A little learning detour.
Creative Staff:
Story: Kat Howard
Art: Tom Fowler
Colors: Jordan Boyd
Letterer: Todd Klein
What They Say:
Pursued by nightmares he can’t remember and haunted by his inability to sleep, Timothy Hunter heads to the one place he knows he’ll definitely find answers: the Dreaming. But the cost of such knowledge may be more than he bargained for…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While we do get some level of interconnectedness amongst the Sandman Universe books they also do function alone. The Books of Magic take a step into the Dreaming this time around and it reflects some of the recent events going on, which is just coordination that’s nice to see unfold since Tim’s story could predate the changes there. Kat Howard has definitely delighted me for the most part with this book with its pacing and getting into the Dreaming at this stage is pretty well-timed. We also continue to get some great artwork from Tom Fowler and Jordan Boyd, especially with the detour that it all takes this time around, as we’ve had a mostly mundane world for Tim to inhabit. That’s been very well-handled with its bursts of magic but here Fowler gets to go a bit bigger.
Tim’s arrival in the Dreaming is something that’s almost done with psychedelic colors, which feels weird considering the darker tone of the main book recently as it dealt with its issues. Tim sums up the changes nicely in that there’s a new master of the domain that’s made up of a bit of the prior so things should be good, if a little weird. There’s a lot of differences to the place at this point that he’s taking in with some mild surprise and shock, but it’s enjoyable watching him trying to figure it out as there’s a kind of comfort he has in a place like this. And he gets some decent educational aspects as well, talking with Eve for a bit in the library about what is reality and truth when it comes to books created in the Dreaming by their authors. That we get a “different point of view” approach to it with the Cain and Abel story is only more amusing.
That story comes back in toward the end when he’s relaxing and talking with the two of them only to learn that some real time has passed here, which is amusing to watch as he panics and begins to look for his way out. But prior to that we get some decent time with the new lord of the Dreaming as Tim looks to bring one of the books with him. It’s a curious sequence overall as the two talk as they do because it makes clear that Dream, or whatever he’s being called at this point in time, sees how Tim is essentially hiding himself and the power that he commands. Which is pretty subconscious but worth doing since there are going to be a lot of people after him as time goes on. The two beings don’t exactly size each other up as Tim isn’t smart enough to really do that, but Dream definitely gets a handle on him and it provides some reveals for us.
In Summary:
With the next issue bringing the opening story to a close, which looks to take us back to school as the teacher there is organizing things to bait and capture Time, this one spends almost all of its time in the Dreaming. And it pays off well as there’s some good stuff we learn about Tim or how Tim is perceived along with seeing how the new version of the Dreaming is coming together outside of the actual book. I like the “certain point of view” aspect we get from Cain and Abel here, which is instructive for Tim to really understand, and a little time with Eve and Dream as well goes a long way toward making that place an interesting nexus. But it sticks to being mostly about Tim and that’s what delights here as we see him navigate a place that’s familiar yet not.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Vertigo Comics
Release Date: February 27th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
