“When I Sleep, I Remember”
Creative Staff:
Story: Christopher Cantwell
Art: Adam Gorham
Colors: Kurt Michael Russell
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
Just barely but once again standing on his own two feet, Sam is cleaning up his act, looking for work and a place to live.
But he can’t stop thinking about the shooter, the 19-year-old who murdered his four friends and twenty others. Neither can the Blue Flame, who decides to try something different in court after his failure to find any divine cosmic help for humanity’s defense. As Sam digs deeper into the past of his would-be killer, the Blue Flame discovers a way to call the deceased shooter as an unexpected witness.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After a couple of months of a break between issues once again, Blue Flame gets back on track and Christopher Cantwell takes us through some very different material with the two main tracks. Cantwell knows what he’s doing through and the script and the characters keep you coming back for more with each tease. Adam Gorham made a lot of it really fun as well, with the creativity of the outer space sequences with all that we encounter there, to the more humdrum mundane material of Sam, but especially his time with the therapist this time around that really works well. The expressiveness of the cast is what’s key in this installment, however, and Gorham delivers on that quite well.
With the next issue being the finale, things are moving quickly here but not so much so that it feels out of place or badly done. For Sam, he’s still dealing with a lot of problems on Earth but has some positivity in attending the wedding. Even that’s problematic though as his sister is close to losing the house and he finds out that she’s been told about all his galactic trial stuff which raises even more concerns about him than there already were. To make matters worse, with his trial coming up soon on Earth, there are growing local stories about it on the news and that’s drawing unwanted potential attention for his boss where he’s filling in for his sister. And while her job may be safe, he’s being let go for the moment because of what he did. It’s a complicated piece there and Sam, who still feels that he did the right thing, is struggling to remain calm over it.
What Sam starts to do is to look into the kid that shot things up and caused all the problems and it’s taking him to some dark places on Earth as it goes back to the Night Brigade. But we also see this playing out in the Galactic trial that he’s going through as he calls the living memory of the kid in for questioning and that brings out further reveals about what happened during his time in inquiring for membership in the Brigade but also how one of the members may have cultivated him to become a villain, which would give the Brigade more meaning. It’s a curious twist, not an unrealistic one if that’s what it is, but we’re coming at it at a time where things really need to firm up quickly. There is a good sequence of exposition that highlights how Sam will use this in the Galactic trial as a way to push back against those in power there but it’ll be curious to see how this all ties together for the finale.
In Summary:
There’s a lot going on here but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to cram things in before it concludes in the next issue. But it also doesn’t feel like it has a strong way to stick the landing just yet as we get a decent bit of information without it feeling pivotal in a way. There are a lot of questions to be answered as we go into it and I know the gaps between issues have made the series less compelling overall. But that sense is definitely there as we get closer to the end that those that go into this as a full collection are going to have a fantastic ride. It’s been a strong series so far and I’m excited to see how the revelations here unfold more in the finale.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: August 24th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
