Dial H for Hero

The original series debuted in House of Mystery #156 (January 1966), and continued until issue #173 (March–April 1968). The art was by Jim Mooney (though he did not finish the run), with scripts by Dave Wood.[3]

The original owner of the dial is Robert "Robby" Reed, a highly intelligent teenager with a penchant for exclaiming "Sockamagee!" He lives in the fictional town of Littleville, Colorado with his grandfather "Gramps" Reed and their housekeeper Miss Millie. While playing with his friends, Robby accidentally falls into a cavern and discovers the dial in one of its alcoves. The origins of the dial and how it came to be in the cavern are never revealed.[4]

Resembling a rotary telephone dial, the device is hand-held with unknown symbols inside the dial's finger- openings and along its outer rim, which Robby deciphers into modern English letters. In Mark Waid's "Silver Age" mini-series, it is revealed that the symbols on the dial are Interlac.[5] Each time he dials the letters H-E-R-O, Robby transforms into a different super-powered being; dialing O-R-E-H reverts him to his normal form. Robby soon uses the dial to protect Littleville under the guises of numerous superheroes.[6]

The wide array of Robby's superhero identities included the Squid, Quake-Master, King Coil, Hornet-Man, Shadow-Man, Mighty Moppet, King Kandy, Future-Man, Human Bullet, Super-Charge, the Mole, Mr. Echo, Hypno-Man, the Cometeer and the Human Starfish, among others.[7][8]

The second Dial H for Hero series debuted in the 1980s, in a special insert in Legion of Super-Heroes #272 (February 1981),[9] then ran in Adventure Comics #479–490 and continued in New Adventures of Superboy #28–49; the duo also appeared alongside Superman in DC Comics Presents #44. A new feature of this series was that the readers could submit new hero and villain characters, which were then used in the stories. The submitters were given credit for their creations (and a T-shirt with the series logo), but the characters became DC Comics' property. Some, however, only made cameo one-panel appearances. The original writer and artist in the series were Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino.

In this series, two other dials are discovered years later by teenagers Christopher "Chris" King and Victoria "Vicki" Grant of the New England town of Fairfax in a "haunted house".[4] These dials — disguised as a watch and a necklace — only have the letters H-E-R-O on them, and work only for an hour, after which they will not work for another hour. King and Grant begin protecting Fairfax from a number of menaces. Unknown to them, most of these villains are created by a mysterious villain known only as The Master (who is obsessed with the H-dials for reasons unknown for most of the series) who creates them from the cell samples of unknown people.[2]

Eventually Chris and Vicki discover that a fellow student named Nick Stevens has been drawing up superheroes as a hobby — and somehow, the dials turn them into those heroes. With Nick's help, they find out that their dials were created by a being called The Wizard (not to be confused with the DC Comics villain of the same name), whom the Master thought he'd killed years before. In truth, The Wizard faked his death while he looked for the original Hero Dial. With it, he merges with The Master — and transforms into Robby Reed.

Robby explains that years before, he had used the dial to split in two (dialing "S P L I T") so that he could disarm a dead man's switch, while his other self, the Wizard, defeated the villain who set it. However, the Wizard carried all of Robby's inherent goodness, while the Robby that remained possessed only evil impulses; the original Hero Dial was lost when this Robby, renaming himself The Master, dialed "hide yourself", causing the dial to vanish along with The Master's and The Wizard's memories of their former life as Robby Reed. While The Master learned genetic techniques that allowed him to create his army of super-villains, the Wizard was driven to create the new H-dials, unconsciously designing limitations into them to prevent what happened to Robby from recurring (only heroic identities, a time limit, and the exclusion of letters other than H-E-R-O; the latter, however, did not prevent Chris from experimenting on one occasion and dialing H-O-R-R-O-R, with disastrous results). With Nick developing the ability to actively influence the dials' results (rather than subconsciously as before), Robby passes his dial to Nick, and retires as a hero.

In New Teen Titans #45 (June 1988), Victoria and Chris' history after the end of their series is revealed. After the two teens graduated from high school Vicki was recruited to join a cult called the Children of the Sun, where she was physically and mentally abused, deranging her. She sought out her former partner Chris in order to kill him. With help from the Teen Titans, Chris rescued her in the following issue. Chris now finds that he changes into a new superhero every hour, without the dial, and remains that way until he expends an unspecified amount of energy. He decides to continue his superhero career, using a suit provided by S.T.A.R. Labs to monitor his changes.

