The next major arc of “The Sandman” kicks off in this Summer Comics Binge, ‘The Doll’s House.’ Dreams are loose from the Dreamworld in our real world, wreaking havoc – – and the key to saving the world could be a 21 year old woman named Rose Walker in search of her brother.
Cover by Dave McKeanWritten by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Malcolm Jones III and Mike Dringenberg
Colored by Zylonol
Lettered by Tom KleinDuring Morpheus’ incarceration, four dreams escaped his realm and are now loose in the waking world. At the same time, a young woman named Rose Walker searches for her little brother. As their stories converge, a vortex is discovered that could destroy all dreamers…and the world itself.
Cover by Dave McKeanWritten by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Malcolm Jones III and Mike Dringenberg
Colored by Zylonol
Lettered by John CostanzaThe search for her brother leads Rose to Florida, where she moves into a house filled with odd residents. Meanwhile, two of the escaped dreams reveal a bizarre connection to Jed, Rose’s brother, while the third dream continues their murder spree–and collects disturbing mementos from their victims.
Cover by Dave McKeanWritten by Neil Gaiman
Penciled by Chris Bachalo
Inked by Malcolm Jones III
Colored by Daniel Vozzo
Lettered by Tom KleinThe chilling secret behind two of the escaped dreams is revealed, and it’s connected to a pair of lost DCU Super Heroes! Meanwhile, Jed escapes imprisonment, but lands in the hands of the third, murderous escaped dream! Can Rose find him in time to save his life?
What happens when dreams escape the Dreamworld? Nothing but trouble, according to Morpheus. There’s four dreams that have not made the dream census: Brute and Glob, two nightmares that end up setting up their own world, Corinthian, an unsuccessful experiment in terror, and the Fiddler’s Green, a sentient garden. These are major arcana dreams, and the fact that their locations cannot be accounted for is not good news Morpheus wants to hear.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Rose finds herself with found family and a mission to find her missing brother Jed – – who was sent to parts unknown after the family broke up. But she is also having strange dreams and encounters on her journey that she cannot explain. Something connects her with Morpheus’s world: herself. Rose is the Dream Vortex, the human at the center of the Dreaming. Of course, she does not know this yet, nor that the dreams that escaped are touching her life, and the life of those she loves, in ways that no one can comprehend.
Within these three issues we meet other siblings of Morpheus, Desire and Despair. Of the two, Desire gets the most page time. Strikingly beautiful, Desire has no gender, taking the shape of a gender as the situation warrants it. This may very well be the first instance of gender exploration in a comic book, and while the concept of androgyny is not unfamiliar to readers in 1989 thanks to the looks of Boy George and Annie Lennox, it’s groundbreaking in the generation before ideas of gender fluidity and identifying as non-binary becoming part of our daily vernacular.
The moments we spend with Desire do cement that they are rather devious, and you’re left wondering if they are behind the escaped dreams, and if so, what end that serves.
I found issues #10 and #11 to be the strongest of this trifecta, doing well to set up the story of Rose and slowly bring in how Rose and the escaped dreams will intertwine. The escaped dreams of Brute and Glob find themselves setting up space in Jed’s world, interfering in his dreams that serve as his escape from the reality of two guardians who leave him starving, chained in their basement while they collect funds from the state as his guardian.
Issue #12 takes us on a journey through the lives of Hector and Lyta, the superheroes that figure into Jed’s dreams. This is another tie to DC canon – – Lyta is Hippolyta Trevor-Hall, also known as Fury. In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths world, she was the daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, but this was erased after the Crisis, making her the daughter of Helena Kosmatos of the All-Star Squadron. None of this is explained well in the issue (I had all these gaps filled in thanks to the DC wiki), and without this knowledge for new readers, you cannot appreciate the depth of the characters or the connections to DC canon. If the superhero side of DC is going to tie in more with this story, a story that is bringing in a unique kind of comics reader, one who is not exposed to the cape and tights side of comics, more context for these moments will be necessary.
Continued belowI was most impressed by panel work, particularly in issue #10. The panels with Rose’s dreams in the Dreamworld take on a layout of their own, twisting and turning until they end up on their side. As I’m reading this in a omnibus edition of over 1,000 pages, you can imagine manipulating a rather large print work is quite the feat! The conversation between Desire and Despair takes on a 16 panel grid, something fans of “Sex Criminals” will certainly recognize. Looking at composition of those panels, you can see where Chip Zdarsky found inspiration for that series, and how he elevated the art form.
It’s also of note that there is a “guest penciler” credited for issue #12, Chris Bachalo. Initially I wasn’t impressed by his artwork, feeling it was too much of an abrupt shift from the previous issues. He cites Sam Kieth as an influence on his work, and from what I can see here, he is trying a bit too hard. He’s back for issue #13 (and eventually does illustrate two miniseries focusing on Death), so there must be something in his work that Gaiman likes. We’ll see come next week.
By the time we close out issue #12, Jed escapes his prison and Glob and Brute receive punishment for their escape (which was to build a new Dream King, figuring their master was never returning). But the man who picks up Jed in the car is one of the other escaped dreams: Corinthian. The terror is just beginning for everyone.
Next week we continue the ‘The Doll’s House’ arc with issues #13 and #14.
If you want to read along with me this summer, single issues and trades are available through comiXology. As of this writing, the first eight issues of the comic are also available on DC Universe Infinite. You can also check your local library for trade and collected editions of the series.
