The Sandman: Overture #2

"Chapter Two"
written by Neil Gaiman
art by J. H. Williams III

"Chapter One" was an enigma.  An opulent, well-formed and graceful enigma, but an enigma all the same.  The strange and so-far unexplained death of Flower-Dream precipitated the gathering of the Dreams, an omen of trouble and war.  The final suggestive promise of the Concatenation of Dreams is finally realized here, a council of sorts among the many guises Dream takes for all the dreamers.  And there are many, each with his own voice among the throng.  And it is here, in this council, that The Sandman: Overture begins to show its shape.

Old echoes, the themes of Gaiman's original series, reverberate through this one:  fate and destiny matched against free will, mercy counterbalanced with regret, responsibility and obligation in overwhelming and inhuman cosmic matters.  New and old Dream—the Dream Lord captured in 1916 and his white-cloaked successor Daniel—are ensnared in an apocalypse of time, peoples and worlds and Dreams with them are disappearing.  Dream must undertake a journey to rectify the universe, a journey, it seems, to meet his father.

Tellingly, it is Cat-Dream whose speech bubble most resembles Dream's own, speech in his own tone and timber spoken without saying a word.  And it is Cat-Dream that chooses (probably chooses) to go with him where the Endless may not go.

No comics series has ever quite looked like Sandman, not even any of its numerous spin-offs.  It was a series that cultivated a unique aesthetic which carried across multiple pencilers, inkers and colorists over several years.  Williams has convincingly resurrected this style, forging an unexpected but welcome visual continuity with the original run.  Layouts are simultaneously geometric and organic and smooth, inspired by art nouveau design, vascular architecture, and Escher-esque construction.  The Vortex's panels, in particular, blend the plant-patterned and the cosmic, as she herself bathes elegantly and languorously in a pitch-black pool.  Most of Dream's journey bleeds color, a stylish and psychadelic saturation, which—along with the dense, busy illustrations—overwhelms the page with impressive detail.

[May 2014]