguel doesn’t
wanna answer it. A creepy, balding hipster with that red “4” glowing on his
forehead overhears the kids, and a voice in his head telling him to grab the dial!
Before he does, Miguel does answer it, and hears from a hooded fellow in some
area stuffed with superheroes named the Operator, who tells him to beware the Thunderbolt
Club! And guess what club that balding hipster is a member of?
Miguel
ties a rope around the phone and throws it off a bridge, then he and Summer
return to the mayonnaise truck, all finished with that nonsense. The balding
hipster dives into the river running beneath the bridge to retrieve the H-Dial,
and activates it, becoming Jobu, the Zonkey King! He introduces himself back at
the parking for the diner, where a lady cop has Summer held at gunpoint, and is
demanding the H-Dial herself! Jobu, the Zonkey King…well, he’s like this kiddie
manga-style anthropomorphic zonkey who does karate. He’s pretty great, but he
just starts blasting hadoukens at a tourist’s river boat, and doesn’t do
anything heroic at all. Not so for Miguel, who jumps from the bridge and onto floating
Jobu’s, ultimately snatching the H-Dial (after an assist from Lady Cop and
Summer…in the mayonnaise truck) and using it to become Iron Deadhead, an
awesome-looking Robotech-type thing that gets his own classic DC Comics cover. Just
what the heck is this series?
Dispensing
with any secret origin, Iron Deadhead and Jobu the Zonkey King face-off in
traditional anime style: rushing sat each other and landing fist-to-fist,
releasing a torrent of kinetic energy that blows them both backwards. Iron
Deadhead tries a few more robo-tricks, but they prove useless against the
mighty zonkey. Then, Miguel remembers that Jobu was annoyed by the Lady Cop’s metal
bullets, so he grabs Jobu in his metal hand and slams him into the pavement.
Beaten, Jobu turns back into the balding hipster—but not before warning that
Miguel will suffer the same fate. Er, I mean suffer the same faaaaaaaate…
And
the Lady Cop? You bet she’s a member of the Thunderbolt Club. She’s got her hands
on the H-Dial, and is under the spell of some guy in a Thunderbolt-style Klan
hood. So that’s on deck for the next issue. You know, this book isn’t really blowing
me away, but I sure enjoyed recounting it for this review. It’s got a great
look and is easy to understand, the characters are cool and, until now, I’m
left wanting only more of the same. Which, I suppose, is a good thing. This is definitely
a strange comic book, I wouldn’t come here looking for the same fare you’d find
in Superman and Batman. But if you like a little weirdness, you should give it
a look. And if you’ve got a kid that’s a little weird, maybe they might enjoy
it, too.
Bits and Pieces:
The
mystery of the H-Dial and the Thunderbolt deepens, and we get to see a couple more
goofy, stylized superheroes. If you were expecting something else from this
series, you were barking up the wrong telephone pole. But if you’re disposed to
this sort of thing then you’ll probably enjoy the latest iteration.
7.5/10
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