In Superboy and the Ravers #5 (January 1997), Hero Cruz finds Vicki's H-dial in the lair of Scavenger, and uses it to gain superpowers. A still deranged Vicki returns in issue #13 (September 1997) to get her dial back from Hero, but she regains her sanity once she uses the device. She is last seen in the care of the Forces, a family of metahumans.

During the 2000 Silver Age cross-over event, Robby encountered his old House of Mystery co-star Martian Manhunter, in Silver Age: Dial H for Hero #1. Believing that he and the rest of the Justice League had gone bad, Robby turns into a superhero to stop him. Actually, Martian Manhunter has been mind-swapped with Dr. Light (the other Justice League have undergone similar mental transpositions, but those seen here are only Light's illusions). Subsequently, in Silver Age 80-Page Giant #1 (July 2000), Robby lends the H-Dial to the now mind/body restored Justice League, allowing several of its members to transform themselves into new superheroes to defeat Agamemno's Injustice League at a time when they had learned how to defeat the Justice League members in their normal forms:

• Superman becomes Doc Fission, a hero that can divide his enemies.
• Batman becomes Minuteman, a hero that can compress time and make punching hourglass.
• Flash becomes Marionette, a hero that can use a weapon a boomerang that is shaped like the letter X.
• Atom becomes Mod-Man, a hero that is like Robbie reed king coil but with a whole body.
• Black Canary becomes Miss Fortune, a hero that uses a wand to make magic.
• Aquaman becomes Terra-Firma, a hero that looks like a brick forest Sasquatch.
• Green Arrow becomes Poltergeist hero that is a ghost that a can copy any attack.
• Martian Manhunter becomes Go-Go a teleporting hero.

In these new forms, the Justice League were able to defeat the Injustice League.

DC relaunched Dial H for Hero again in 2003, this time simply titled H.E.R.O. Written by Will Pfeifer with art by Kano, the series focused on the effect the H-Dial has on a series of average people whose lives are usually ruined by the pressures of superherodom. Robby Reed, now grown old and bitter, is searching for the missing dial, determined to retrieve it and keep a serial killer from getting his hands on it. H.E.R.O. lasted 22 issues, ending with the H-Dial's powers being internalized into Robby Reed and some other people who have come across it, and the H-Dial itself being sent back in time to 50,000 BC. Superman is featured in one of the stories.

For The New 52 initiative, DC began publishing a reboot of the series titled Dial H, written by China Miéville with art by Mateus Santolouco. The series focuses on Nelson Jent, an out-of-shape, unemployed middle-age man who accesses superpowers by dialing seemingly random numbers in an old phone booth. Another main character is an older woman named Roxie Hodder who takes the identity of "Manteau" regardless of what powers the dial calls up and acts as an advisor to Nelson. Following the fight against Ex Nihilo and Abyss, Nelson and Roxie work to figure out the secrets of the H-Dials.

Later issues of the series introduces the S-Dial which turns anyone who uses it into a superhero sidekick to match the person's superhero form.

When it comes to Nelson and Roxie's encounter with the Fixer (who is associated with the different dials), both of them have an encounter with a group of superheroes called the Dial Bunch who have fought the Fixer before. There is also an introduction to the J-Dial (which enables the user to jump through worlds), the G-Dial (which can summon any technological gadget), the Dial-Tapper (which can copy any H-Dial in range), and the Auto-Dialer.

To tie-in with DC's Villain's Month event, DC published Justice League #23.3: Dial E, a coda to the series. It featured the Q-Dial in which a person must be evil to use it. The Q in Q-Dial is for "Qued" which is an old word for bad.

A Dial H for Hero limited series was launched as part of the Wonder Comics imprint for younger readers, starring new protagonists Miguel Montez and Summer Pickens. The series was written by Sam Humphries and drawn by Joe Quinones. Issue #1 was released on March 27, 2019.[10] Originally intended for a six-issue run, Dial H For Hero was extended to a total of 12 issues along with its fellow Wonder Comics limited series Wonder Twins. The final issue was released on February 26, 2020.

