Robby Reed came upon an alien dial which, when he learned to transcribe it, allowed him to "Dial 'H' for Hero", or so the saying goes. Johnny Chambers acquired from his guardian Professor Gill the means to access a formula making him a superhero. These various formulas in Earth-Two's universe provided a wide range of superhuman abilities, similar to the dial's letter combinations would on Earth-One. However, it was another individual who mirrored Reed in all his strange forms, just as another crimefighter had mirrored Quick's speed superheroics.
Robby's counterpart on Earth-Two, was young artist SScribbly Jibbet and his wondrously wacky and weird fictional creation known as "Burp the Twerp" aka the Super Son-of-a-Gun. While not relying on a formula like Johnny Quick or Mister Reed, the variety of superhuman abilities manifested by Burp was matched only by Robby. The origin of Burp's powers has never been revealed, although it was later shown that he and his world's Plastic Man had met on at least two occasions while comparing their powers. Although Burp could shapechange into elastic forms as well as displaying powers of other superheroes, his lack on intellect drew his attention away from serious use of his gifts to protect others. As for Johnny's cosmic twin, that would've been the equally quick speedster known as Kid Flash, nephew of Earth-One's Flash.
Robby once transformed into the Earth-One version of Plastic Man. On a later occasion, Reed’s evil persona manifested as a faux Plastic Man who battled the original pliable protector of his world. Robby later split into a hero and villain persona, before regaining his sanity after giving H-dials to two other teens... Chris King and Vicki Grant.
Various alphabetic and alphanumeric combinations allowed these Robby and Johnny to become something more. Among these were the following awesome abilities:
Several undocumented combinations yielded similar effects.After a series of adventures, Reed gained amnesia after he had saved Earth-One from destruction by dialing S.P.L.I.T. in order to become two individuals, the Wizard who flew off to defeat the villain behind the death trap, and the Master who ingeniously deactivated the global bomb. It was then realized by both individuals that the Wizard possessed all of Reed's inherent good, and the Master all his inherent evil. While the Wizard developed two more power dials like Robby's original dial, the Master slayed his good-nature clone. An evil seed then took root.
These two power dials ended up in the hands of Vicki Grant and Chris King, a pair of high school students in Fairfax who had a more substantial career in their various H-Dial alter egos than had Reed himself. Later, they discovered that they were heirs to a legacy, the locket that she wore and the watch that he wore originated from Robby Reed himself. As the Master, Reed attempted to reclaim both H-Dials using artifically created supervillains, before finally coming to his senses and forsaking evil. Any further career Vicky and Chris had as superheroes would be shortlived.
On Earth-Two, the power couple was the infants known as Sugar and Spike. Born Sugar Plumm and Cecil "Spike" Wilson, the blonde haired girl and red haired boy were instant friends since their first meeting in 1956. Dozens of their adventures, or rather mis-adventures*, were chronicled until 1971, and on a few occasions the pair briefly gained superhuman powers. For instance, on one occasion they were subjected to a size-altering ray that could shrink or enlarge them, another time to a volume X which gave Spike abilities comparable to those of Superman. On yet another occasion, a young brilliant frenemy of theirs developed a Tornado Tot costume for himself, which the kids borrowed while pretending to be the new superhero.
Tornado Tot was no doubt inspired by a previous superhero, Ma Hunkle aka the Red Tornado, who had operated in their neighborhood back in the early 1940s. In fact, Sugar and Spike eventually met the lad who told her tales through his artwork, Scribby Jibbett, who was now himself a father to Scribby Junior whom they met one fine day on the beach. While the devices they stumbled upon were seemingly unrelated, they were perhaps based on the same premise as Johnny Quick's mathematical formula. As for these kids, they later grew up to become professional investigators of strange phenomenon, perhaps inspired by their own past.
* As far-fetched as some of Sugar and Spike’s toddler tales were, this was matched by those of the younger versions of the Earth-One Superman and Wonder Woman, when they were Superbaby and Wonder Tot in Smallville and Paradise Island.
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