Dial E was a crazy, profoundly strange, and zany series that pokes fun at the make up of super villainy. A short lived series written by China Miéville, Justice League 23.3 Dial E is the last hurrah of its wackiness. I have never read the Dial H series myself but, I decided to give this book a shot to see what I was missing. Sadly, I would have to agree with DC pulling this series.
Story:
The story takes place when a group of couriers to criminals stumble across a villain dial transforming them into a vast assortment of different super-villains. Mayhem quickly comes after when a villain from the Dial H series comes in trying to take the Dial away from the couriers. And thats all folks!
Writing & Art:
As simple as the plot was in this book, it was incredibly confusing and was hard to keep up with on what was going on. Each page introduced a new villain but, as quickly as they were introduced, they were forgotten by a turn of the page. This comic was so convoluted with different super-villains, I gave up on the story and was turning the pages to see how the art styles were.
The art in this book is mediocre at best. There were multiple artists in this book such as Frazer Irving (Uncanny X-Men), Jeff Lemire (Justice League Dark), Mateus Santolouco, and more. There were way too many different art styles in this book that really hurt itself than helped it. You come across one page that is clean and iconic like Frazer Irving, and then you come across a different style completely from Liam Sharp. There was absolutely no visual consistency in this book. On a positive note, it did provide a source of different art styles from multiple up and comers in the industry. This book should be more of an artistic sampler rather than a comic.
Conclusion:
With the poor story, no visual consistency, and just the weird randomness of all of it, I would not recommend this book to anyone. What is a little discerning is that DC decided to put this book apart of the Justice League series. There is a vast amount of better villains that the Justice League fought out there and to say that Dial H was given a comic in villain month is disappointing.
GNN Comics Grade: Poor (3/10)
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