Dial H #11 & 12, by China Mieville (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (penciler), Dan Green (inker), Tanya & Richard Horie, Allen Passalaqua (colorists), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - The drapery as a cape is a nice touch there on Open Window Man.The Centipede has hooked the padre up to some device to use the padre's faith as a way to contact the Dial Fixer. I hadn't realized the Fixer had left Earth after stopping Ex Nihilo, but I guess he had. They make the connection, and the Centipede agrees to help the Fixer find more dials. Meanwhile, Nelson is not handling the previous night's dialed-up make out session with Roxie well. I'm not clear on if he's bothered because he wasn't in control of himself, or because he had sex with a much older woman. Roxie seems to be handling it well, even after Nelson grabs the dial and ends up as The Flash.
Yep, the Flash. Which means Barry Allen has no powers. Which freaks Nelson right the hell out, especially when Roxie explains the story we saw in Dial H #0 (she'd left out the part where the killer from the other world was the hero who had been dialed in the first place). Nelson is now really irate, because how many times have the stolen the powers of some hero when they needed them? There's not much time to address that because the Fixer and the Centipede have found them, and Nelson's stint as The Fastest Man Alive is just about up. The S-Dial buys them some time, but they're really saved by the intervention of Open-Window Man and his allies, the Dial Bunch. Between the lot of them, they manage to boot the Fixer and the Centipede back through the portal the Fixer emerged from. Except, that's exactly where the Centipede wanted to go. Ooops.
Things are happening pretty fast and furious now. I'm hoping Mieville's going to be able to fit everything in coherently before the end. I'm honestly having trouble matching the names of the Dial Bunch to the characters, but hopefully that'll clear up with more interaction. I'm curious about Nelson's description that he'd never felt as powerful as he did as the Flash. What accounts for the difference? Are some of the heroes real, and others imaginary? And the real ones are the ones with the serious juice? Or was Mieville simply referencing how powerful the Flash is?
I'm starting to think O is a Prometheus figure. The Fixer and the others at the "Exchange" use the powers of "lesser" beings for their own purposes, but O decided to give the lesser beings something to balance the playing field: their own dials. It's just that so far, he's avoided being chained to a rock and having his entrails ripped out daily by vultures. Good for him.
Early in issue 11, Nelson's digging around under the bed trying to find his shoe, and grabs the H-dial instead. What's funny is Ponticelli drew him with one shoe in his hand, and the other already partially on his foot. I'm not sure if that's a miscommunication, or a deliberate attempt to show how shook Nelson is. Ponticelli does seem rushed. Some of the character's faces don't maintain shape. Roxie's typically pretty thin, not quite sunken cheeks, but there are few shots where she's a lot puffier, including one where she reminds me of Edward G. Robinson (panel 1, page 10). That being said, at least he didn't draw the Flash costume with all those stupid seams Jim Lee messed things up with. Also, he draws the Centipede's "Multiple Man" shtick well, that page where he's fending off a horde of soldiers especially.
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