H-E-R-O

Whew! Been a while, eh? Well, I have good reason to return this fine evening. My friend Comicflipper (or Flip the Page) is doing a lil' thing over on his blog called A to Z. Basically, he's going down the alphabet bringing you reviews and tidbits about some of his favorite (or not so, as you'll soon see) comics. He was hurting for a comic for the letter D, so I jokingly suggested Dial H for H-E-R-O. Its a Silver Age comic about a young boy, Robby Reed, who finds a dial that can turn him into thousands of different superheroes. The only catch is that the choices are random, and they don't always quite fit his current situation.

The irony here is that soon after I made the suggestion, my local comic shop put their comic sets on sale for five bucks a pop. I went in to look around, and lo and behold, I saw a series staring back at me called H-E-R-O. Ever curious, I took the set home and began to read. Here's what I found:



First off, while the original series was apparently hilariously Silver Age, the new series is beyond depressing. It basically goes through the lives of different people that come into contact with the Dial, and it chronicles how it ruins their lives. The first example is Jerry, a young boy with no prospects, no girlfriend, and no hope of leaving his run-down hometown. Upon finding the Dial, he decides to use it to spice up his life a bit. Unfortunately for him, his small town doesn't exactly have a bustling crime rate.

During all of this bumbling around (including one unintentionally humorous event in which Jerry tries to stop a runaway truck, only to have it plow over him) Jerry ends up getting the girl he likes shot and hospitalized, and also obliterates his place of employment with his out-of-control flame powers. Jerry then loses the Dial, and thus begins a spiral of ruin for everyone who comes in contact with it.

The series isn't terrible. It explores some things that I'm sure the original was unable to, things like....well, I'll let the image speak for itself:

...yeah.

In this story arc, the guy turns into a female superhero, after which he seeks help from his best friend, who, like the best buddy he is, gets his guy-turned-girl friend drunk and sleeps with her. Silver Age this ain't boys and girls.

Did I mention that good ol' Robby Reed, hero of the original series, has retained some residue of his former power and is now the villain of the story? SOCKAMAGEE!

So anyway, other than being remotely disturbed for the duration of the series, H-E-R-O turned out to be a decent read. I doubt I'll be picking it up again anytime soon, however, lest I feel compelled to dance in traffic. Hope you enjoyed the review, and don't forget to check out Comicflipper's review here for a comparison with the original.

Peace!