Dream Thief #5

written by Jai Nitz
art by Greg Smallwood

Dream Thief resolves the mysteries that it needs to, but more impressively, it also knows exactly which mysteries it shouldn't solve.  Yet, at least.  After escaping the war-painted home-invader from the end of the previous issue with the help of his police detective sister and his former running back best friend, Lincoln comes partially clean to his sister—and calls her out on her involvement in the cover-up of Claire's murder of Cordero—and completely clean to Reggie.  To his credit, Reggie is baffled and intrigued but not judgmental, even (or especially) about the sex.  As one of those great unsolvable mysteries and sometimes fantasies, the memory of sex as the opposite gender is one of those insights John's "talent" uniquely gives him.

As it turns out, the initial home invasion itself was a chain-link in the series of events that led John Lincoln to his current position.  Anticipating that the mask would find John, Patricio Brown-Eagle—who might actually be mentally ill, or might be exploiting the seemingly outrageous truth of the mask to exploit the penal system in his favor—broke in to eliminate Lincoln, and he returns to finish the job.  Even after re-reading the issue, Brown-Eagle's motivations are still very unclear.  Though he—along with John, John's father Fischer Ayers, and Ray Ray Benson—Brown-Eagle is a Dream Thief and therefore a supernatural avenger of unjust murders, but he seems to be acting on his own motivation when he tries to force John to kill himself.  Is he trying to eliminate all Dream Thieves?  Does he want to be the only one?  Why did he kill John's father as well?

Dream Thief steadfastly refuses to resolve some of the more intriguing and dangerous implications of the mask's memory sharing.  Though sometimes, especially initially, possessed by the murdered ghost of another person, John Lincoln appears to maintain his personality in the wake.  He has a plethora of new memories and experiences from which to draw, but he is fundamentally himself.  Yet, he writes to his father earnestly, though he is now dead, one memory collection among many in the repertoire of fellow Dream Thief and Georgia State Prison inmate, Ray Ray Benson.  It's a tease that makes me hopeful for more in Nitz's world, but there are enough answers to make this a satisfying conclusion to a far better-than-average mini-series.