Dial H for Hero was published by
DC Comics and was created by
Dave Wood and
Jim Mooney. The series began in
House of Mystery
#156.
Robby Reed spied a couple of criminals committing a crime and
fled the scene with the evil doers in hot pursuit. Robby sought refuge
in a long abandoned cave and there discovered a dial similar to an
old rotorary phone dial. One the dial were a number of letters and
when Robby dialed the word H-E-R-O, he was transformed into a being
with amazing powers. The trick to it was that the hero that Robby was
transformed into varied with each use and he never knew who he would
be. When he wanted to return to normal, he dialed O-R-E-H.
Robby used his powers for years fighting crime whenever he found it.
On one occasion, Robby even became Plastic Man, though how and why
this occurred was never explained. Robby eventually disappeared from
the scene and was not heard from for a long time.
Later, a young man named Christopher King was exploring an old
haunted house with his friend Victoria Grant. The two discovered two
dials in this home, one on a wristwatch and the other on a pendant. Like
the dial that Robby Reed used, these allowed the two teens to become
different heroes with each use. Unlike the original dial, they were
limited to having the powers for one hour.
Eventually, it was discovered that the two dials were created by a
being known as the Wizard. The Wizard was created when Robby Reed
used his dial and spelled out D-I-V-I-D-E. This caused Robby to
split into a good Wizard and an evil Wizard. The good Wizard
created the dials before he was destroyed by his evil counterpart.
The two friends battled the evil Wizard and eventually were able to
reform the good Wizard and merge them, bringing back Robby Reed.
For many years, Christopher King and Victoria Grant were not heard
from. The two had drifted apart as they had grown older, but Victoria
did not take the separation well. She fell in with a cult called the
Children of the Sun and they fed her slighted feelings until she
used the powers that the dial gave her to attack Christopher and
the Teen Titans. Victoria was defeated and since this time
Christopher has begun to switch from hero to hero every hour without
any control of the power or without using the dial.