Dream a little dream…
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Bruno Redondo, Juan albarran, Xermanico
What They Say:
Superman continues to experience his alternate reality while in his magically induced coma. But a loyal ally is about to shake up his world again.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Batman’s deal with the devil has certainly worked out for the moment as events allowed him to get up close and personal with Superman in an unexpected way, one that let him get the sleeping dust into his system to put him down hard like Wonder Woman was. This issue spends its time with the dream world that Superman is now envisioning with a different playing out of events that happened before (presumably, in material I have not read in the first two years of stories) that brings some peace to him in the end. Interestingly, we get a minor look at the real world here as the Spectre returns and realizes he can’t do anything at the moment, but you do wonder why Batman left him there rather than securing him somewhere else.
This dream world itself is definitely different, though if it’s all what Superman is dreaming, he lets himself dream of other people’s events in a bigger way than most people dream themselves. The start of it takes us to him beating up on Doomsday into orbit, but it’s thanks to Batman that he realizes that he’s actually throwing a pregnant Lois Lane up there and manages to save her at the last instant from death for both mother and unborn child. It’s a rather tense situation until that all comes to a resolution with her coughing herself awake, and it’s made more so by the Joker revealing the pregnancy that others weren’t aware of. There’s some good emotional stuff there between Lois and Superman that works really well, especially with the artwork and layouts with the sideways panel spreads that we get here to draw it all on a bigger scale.
While Superman has faced threats to loved ones before, this puts it in a different view and it’s not a surprise to see him wanting to end the Joker, especially since Batman has had to deal with the Joker repeatedly over the years – much like Superman himself has with his own rogues. It does work out well though as Superman is kept from doing what he wants by Batman, but Dream-Superman still gets his revenge as the Batman here takes Joker back to Gotham and snaps his neck during the driving a quick and brutal way. The dialogue between the two prior to that is of course a fun aspect of it since the Joker is all over the map from cute to disturbing, but it also works to see what it is that finally makes Bruce snap here and does what needs doing. A snap that also has him turning himself in. Which is, once again, a weird dream sequence for Superman to be having.
In Summary:
Dream sequence storylines are dicey things since it can provide you with things you want that don’t impact that main storyline. Here, with this storyline already being separate and diverging hugely in many ways from the mainline stories, well, it just feels like a lot on top of a lot. It’s not bad – in fact, it’s pretty damn fun – but it leaves me wary of how much time will be devoted to it rather than events in the main story where things should be getting done now that Superman is (temporarily?) down for thecount. With Superman’s time with Lois here being a standout moment as well as the road trip with Batman and the Joker, there’s a whole lot to like.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 23rd, 2014
MSRP: $0.99
