Dial H #0

I was going to call this post "Dial H for Zero" but didn't want to confuse the easily confused. Also, the file name for the cover is DialH0.

According to the cover (and possibly Wikipedia), the rotary telephone was based on a mystic Sumerian device. I almost called it an Egyptian device before I switched that to Babylonian because of the woman holding it and then I noticed the cuneiform numbers and decided it was Sumerian. Too bad the rotary telephone didn't maintain the outer dial with the astrological symbols. I wonder how those would work? "Hey babe, what's your sign?" "Fuck you. I'm not giving you my phone number, you asshole."

I hope the original dial was created by Enkidu to help Gilgamesh defeat the Humbaba.

Plot twist: The first Dial was a Sun Dial.

The original Dial took four days and six adults to dial up the transformation. Every day at noon the gigantic stone block had to be turned so that the shadow fell on the correct segment to create a shield emblem. Laodice, a woman who dreamed true dreams, and some other youths remained behind in the city while the rest of the inhabitants fled from some mysterious thing, hoping their armies outside the city might stop it.

On the fourth day just before noon, the mysterious thing bearing down on the city and its army appears: Mushussu, the beast of Babylon.

Is this where Mulan's Mushu got his name?

Since this is the Beast of Babylon, I decided to actually look up the relationship between Sumer and Babylon to see why the Dial would have cuneiform. According to the great and almighty Wikipedia (which is merely just an old man and a bunch of territorial nerds behind a curtain), Babylon retained the Sumerian language for religious purposes although it was no longer a spoken language. And since the sundial has been here for as long as the people can remember, it's probably Sumerian in origin while this story is taking place in Babylon. Anyway, why the fuck do I care? I should stop getting hung up on the details!

Or not! That's the best part about reading comics. The visuals give so many clues to where something's happening and what's going on that a good writer doesn't need to spell everything out in a page full of Narration Boxes.

So, back to the story, Laodice does not run from the Beast. She calmly waits for noon to arrive on the fourth day before touching the symbol on the sundial just as Mushussu approaches.

If this had been Sumer, that could have been Humbaba about to bite her head off.

Too bad for Mushusuu, he arrived a second too late.

Apparently the Dial's power exists outside of time since I'm almost positive that Bumper Car is anachronistic. No, wait. Rereading the Wikipedia entry on Babylon, it says they invented the Bumper Car for the culminating event during their Festival of the Lost Penis (alternately known as The Festival of the Weeping Vagina).

Bumper Carla bumps the Beast into Fairground Hell and saves the day. Everyone rejoices and bows down to Laodice and thanks her for saving their lives. Laodice acts magnanimous and does not remind them how often they laughed and jeered at her when she was telling them her dreams. Except the few times she dreamt about fucking Ishtar on a stage with men throwing coins at them. They all wanted to hear that dream over and over again.

After Mushussu is gone, Laodice notices that the Wacky Sundial has disappeared cracked into rubble. Laodice becomes the city's wise woman while her friend Stratonice travels the world seeking clues to the magic sundial.

Are those the hanging gardens! What an ancient wonder!

Laodice's friend says she never found out any more about this man. But after a few panels where the speech bubbles are assigned to the wrong person, Laodice takes her friend down to the dungeon where she shows her a wizard that came to Babylon just three days ago. Perhaps this man was not following her but seeking where she had come from?

Shit! That looks like Nelson's ham hand! Or Anguished Fat Guy's!

But it's not. It's the hand of a man from another world. His name is Slim and he can open portals between worlds. He's come to find Bumper Carla who is on a mission of vengeance. Because when Laodice used the Sundial, she stole Bumper Carla's powers for a short time. In that time, many innocent people died in her home world of The Fair. Bumper Carla blamed the person who stole her powers. Through some better than Batman detective work and some fantastic research that probably involved Wikipedia, Bumper Carla figured out where her powers went. She portaled to Babylon and hunted down Laodice, killing her because Laodice never spoke with Slim to hear his warning. And that's pretty much the end of that story.

So while China never gives us an origin for the Dial, he does introduce some serious conflict and problems with using the Dial. Nelson is stealing powers from beings from other worlds and dimensions to use as his own. During that time, they become normal. Does this mean every other issue will have Nelson fighting crime and then every other issue after that will be Nelson saving his own ass from the people he stole the powers from? Whatever the case, Nelson has already pissed off a hell of a lot of super powered people in the first few issues.

Dial H #0 Rating: Problematic!