Dial H #11

"W. T. Flash?"
written by China Miéville
pencils by Alberto Ponticelli
inks by Dan Green

Whoa, Mr. Miéville!  What happened?  Needless to say, Dial H's first attempt at a crossover, however slight and superficial, was not a great success.  Like every issue of Dial H thus far, "W. T. Flash?" boasts some really excellent ideas, a few of which are reiterated from earlier issues, and some very well-written moments, but unlike previous issues, this one's a structural mess and exposition-heavy.

The Centipede continues his strange quest to make contact with the Fixer, the mysterious O's kind-of nemesis, a creature who, along with his army, is attempting to recover the Dials dispersed by the Operator—including Nelson and Roxie's—and patrol the Exchange.  While the Centipede—former Canadian military agent Floyd Bergson—makes an excellent villain, I'm still very unclear about his motives and agenda, as well as just how a cleric of a Dial-based religion could pray-up the Fixer.  While I suspect Miéville has a clear idea about how this operates, so to speak, I find it very difficult to tease out, though the confrontation implied by the final scene of Dial H #11 may begin to clarify these details.


The central thread in this issue is more promising if still uneven.  In a pique of morning-after panic and feeling the powerful need to flee, Nelson dials up the Flash.  Although the dialed heroes mostly don't correspond to any particular theme or need, like depressive, chain-smoking Nelson's Boy Chimney and Captain Lachrymose in Dial H #1, the Flash seems appropriate to his mood.  And, more importantly, it's the first time either Nelson or Roxie dial up a recognizable hero, one that they know to exist and whom Nelson can't find once he assumes the identity.  Naturally, this gets them wondering about the other dialed heroes, and the pair—Roxie far more reluctantly than Nelson—begin to realize what readers knew from Dial H #0, that the Dial allows its users to assume the bodies of independently existing heroes, however strange.  While these are necessary revelations for the duo, it mostly feels reiterative here, not adding to the general body of Dial lore that Miéville's been building so meticulously.

The Dial H Flash issue was hotly buzzed (at least for Dial H), in no small part because of Brian Bolland's wonderful cover, but while Miéville's Nelson-Flash is often funny, his impromptu Flash adventure (completed, as noted, in Flash #18 and #19) is awkward, unnecessary, and jolts the already erratic pacing of the issue.  Miéville's first attempt at integrating into the larger DC universe is weak, at best.  Dial H #11 makes several things happen that needed to happen, but it is by far the thinnest and roughest of the issues to date.

Superheroes:  The Flash

[June 2013]