Miguel and Summer are teenagers living in the small town of Devil's Canyon, California. Miguel is an orphan who works in his uncle Brant's mayonnaise-themed food truck, and has engaged in daredevil stunts ever since he was saved by Superman from a near-death experience at age 10. Summer is a frequent runaway with a troubled home life. The H-Dial manifests itself in front of Miguel during a bicycle stunt gone wrong as he is plummeting into Devil's Canyon – dialling "H" for "Hero", Miguel is turned into a superhero called Monster Truck. When Miguel comes to and finds that he has trashed a car dealership, Summer arrives in Uncle Brant's stolen food truck and the two flee town together along with the H-Dial.

Via the H-Dial, Miguel and Summer are in contact with a mysterious elderly man known as the Operator, who is soon revealed to be Robby Reed. Meanwhile, it also transpires that there are thousands of former users of the H-Dial across the country, many of whom are desperate for another chance to get superpowers – the mysterious villain Mister Thunderbolt has recruited many into his Thunderbolt Club and sent them to take the H-Dial. After being targeted by two Thunderbolt Club members, Miguel and Summer resolve to travel across the country to Metropolis and give the H-Dial to Superman as the only person they trust not to misuse it. It is later revealed that the Thunderbolt Club are in pursuit of four hero-dials, named in reference to the CMYK color model for printing: in addition to the magenta M-Dial that appeared before Miguel, there is the cyan C-Dial, the yellow Y-Dial and the black K-Dial, each with different functions. While the M-Dial transforms the user into a random superhero, the C-Dial transforms the user into their inner superhero, the Y-Dial was responsible for splitting Robby Reed into the Operator and Mister Thunderbolt, and the K-Dial sends its user into the K-Hole.

Snapper Carr appears in the series as a recurring supporting character, being identified as a past user of the H-Dial. Issue #10 shows Miguel and Summer traveling through various realities in the DC multiverse, including an extended sequence on Earth-32 where every superhero is an amalgam of two main-universe heroes (e.g. Super-Martian, Bat Lantern, Wonder Hawk).

Issue #11 is primarily set on the planet Apokolips where the K-Dial is located, and features extended homages to the Reign of the Supermen and Superman Red/Superman Blue storylines. Granny Goodness stated that the scientists working for her that dialed the K-Dial never returned alive as it is "a gateway to anguish, a pit of oblivion". In issue #12 when Miguel and Summer defeat Mister Thunderbolt, they dial up H-O-P-E on the Multiverse Dial and travel the Multiverse until they are brought back to the Heroverse through the Chromium H-Dial.

The series contains many other homages to significant works in comic books and manga, through shifting art style and the identities of various heroes summoned by the H-Dial. These include Dragon Ball, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, various Vertigo Comics titles, and the works of Mike Allred, Rob Liefeld, Moebius, Frank Miller, Chris Ware and others. The series also examines the concept of a superhero's "secret origin", identifying it not as the moment where they acquired superpowers but instead as the moment of their decision to use their powers to do good.

