The Sandman: Overture #3 – Review

By: Neil Gaiman (story), J.H. Williams III (art), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: What’s a road trip without a hitchhiker?

The Review: I suppose we’ll have to resign ourselves to the fact that we’ll only get an issue from this series every few months—five between #1 and #2, and four between #2 and now. There are only three conditions under which that kind of timing is acceptable. First, it’s got to be expected; no one enjoys a surprise delay. Second, the creative team has to earn it; I think Gaiman-Williams get an easy pass here. Third, and most importantly, the issue you get hast to be worth the wait.

That means real progress in the story, but what that means in for the purposes of this title
is a little harder to make out. Sandman is not the type of series that advances by leaps and bounds. Its pacing is sedate and leisurely; at times, there’s little action at all. Yet all the while, Gaiman is moving the pieces of the plot, unobtrusively, like a chess player waiting for the precise moment to reveal that he’s had you in checkmate all along. Not very much may happen in an issue, but that’s not say it’s unproductive.

Sandman: Overture #2 – Review

By: Neil Gaiman (story), J.H. Williams III (art), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: It takes only the end of one dream to start the end of the universe.

The Review: Does anyone remember the scheduling debacle that was Jonathan Hickman’s S.H.I.E.L.D., otherwise known as the First Arc That Would Never End? You can forgive parched periods between issues if each one carried enough substance to tide you over to the next, but it’s too much for someone to sustain interest for months on the typical issue. It’s now been five months since Sandman #1; Gaiman needs to make #2 worth the wait.

Certainly, this is a dense issue, full of material you have to sift through for answers, much like any dream. The opening of Daniel, the most current Dream, bears no relation to the affairs of his past self. If there’s a connection at all, you’ll have to dig for it under all of Mad Hettie’s troubled backstory and Daniel’s riddles concerning a watch she had hidden: “Time goes in so many ways… It runs. Sometimes it even flies. But as for telling the time…sometimes what time tells us is for it alone to know.”

Fortunately, Gaiman is more direct in the rest of the issue—direct for Gaiman, that is, meaning a lot of metaphor and musing* even when the characters insist on getting to the point. The discussion among the various Dreams almost resembles a Socratic exchange at certain points, as each Dream strives to make his point and take control of the conversation. “There is no us, there is only I,” says one.

“Unarguably, there is us,” another contradicts, “a multiplicity of viewpoint. More than one of me is, by definition, us.”

They get back on track eventually, realizing the manifestation of Dream’s countless aspects is a graphic way of showing that one has been “removed from existence,” and “the orderly transfer to another facet of Dream has been interrupted.” Even the why of such a phenomenon is laid bare, as the Dream of the first created things explains, “The universe has lived too long. It is time for it to end… It is in the darkness… I talk of laws… The laws on which the universe runs. The law of conservation of reality.”

Sandman: Overture #1 – Review

By: Neil Gaiman (story), J.H. Williams III (art), Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: Sometimes, you can’t escape from your problems even in your dreams.

The Review: In the canon of great comic book works, Sandman must be counted among the very best, a masterpiece of storytelling that surpasses genre definitions, period conventions, and even the boundaries of its medium.  Given how pristine its quality, you have to wonder how wise it is for Gaiman to return to the project that made his name and risk disturbing its legacy.  Can anyone, even the master himself, really capture such fictional magic again?

That’s the question that runs through your head as, with both unbridled excitement and no little trepidation, we open the pages to Overture.  And it’s with enormous relief to discover that although the writer has aged, his voice is still young, the imagination as wondrously pure as it ever was.  Gaiman’s genius is quite different from the brooding inquiries of Alan Moore, or the conceptual ambitions of Grant Morrison, or any other writer of his level.  The brilliance he displays even from the first pages comes less from the machinations of his brain and more from the depths of his subconscious, as radical and breathtaking as dreams.  Listen to his description of the dominant species of a planet plucked at random in his universe:

“Small, mindless, insect-like creatures who swarmed when the mood took them, taking on shapes capable of making art or exploring the solar system, until they fragmented back into tiny flying cells interested only in egg-laying and food…  And, on the southern continent, a race of huge, carnivorous plants, with limited mobility, but beautiful minds.”

Avenging Spider-Man #19 – Review

By: Christopher Yost (Writer), Marco Checchetto (Artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist)

The Story: Spider-Ock is stuck in his head for a nightmarish introspection. Sounds like a cue for an obscure character team-up!

The Review: Well, this is quite a jump in partner. First starting with the X-Men, then the Future Foundation, with Thor next, it seems that this title wanted to be a little bit more experimental with the choice of guest-star.

This time, Yost chose a much more obscure character called Sleepwalker, one that I’ve actually never heard of, which is oddly a very smart choice. By putting such a smaller character with the marketing beast that is Spider-Man (even the Spider-Ock version), it can makes for unpredictable stories with lesser-known character, putting the spotlight on them to allow us readers to see their potential. Of course, it works rather well on paper, but it is not quite the same in the execution here.