When we last left off, Mr. Thunderbolt had the H-Dial and granted powers to all the citizens of Metropolis. Powerless to stop it, the Operator presents Miguel with another, cyan-colored, H-Dial. Sam Humphries builds a nice conclusion to this arc with callbacks to the first issue, such as touching on Miguel’s vulnerabilities and his run-in with Superman. It is that emotional center that allows Humphries to let Miguel find the strength he needs to keep the promise made to himself and the city. We are left at the end of the issue with the reveal that multiple H-Dials exist. Having been introduced to a new cyan H-Dial, we see a panel with placeholders for four in total: cyan, magenta [ the ‘red’ H-Dial we had seen all along ], black, and yellow. It is quite fitting for a meta-comic book to have the H-Dials structured after the four colors that make up a comic book’s color palette.

Let me just say this: the art team of Joe Quinones, Scott Hanna, and Jordan Gibson deserves an Eisner nomination for their work on this book. I am astonished at the amount of flexing this team has been able to accomplish across so many varied comic book art styles in all the prior issues. This one in particular was a tour de force, showcasing everything they have done while including homages to newer styles, from Bruce Timm to various indie comics. It is truly a joy to see their work, and I got the sense that they were all having fun doing it.

This was a very satisfying conclusion to this first half of Dial H for Hero. Since the title was given an extension to twelve issues from the original six, I do wonder what was the game plan for how to end the book. It ends on a good cliffhanger. Perhaps the cliffhanger we got was always the plan with the hopes of going into a volume two? Either way, it is a great setup for the next story arc. Dial H for Hero has been a delight. I have high hopes for the remaining issues.

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