The Dream Merchant #5

written by Nathan Edmondson
art by Anthony Hope-Smith

Edmondson's mythology has by now become almost hopelessly convoluted.  The monsters of our nightmares, the ones we imagine in our closets and under our beds are creatures from another world—or perhaps worlds—once tame but now made wild and ravenous by a race of overlords, the Gatekeepers, who control the bridges between worlds, a manifestation of their own dreams.  Winslow too now has this power.  The Regulators were once people of this other world before the Gatekeepers stole their subconsciouses and emptied them into slaves, abruptly abandoning their civilization and leaving it barren to fall into ruin.  Only the Dream Merchant escaped this fate.  Though they do not fear the unknown worlds they help to conquer, the Regulators fear a race of "old ones," whoever they may be.  When the Merchant scoffs at Winslow for not yet having intuited the whole of this vast conspiracy of cross-dreaming and conquest, it's difficult not to be a little offended.

Winslow may be the series' protagonist and the Dream Merchant its mysterious titular character, but The Dream Merchant #5 finally gives some narrative reinforcement to the care and interest Edmondson has devoted to Anne from the beginning.  This was not only a course in training Winslow for his dream-battle with the Gatekeepers, but one in preparing Anne for her part in that battle.  After all, a bridge has two ends.  Her delightfully uncooperative attitude with both FBI Agent Coads and his even more bureaucratic DHS superiors is truly winning.

Coads (locked in a holding cell):   "They can't do this."

Anne:  "Give it a rest, dude.  They clearly can.  The government does whatever it wants.  Like some drunk uncle.  ...No offense.  ...  Besides, I'm tired.  So tired.  And you're annoying.  So we might as well sleep."  (The Dream Merchant #5: 17)

Her call to arms, whispered to her in her sleep by Winslow in his dream world, is a welcome (if not wholly unexpected) surprise.  That the government suits—both DHS and FBI—might actually prove allies rather than obstacles is an equally welcome (and almost entirely unexpected) surprise.