When the first two issues of “Dial H” came out, two MC staffers gave them vastly different reviews. Gil loved #1, while Walter was frustrated by #2. How will #3 fare?
Written by China Mieville
Illustrated by Mateus Santolouco– Nelson gains an unlikely ally, just as his career as a hero looks like it might be over before it’s begun!
– Meanwhile, SQUID and X.N. may be gaining a new ally of their own, one who could prove to be unstoppable.
– The origin of the latest wielder of the H dial continues here!
I want to like this book, I really do. I think Silver Age goofiness and classic Vertigo styling can be the new Peanut Butter and Nutella.
But this; this isn’t a PB and N. I don’t know what exactly this is, but what I do know is that it isn’t really working for me.
China Mieville is the latest in a long line of novelists who have meandered over to comics, with mixed results (Gregg Hurtwitz, Brad Meltzer). Mieville is making what I consider to be a classic novelist’s mistake, which is to forget that each issue here needs to be purchased separately. This isn’t simply adding art to prose chapters; each chapter needs to be compelling and, to a certain degree, easy to digest on its own.
And that just frankly isn’t the case here. For every nice scene, there are scenes that are supposed to read “mysterious” but just make me have to go back and make sure I didn’t miss anything, because they seem entirely inconsequential. This book suffers a lot from knowing how unique it is, because it is constantly trying to let its uniqueness be why it is good. But that shouldn’t be the case – it should be good because it is good.
This is something I struggle with a lot when reviewing comics: why is something good or bad? There isn’t a clear cut answer, but I think that the simplest answer is that the story needs to entertain on some level. And, to be fair, “Dial H” #3 doesn’t entertain me all that much. The story is slightly advanced, we get another couple of goofy, fun heroes, and then Nelson is pretty much exactly where he was when the issue started. Yes, he has a slightly better understanding of the dial, but really, how the dial works is the least interesting part of this story.
Mateus Santolouco has moments of sheer brilliance in this issue, and he seems poised to be a breakout star. His art is all over the place, in a good way, jumping from the absurd to the mundane with ease, showing extreme detail without necessarily being realistic. His work looks like a funhouse mirror version of a comic – Nelson looks just a little too fat, the heroes just a little too scary. That is a fun place to be for a comic, and Santolouco has been consistently impressive so far.
One of the strengths of the first two issues, to me, was the personal story behind Nelson – he’s a loser with a broken heart and a good conscience, and the loss of his friend is what is going to drive him to do great things. But here, that is dismissed outright, instead focusing on his mystery savior Manteau, another dial-wielder, who seems to be on the verge of snapping. Not that this character couldn’t be an interesting one, but don’t abandon Nelson, the heart of the book, so quickly.
My biggest question with this book is simply this: why is this a part of the New 52? I know DC is trying to Vertigo it up a little more on the superhero side, but this is a completely stand alone series, with not even the slightest hints of connectivity to it. I thought part of the reason the New 52 was happening was to make the stories all interconnect, at least on some small level. Instead, we get a book in its own city, with its own tone, doing its own thing, with no real tether to the DCnU. Again, this isn’t what I necessarily want out of a publisher, this is what DC has said over and over again. And even if this did somehow cross over, it would be so out of place that it probably wouldn’t take. It wouldn’t quite be like Preacher showing up in “Tiny Titans,” but you get my point.
Overall, I want to give this book another shot, because it has the potential to be a compelling story by a fresh creative team. That is what comics are supposed to be; I just hope that in their future issues, the team can put a focus on the reader, and what the reader needs to get out of each issue, instead of treating this like a novel with pictures.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – Browse
