Dial H #15 – Review

By: China Miéville (story), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Richard & Tanya Horie (colors)

I’m feeling the pinch of every penny these days, so when the cashier at my comic book shop scanned this issue, I immediately noticed the extra two bucks that rang up.  Fortunately, I did not make a scene in the middle of the shop (much to the cashier’s relief, I’m sure) as I quickly saw that I was paying the extra money for the extra pages of a supersized finale issue.  Miéville’s Dial H is certainly as worthy of the honor as Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern.

An honor, but also a necessity.  Even though this is Miéville’s last hurrah, he can’t just have fun with it; there’s a lot of information he has to get through first.  Had the series lasted longer, he no doubt would have unloaded all the necessary exposition little by little, so that by the time we arrived at the big climax, the only work left would be to tie everything up with one final revelation and a heartfelt resolution.  We do get all those things here as well, but they feel truncated and abridged, obviously edited to fit altogether in the span of one issue.

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Picks

Best From The Past Week: The Wake #3 – This issue was SO good.  The first part of the issue was incredible, “monster on board” action-horror.  It’ll remind you of the Alien movies OR – more appropriately – 80’s underwater horror B-movies like Leviathan and Deep Star Six.  It just has a wonderful and scary pacing as the monster causes mayhem and the crew tries to escape.  There are also a few really clever panels where the creature is using it’s hypnotic powers on people and the panel only makes sense if you look at it from the proper point of view…..so it’s almost like you (the reader) were hypnotized too.  This is just a wonderful series.

Most Anticipated: 

1. Trillium #1 – Yay!  Another new series from Vertigo!  New Vertigo series make me feel happier about comics.  Anyway, this is written and drawn by Jeff Lemire and is a science-fiction themed love story.  Sounds great!

2. Transformers: Robots in Disguise #20 – After our diversion last issue to follow the much-less-intersting Orion Pax (i.e. Optimus Prime) storyline, we return to the much-MORE-interesting happenings back on Cybertron.  I’m not sure this series is quite as good as its sister-title (More than Meets the Eye), but it is still among the best ongoing series in the superhero-ish category.

3. The Manhattan Projects #15 – Funny how these series get started and everyone raves about the first 2-3 issues, makes them Pick of the Week and all that…..then by the 7th issue nobody even bothers to talk about them anymore.  That won’t happen here.  This is a wonderful and clever series.  I’m still not sure I really understand what the bigger story is, but I’m certainly enjoying the journey.

4. GI Joe: Cobra Files #5 – This continues to be THE best of the multiple GI Joe titles.  It’s always a little darker and a little more espionage-themed than the more mainstream Joe books.  I love how almost every character in the series has impure motives.

5. Sheltered #2 – The first issue of this series was pretty good.  It focuses on a “prepper” community where the teenage kids go rogue and start taking over by force.  It isn’t clear what the kids are up to yet, but it is an entertaining and somewhat unique scenario.

Hugo’s Picks

Best From The Past Week: Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #19 – This was a relatively small week in term or releases, yet there was still a very strong title coming out as a new issue of MTMTE arrived. Delivering once more in terms of great characterization, beautiful and detailed art and just too many great ideas, this was the most satisfying issue I had to read as the quality of this title simply continues in a consistent way.

Most Anticipated:

1. Dial H #15 – This is just plain sad. A wonderful series full of new ideas, new characters and a willingness to exploit them in ways that made for good stories. And it’s cancelled. It is with a certain sadness that I’ll be reading the final issue of that series, yet I am really looking forward as to how China Miéville may finish this whole adventure as we see Nelson for one last time.

2. Abe Sapien #5 – The latest issue was particularly well-written, as the focus on how humanity, both in the figurative and literal sense, struggled with the apocalypse made for a surprisingly philosophical and gripping read. With this issue being the conclusion to this arc about Abe discussing those kind of things with a bunch of young men and a young woman, I am really curious to see how the writers will connect the subjects of those discussions with what is going on in the comic.

3. Manhattan Projects #13 – The delightfully weird super-science adventure written by Hickman and drawn by Pitarra makes for some insanely entertaining comic and there’S no reason to believe that the quality will drop off anytime soon. I am looking forward for more stories featuring those crazy versions of Oppenheimer and Einstein as those scientists continue their expansion in a world without limits.

4. Fatale #16 – Ed Brubaker. Sean Phillips. That’s pretty much all I need to know when I see both names on a cover. This creative team made some astounding series together and this one is not disappointing in any way as the mix of lovecraftian lore and noir mix very well together to create a very interesting narrative and world for us readers to explore.

5. Avengers #17 – This title really got its groove as the prelude to Infinity made use of the massive number of plot points it had set up in the first 12 issues of the title. With big stakes and this issue being the very last one before the big event kicks off, I am really eager to see if Hickman can deliver in order to bring some more hype into this event that is to come.