• As an epilogue to the Chris King/Vicki Grant Dial H series, The New Adventures of Superboy #50 features a story in which Chris King's watch is stolen from the Space Museum of the Legion of Super-Heroes' time period by a thief named Nylor Truggs, who flees with the dial to the ambiguous late 1960s/early 1970s era-Smallville of the original (Earth-One) Superboy by altering the dial's functions in some unexplained manner, allowing him to travel in time. Truggs further alters the H-dial to break the restriction that users can only transform into heroic identities, changing the "H" in the center of the dial to "V" for "villain". Truggs also makes the dial capable of changing individuals other than himself into villains if he desires; those transformed would then be under Truggs' control. Truggs transforms several of Clark Kent's high school friends, and forms a temporary alliance with a teenaged Lex Luthor, in a scheme to plant seismic devices in their time period so that Truggs can use those devices against the people of his own future time upon his return. Truggs' plan is foiled by Superboy, several members of the Legion, and Krypto the Superdog, the latter of which destroys the stolen H-Dial by crushing it in his jaws. Vicki Grant's H-Dial is also shown to have survived to the Legion's time—it is slated to replace King's dial in the museum display. As this story was published before the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths (which erased the Earth-One Superboy from continuity) and the subsequent rebootings of the Legion of Super-Heroes' history, it is unlikely that any elements of this story exist in current continuity.
• In Legionnaires #69, Lori Morning uses an H-dial that was given to her by the Time Trapper to gain superpowers, and becomes a member of Workforce. Lori gives the H-dial to Brainiac 5.1 to use against the Rift; the device is destroyed in the process. This timeline was also erased in the Legion reboot.
• In a One Year Later storyline, the H-Dial comes into the possession of Father Time, who hopes to clone the device and create an entire army of "one man Justice Leagues". However the device is stolen, and Johnny Mimic (the reformed Green Lantern villain called to act as a profiler) dupes Alan Scott into killing him while holding the device, destroying it for good.
• In The Brave and the Bold #9 (February 2008), Robby Reed teamed up with the Metal Men, even lending the dial to Tin to allow him to transform into a more resilient superhero to defeat the monster conjured by the deranged alchemist Megistus. The dial, due to its transformative abilities, bore an optional part in Megistus' plans to draw the storm that brought about the genesis of Red Kryptonite upon Earth, warping it as to protect it from the events of the Final Crisis. Dial H appeared again in issue #27 of the same series, this time in a team-up with Batman. While staying at a hotel in Gotham City, Robby uses the dial to see the future but realizing that something will kill him while using the dial he decided to let the dial be stolen by a down on his luck young man named Travers Milton. After using the Dial to transform into a Superman-esque flying hero named the Star, Travers assists Batman in defending Gotham after the Joker arranges a series of violent crimes to be committed throughout the city in order to break Batman. After discovering that the final challenge for Batman is a remote-controlled bomb placed over a group of bound and gagged men and women, Travers heroically sacrifices his life by flying out into the night sky while clutching the bomb, saving Batman and the hostages seconds before it detonates. Afterwards, Batman returns the H-Dial to Robby who refused it because even though it prevents his eventual fate he didn't want to let it affect to anyone else but Batman tells him that it gave Travers what he had always wanted; the chance to be a hero that Robby will do the same thing. There is no indication given as to where either of the "Brave & the Bold" stories fit into Robby Reed's personal timeline however.
• In JLA: Another Nail, the H-Dial made a brief appearance when all time periods meld together. A hand can be seen barely clutching it.
• In the "Watchmen" sequel "Doomsday Clock", Robby Reed's Human Starfish form is among the superheroes that confront Doctor Manhattan on Mars.[11]
• Miguel Montez and Summer Pickens appear in the Wonder Comics series Young Justice issues #12-15 (March–August 2020). They also make a non-speaking appearance on the final page of the series, in issue #20 (January 2021).
• Miguel Montez is a recurring background character in the 2021–22 series Teen Titans Academy, where he shares a dorm room with Billy Batson.

The ones that wielded the H-Dial had encountered various villains in their adventures:

• Dial B for Blog is an extensive, popular comics blog run by Kirk Kimball, who blogs under the name "Robby Reed".
• "Dial M for Monkey" was a segment on Dexter's Laboratory in which Dexter's lab monkey would become the superhero Monkey whenever there was trouble, with Dexter unaware of this.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, there is a set of cards that pay homage to this comic: H-Heated Heart, E-Emergency Call, R-Righteous Justice, O-Oversoul. The card HERO Flash uses these four cards to allow Elemental Hero normal Monsters to attack the opponent directly.
• In Simpsons Super Spectacular #12, there is a story called "Dial M for Milhouse" that parodies Dial H for Hero. In the story, Houseboy gets a phone that allows him to transform into various superheroes, but he goes power-mad and Bartman ends up trying to stop him. The identities he assumes include Flasherdasher, Electroshock, Capybara Man, the Falconator, Campfire Kid, Batboy, Rubber Lad and Forkupine Radioactive Boy, Bug Boy, Plasmo, Lure Lad, Purple Badge of Courage, Weasel Boy and Captain Squad.

• Ben 10 – features an alien watch-like device called the "Omnitrix" which allows the wearer to transform into different alien heroes, inspired by the Hero Dials.
• Kamen Rider Decade – features a protagonist who, by inserting cards into a rotating belt, can turn into other heroes from the franchise.
• Kid Chameleon – features a protagonist that transforms into different heroes by wearing different masks.
• Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger – features a team of protagonists who, by selecting various "Ranger Keys", can become any member of the previous 34 Super Sentai series.

• Dial H for Hero at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• Dial H for Hero at Comic Vine
  • Robby Reed at Comic Vine
  • Chris King at Comic Vine
  • Vicki Grant at Comic Vine
  • Nelson Jent at Comic Vine
  • Manteau at Comic Vine
  • Mason Jones at Comic Vine
• Dial 'H' for HERO (1997 article by John L. Censullo)
• Dark Mark's Dial H for Hero Index (Pre-Crisis only)