HERO DIAL	BIOGRAPHY
Created by Dave Wood and Jim Mooney

TECHNICAL DATA

Name: Hero Dial
DCU Creator(s): Unknown
First Appearance: House of Mystery #156 (January 1966)
Creators: Dave Wood and Jim Mooney

HISTORY

The original H-Dial (a.k.a the Hero Dial) is an enigmatic object whose origin is clouded in mystery. Its first recorded whereabouts are from a day in 1966, when an overintelligent (some may call him "goofy") teenager named Robby Reed was caught in the middle of a crime rampage in his hometown of Littleville. Pushed down a cliff at Valley Ridge, Robby miraculously survived and found himself in a previously unexplored cavern.

There, Robby discovered a strange kind of dial inscribed with an unknown language (later revealed to be the intergalactic lingua franca known as Interlac). He took it home, and somehow – through his linguistic talents or maybe by some mental link to the artifact – Robby was able to decipher the alien characters, and for some reason felt the urge to dial the equivalent of the letters H-E-R-O.

"Sockamagee!! What's happening to me?" Robby cried to himself. In an instant, the youngster had transformed into a super-hero. And with the transformation came an immediate knowledge of his powers and of his "hero name". As "Giant Boy", Robby fought the criminals he had encountered earlier.

To this day, it has not been revealed where this dial came from, if its origin is extraterrestrial or maybe of some ancient civilization. Nor has it been discovered how it could generate the identities of superheroes, a phenomenon very typical for the modern western world. But the fact remained – Robby Reed could become a new superhero every time he dialed the four letters. He became "the boy who can change into 1,000 super-heroes".

This was a sensation during a time when virtually no super-heroes were active. (With a few exceptions, of course: the original Starman had never fully retired in Opal City, some other JSAers – like Black Canary I – came out from retirement once in a while, the Martian Manhunter was active, though he had not gone public yet, and soon, the group known as the Justice Experience would gain some recognition.) Still, the public thought that Robby was a new hero every time he appeared. And in a sense – he was.

Cometeer, the Mole, Radar-Sonar Man, Hypno Man, Yankee Doodle Kid, Chief Mighty Arrow, Astro – Man of Space... in these and numerous other guises, Robby battled the Thunderbolt organization, the Cougar-Man, the Terrible Toymaster, and many other menaces. When he instead dialed O-R-E-H, he became Robby again. Sometimes the identities were very peculiar – like the super-sweet King Kandy, the infant Mighty Moppet, or the utterly ridiculous shapes of "Whoozis", "Whatzis", and "Howzis" (the latter three made Robby think the dial was making fun of him).

The dial was not totally risk-free, either. At one time, a guy named Daffy Dagan accidentally dialed V-I-L-L-A-I-N and became the evil Daffy the Great. At another, Robby became a whole bunch of villains himself while using a temporarily rusty Dial. Still another time, when Robby had become Giant-Boy again, he inhaled a toxic gas and only escaped death by dialing himself back to Robby. This made him fear that he one day would become Giant-Boy again, and subsequently die from the gas poisoning. Luckily, this never happened.

As noted, the Dial could sometimes respond to other codes than H-E-R-O. (Robby's friend Suzy, who once dialed H-E-R-O-I-N-E, is one example.) This would eventually prove fatal to Robby's super-hero career. While confronting the villain called Shirkon of the Many Eyes, Robby dialed S-P-L-I-T as a last resort. This had another effect than he expected. He actually split himself into two entities – one a being of pure goodness called the Wizard, the other an evil one named the Master. While the Wizard defeated Shirkon, the Master dialed the H-Dial into oblivion and erased the past memories of Robby Reed.

Many years later, in the New England town of Fairfax, teenagers Chris King and Vicki Grant were summoned by a mysterious vocie to the attic of the house into which the King family had just moved. There they discovered two smaller dials, each with the letters H-E-R-O inscribed upon its face. Unbeknownst to them both, these dials had actually been created by the Wizard.

Though their dials had only four letters where the original had ten (the Wizard had seemingly learned from his mistakes as Robby), and their transformations were limited to an hour's duration, Chris' and Vicki's transformations were as colorful and bizarre as Robby's. Eventually, they revealed their secret to their friend Nick Stevens, a young artist whose super-hero designs, it was realized, were the ones that Chris and Vicki invariably became. Possibly, this was due to some mental link between Nick and the Dials. Among the many guises Chris and Vicki took, were: Color Commando, Captain Electron, the Sixth Sensor, Music Master, Ragnarok the Cosmic Viking, Prism, Essence and the Martian Marshal (Chris), Futura, the Grasshopper, Thumbelina, Puma the She-Cat, Ms. Muscle, Sphera, Blazerina, Thundera, and Raggedy Doll (Vicki).

