China Miéville’s “Dial H” was a cult book that remained largely inaccessible for most readers throughout its run. It was overly weird and mostly disconnected from anything resembling the ‘New 52’ – even with a “Flash” crossover late in the game. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it.
“Dial E” captures what “Dial H” was at its most humorous and inventive, but not totally what it was when it was firing on all cylinders. Nonetheless, it hammers on that inventiveness over and over again with a bevy of great artists that definitely deserve the increased profile that comes with a “Justice League” (sorta) title.
Written by China Miéville
Illustrated by Mateus Santolouco, Jeff Lemire, Jock, Alberto Ponticelli w/ Dan Green, David Lapham, Riccardo Burchielli, Carla Berrocal, Liam Sharp, Tula Lotay, Marley Zarcone, Brendan McCarthy, Emma Rios, Emi Lennox, Frazier Irving, Carmen Carnero, Sloane Leong, Kelsey Wroten, Michelle Farran, Annie Wu, and Zak SmithYou can’t stop dialing! In a special VILLAINS MONTH coda to the fan-favorite DIAL H series, a lost E-dial is discovered by four young criminals on the run in Littleville. But who is chasing them? And will they figure out how to control this nefarious dial before it’s too late? Hindsight is twenty-twenty when you’re sprinting through dark alleys! This issue features 20 new villains, 20 pages of creative insanity—and 20 top artists, each drawing a page of the action!
Hi everyone. It’s me again – the “Dial H” guy. I’m here today to try to convey to you why I think “Justice League #23.3 – Dial E” is a good comic book, but also why it’s good for comic books. China Miéville’s run on “Dial H” ultimately ended after 16 issues (#1-15, plus #0) that oscillated between using humor and weirdness to touch its readers and probably just confusing everyone. The one thing that can definitely be said for that strange, beautiful run was that (aside from an odd “Flash” crossover that actually mostly worked out) “Dial H” did things its way until the very end.
In many ways, “Dial E” is a victory lap being taken in a very prominent month, under the banner of DC’s most prominent title (“Justice League”). That victory lap is being taken with a big banner held high for weirdness in mainstream comics in the ‘New 52′ era. It’s one of the very few holding that banner.
Miéville is a terrific science fiction writer. He’s award winning, relatively popular, and prolific. Whether general readership knows it or not, this is a big get for DC Comics. In “Dial H”, Miéville used some very tried and true methods that appear in his prose work to find the heart and joy in the strange. This series would have truly felt home under the 90’s “Vertigo” banner, because it somehow had humanity beneath the funky, inhuman guise. However, in this week’s “Dial E”, Miéville chooses to sit back and let perhaps the greatest aspect of “Dial H” run wild – the design sensibilities of its artist(s). The premise is simple: the “evil” dial comes between a couple of crooks and the kids that swiped it from them. Ultimately, Miéville ties this one-off back to his original run on “Dial H” by bringing the E Dial’s most prominent user (The Centipede) into the picture. Naturally, he wants to get his prized possession back, but not before Miéville and company come up with about 2 dozen new villains for the issue’s cast to rotate through in a fun back-and-forth game of “Get the Dial.”
It’s as simple as that. Miéville doesn’t attempt to inject any plot complications or exposition into a narrative that clearly favors the artistry of the concept over the mechanics. To be honest, the story isn’t going to blow anyone away. It’s fine. It’s pure set-up for an art showcase. It’s admittedly thin. You can tell that Miéville simply relishes tossing off a name like “Captain Quag”, sitting back, and waiting to see what Michelle Farran does with it. “Dial E” is 20-pages of that exact concept.
I hesitate to single out specific artists in fear of undermining just what a nice effort this issue is from everyone involved and how good it feels to see some very hip artists being featured in DC Comics’ villains event. As the solicitation promises, there are 20 pages here, with 20+ different artists and more than 20 eccentric villain ideas. You have the artists that appears throughout “Dial H’s” run: Mateus Santolouco, David Lapham, Riccardo Burchielli, Alberto Ponticelli and Dan Green – and they’re all doing great work. It’s especially nice to see Santolouco back in the fold on the first page, as his work on the first few issues of “Dial H” really set the tone for the book and gave us great designs like “Boy Chimney” and “Captain Lachrymose.” Here he draws “Suffer Kate” – you guessed it, a teen girl with a “force choke” ability.
Continued belowIn a ‘New 52’ status quo that mostly leans toward realism in its comic art vs. expressionism or pop styles, “Dial E” is refreshingly free-wheeling artistically, with Eva De La Cruz’s colors on almost all of the pages to tie the issue together into something that has a nice internal continuity to it, for the most part. “Dial E” gets playful up the comedy of some of these absurd designs. For example, Emi Lennox gets to do a riff on Playstation’s “Sack Boy” with the character of “Slub” – a anthropomorphized blob of yarn and cloth. Kelsey Wroten gets tasked with “Bad Dressage” – an uppercrust horseback villain that declares that his victims “will feel his piaffe!” So many great surprises and goofy concepts inhabit these pages that I hesitate to spoil any more of them. Sloane Leong, Brendan McCarthy, and Zak Smith (an alternative artist with a really unique avant garde sensibility, that I would highly recommend readers check out) do particularly eye-popping work – their pages look especially terrific, even out of context. Let’s be honest – the context is threadbare anyway.
Even if the story doesn’t grab you, or make sense to you at all, “Dial E” presents itself in a way that true fans of the comic book medium can appreciate. China Miéville shares his very obvious appreciation of “comic bookery” with readers and, as a result, we got a rich issue filled with imagination and ingenuity not seen elsewhere in “Villains Month.” Editor Gregory Lockard and whoever greenlit this at DC Comics should be commended for putting this project together and putting it under the “Justice League” sub-banner. There’s a lot of cynicism in the “business” side of comic books. Issues like “Dial E” are reminders that the pure art of comic books will always be appreciated, even by the big dogs, even when they’re otherwise mostly focused at their bottom line. All 20-odd artists deserve to have their art looked at by a wider audience. Despite whatever misgivings you may or may not have toward “Villains Month”, this is a single issue worth supporting.
Final Verdict: 7.8 – Buy, unless you really need more than a threadbare plot to go with your awesome art showcase.
