Dial H #2

"Connection Lost"
written by China Miéville
art by Manteus Santolouco

Nelson Jent says it best himself, "Heroes is going on."  After blundering onto the Dial in issue #1, Nelson returns here to what he calls "research," dialing up as many different superheroes as he can.  Already his past time is showing some dangers.  Unhappy with himself, Nelson seems to enjoy disappearing into these new personalities, sometimes using them to thwart criminals in Littleville like more famous heroes in more impressive cities.  But after an encounter with another hero—the mysterious Manteau, mentioned in the first issue by thug Vernon—during a foray into the home of a coma victim, Nelson begins to realize he's losing track of himself, because all of his dialed personalities stay with him.

After spending most of the initial issue introducing Jent to the Dial, Miéville begins in issue #2 to develop the series' larger conflicts, including the connection between Nelson's friend Darren's breaking-and-entering job for a shadowy figure known to Darren only as X. N. and the recent epidemic of unexplained comas.  Perhaps best of all, Dial H doesn't yet have a clearly defined villain.  Instead, it proposes a network of independently self-interested characters threatening Jent, his friend Hirsch, and Littleville at large:  Vernon and his hired band of street criminals; the reptilian—and often masked—creature able to synthesize matter out of nothing, known to the others as the Squid; Ex Nihilo—X. N.—the doctor imprisoning, or attempting to imprison, the Squid and taking care of the coma victims while working to bring their cause to the city; and the mysterious force that touched those victims and which, according to the Squid, is on its way to Littleville.

Miéville continues his extraordinary character development and his refreshingly mundane depiction of ordinary life with all its little obstacles.  This issue's most poignant and believable moments are Nelson's failed conversation with his ex, Julie, who understandably wants to distance herself from her self-destructing former husband but leaves Nelson with no one to talk out his current disorienting problems with.  And unlike the bevy of heirs-turned-superhero-vigilantes, Nelson lacks the resources to conduct even the most rudimentary investigations, relying on internet cafés and local public libraries with shrinking hours of operation, or it appears much decent furniture.  Dial H is an oblique portrait of economic depression from a factory neighborhood rather than a family mansion or mayoral dinner party.

Superheroes:  Human Virus, Shamanticore, Pelican Army, Double Bluff, Hole Punch, Rancid Ninja, Skeet, Control-Alt-Delete, Iron Snail

[August 2012]