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Showcase Presents: Dial H for Hero
by Robert Greenberger
Sockamagee isn’t the most memorable catch-phrase you will ever find, but it’s one of the most fondly recalled aspects of the lovely Dial H for Hero series which ran in DC Comics’ house of mystery from 1966-1968. The series was the supreme in wish fulfillment as we could all imagine ourselves finding the alien dial and all of a sudden becoming one cool hero after another. It certainly discusses why it has remained fondly recalled and has been continuously revisited ever since, many recently by J. Michael Straczynski in an issue of The brave and the Bold. Now, DC is finally collecting the run from issues #156-173 in a volume of showcase presents and it’s a many welcome treat.
Hero Dial
Conceived by writer Dave wood and veteran editor Jack Schiff, the series was illustrated by the under appreciated Jim Mooney, who was challenged with developing two or much more new characters every issue. With superheroes all the craze in the 1960s, Schiff took the Martian Manhunter with him when he lost Detective Comics and installed J’Onn J’Onzz as the lead feature. As sales flagged and the call for new heroes arrived, Robby Reed was given the cover slot and the Manhunter was relegated to the back of the book until they were both tossed out as Joe Orlando arrived to turn the title into a true mystery book.
Set in Littleville, Colorado, young Robby Reed is your common nerd, a science geek living with his grandfather and miss Mille the housekeeper. one day the bespectacled kid falls into a hidden cavern and encounters the dial, an alien artifact. Back home, the smart lad deciphered the writing and learned the letters circling the dial plus the inscription that told him he could transform if he merely dialed H-E-R-O.
Hero illo
Sure enough, Robby evaluated the device and became a hero and then learned that dialing the word backwards would return him to normal. For the remainder of the series, Robby would be faced with criminal and extraterrestrial dangers requiring him to spring into action. Each time, he instantly understood the champion he had become and how the powers worked so he could tackle the risk without a learning curve.
The series had some odd heroes such as Human Starfish, Mighty Moppet, King Kandy, Whoozis, Whatsis, and Howzis, and Baron Buzz-Saw. He even became a hero named Magneto that was not a mutant. In all, Robbie became some three dozen different heroes, repeating only twice and becoming a combined version of two heroes just once.
In time, wood chose to let Robby’s girlfriend Suzie try dialing to become a heroine, Gem Girl, but conveniently had her hit her head, forgetting Robby’s secret. Similarly, there’s Daffy Dagan who dialed V for Villain.
Also, Schiff and wood sampled audience reaction when in one memorable issue Robby transformed into Plastic Man, making his first appearance in a DC title because the company acquired the quality Comics heroes a decade earlier.
Hero
Robby vanished until he briefly reappeared in stories during the 1970s and subsequent creators have typically brought him back as a twisted, vengeful person, altered for the worse by the dial. The dial has because been used for a revival by Marv Wolfman using two teens who wound up in the teen Titans followed by Hero in Superboy and the Ravers followed by John Arcudi’s much more interesting Hero series some years back. Clearly, numerous people find the concept too good to disregard so the dial endures.
These are far from the greatest stories from DC’s Silver Age, but they much more than make up for it in variety and consistent entertainment. We would all love to resolve our problems by dialing up a hero or two. even if they are the Hoopster or Whirl-I-Gig.
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Showcase Presents: Dial H For Hero