Chris and Vicki used their powers to battle super-villains, many of whom were created by the evil Master, who sought the H-Dials, though he never understood why. Years before, the Master had apparently slain the Wizard, but in reality he had released the Wizard's spirit to a higher plane of existence, where he could search oblivion for his original Dial.

The final confrontation between Wizard and Master was witnessed by Chris, Vicki, and Nick. The astral form of the Wizard had located the original H-Dial and used it to dial himself and the Master back into one being – Robby Reed. The grateful Robby then declared himself retired from super-heroics. He let Chris and Vicki keep their dials and gave his own to Nick.

The subsequent activities of Robby Reed and Nick Stevens are unknown.

Chris and Vicki later went to college, not using the dials much by then. Chris fell in love with a girl and stopped seeing Vicki. Sadly, the homesick and unsure Vicki then became involved with a degenerated cult called the Children of the Sun, who abused her sexually, introduced her to drugs, and manipulated her through various means. During this time, Vicki accidentally dialed O-R-E-H while in her human form, and transformed into a mad, ravaging monster, running amuck. Chris encountered her with the help from the Titans. After a hard battle, during which it was revealed that the Dial's power had started to internalize in her, Vicki was defeated, but she managed to escape without regaining her sanity.

Chris continued his studies while also becoming a recurring ally of the Titans, once being among the Titans kidnapped by the Wildebeest Society. Some time later, Chris started transforming uncontrollably into a new super-hero every hour, remaining in that form until he had channeled out a certain amount of energy. Somehow, the long-time exposure to the H-Dial had made the power internalize in Chris, as it had in Vicki earlier. He volunteered as a test subject at S.T.A.R. Labs in California, to learn about his new powers. Among the scientists examining him was ex-Titan Karen Beecher, alias the Bumblebee.

When the inactive Titans spin-off group called Titans West re-formed during this time, Bumblebee dragged Chris along as a new member, replacing the absent Beast Boy, Gnarrk, and Golden Eagle. This group, with Chris fighting side-by-side with Hawk, Dove, Lilith, Bumblebee, Herald, and Flamebird, only lasted one mission. Since then, Chris King has remained an infrequent hero, preferring to examine his powers at S.T.A.R. Labs. (Though he recently appeared together with every single member of the Titans when one of their comrades, Cyborg (Victor Stone), threatened the entire Earth.)

Later, Hero Cruz of the young heroic Ravers discovered Vicki's H-Dial among a number of articacts stolen by the Scavenger (the second villain of that name), a collector of weapons. Hero adopted the Dial as his own since the Scavenger had stolen his former source of super-powers, the Achilles Vest. Hero defeated the villain under the identity of "Human Justice".

Shortly afterwords, Vicki came back, looking for her Dial. As she touched it, however, she lost her powers and was restored to normal. At this time, she remains puzzled and disoriented, unsure what to do with her life. Hero Cruz is currently still using her H-Dial as his source of power.

Robby Reed's original H-Dial was for some time on display in Booster Gold's theme restaurant "Planet Krypton", but it is known that it will eventually be exhibited in the Space Museum of the 25th century. While some of the 30th century Legion of Super-Heroes visited that era, one of their friends, the young Lori Morning, was persuaded by the mysterious Time Trapper to steal the Dial. In the 30th century, she used the Dial to become a number of different super-heroines, hoping that the Legion would admit her as a member. After helping defeat the Time Trapper in the guise of Galaxy Girl, Lori found that the Dial was jammed, and that she couldn't use it safely again. Since then, the Legionnaire Brainiac 5 has attempted to examine the Dial, but whether he'll find out anything new about it remains to be seen.

Another version of the H-Dial was stolen briefly from a S.H.A.D.E. research facility where former criminal Johnny Mimic briefly used it until the original Green Lantern destroyed it. Mimic claimed that the organization had killed its previous owner and was planning on using it to create many more super-powered agents. Which previous owner has not been identified or which dial was destroyed.

CHRONOLOGY

For a definitive list of appearances of Hero Dial in chronological order click here

PROFILE REFERENCES

Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6 (August 1985)