A plan of sorts forms but has many struggles ahead of it.
Creative Staff:
Story: Nalo Hopkinson
Art: Dominike “Domo” Stanton and Aneke
Colors: John Rauch
Letterer: Deron Bennett
What They Say:
The mysterious infection doctors are calling “Cotard’s Delusion” spreads, trapping countless souls in the Dreaming and leaving their physical bodies yearning for death. To handle her own case of the disease, Latoya decides to go on risky adventures, believing she’ll feel alive the closer she gets to death, while her girlfriend Maggie tries to find a true cure. Meanwhile, in the Dreaming, Erzulie Dantor calls her war council of Shakpana, Turtle and Uncle Monday to find a way to take her sister-self’s bayou and boat back to their realm. Shakpana, however, seems to be more interested in making his way back to the Waking World…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a few issues in hand for three of the core series that I’m reading as part of the Sandman Universe, The Dreaming has grown on me while Books of Magic had me from the start. I had picked up the first Lucifer but forgot to set a subscription on it so I hadn’t followed up on that. With House of Whispers, it was a series that I was very interested in but now at the fourth issue I’ve found myself reaching my limit. Nalo Hopkinson has some interesting ideas going on in here to explore and I love Dominike Stanton’s artwork with how everything unfolds, but the structure of the story and the way things are being introduced has just made it a frustration to read instead of engaging or a joy to explore. Which I don’t want it to be because I really like all of the potential here.
A decent part of the story explores what’s going on with Maggie and Latoya with the infection that they have that has essentially turned them dead. Maggie may not feel anything but she knows right from wrong even like this and hates what Latoya has done in infecting others, though she realizes just how easy it is to fall into touching others to her chagrin. For Latoya, she just can’t care because of the nature of what’s happened and that just pushes her more into a kind of bland despair. She does try to pull back on it a bit because she doesn’t want to hurt Maggie but the simple truth is that this is what she is. And we see a few pges of others around the world that have been infected as well and the struggles they have in relationships and existence.
The time spent in the Dreaming has folks coming to grips with what happened before they got clarity from the rift water and that helps to put a lot of things right. Erzulie now has her ship rebuilt in this place that allows her to call a war council with her trusted ones to try and figure out what happened, leading to some exploration of what Shakpana has out in the world because of all the chaos that brought them here combined with the book from the Dreaming that has allowed it to expand into reality. There are interesting moments in the dialogue between the four before we see Shakpana imbibing more of the rift water in order to give him a different kind of clarity for dealing with the problem in the real world that humanity won’t be able to cure. Of course, it just sets him down a darker path instead of helping things…
In Summary:
And with this issue I’ve found myself canceling my subscription to this series. Perhaps it’s the kind of book that will click better in trade form when a storyline can be read in full. Something about how it’s put together here just keeps it from really working for me with the way it flows all over the place and with sudden turns that didn’t connect or work for me. I really love the artwork and getting a new aspect of the Dreaming to explore but the book just feels unmoored to me and I’m unable to invest in it further.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Vertigo Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 12th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
