Dream Thief: Escape #4

written by Jai Nitz
art by Tadd Galusha

Dream Thief has always teased that there's something uniquely special about John Lincoln's mask.  It appears and disappears seemingly at its own volition, refuses to remain buried or destroyed, and shows some selection in its possessor.  And no other Dream Thief seems to have one like it.  Brown-Eagle paints his face in a poor replica, a pale shadow of the real thing.  The final issue in Dream Thief's second series confirms it.  As Patricio Brown-Eagle murmurs over the freshly dead corpse of Fischer Ayers, "The old man said your mask was special.  Maravilloso.  Let's find out" (Dream Thief: Escape #4: 4).  But when he turns over the body to remove the mask, it's already gone.  That Patricio thinks he'd have any more success taking it off an Ayers-possessed Ray Ray Benson is laughable.

The conclusion, however abrupt and satisfying to the immediate conflict, makes a few bold choices, none so bold as choosing to leave behind Lincoln's best friend Reggie—who gets another corker of a one-liner when Jenny accuses the trio of going after Brown-Eagle, "We're going to Six Flags" (7)—and Jenny herself, outed to Reggie as a conspirator to cover up Claire's murder of Cordero.  John Lincoln's at his best when he's with these two.  And Nitz is at his best when he's writing for Lincoln's personal life.  The confluence of John, his now-dead but spirit-possessing father, and an uninitiated Jenny is a masterwork of character beats.  Jenny's understandably unforgiving for her father's perceived abuse and neglect, mildly infuriated by Ray Ray's (i.e., her father's) attempts at charm when talking about him, surprisingly taken aback when informed of his death, but quick to recover her detective senses when she connects the John Doe murder to Brown-Eagle.  Jenny's sometimes infuriating herself, but criminally underused.

What their murderous inheritance isn't is honorable, which is something that had dazzled both Nathan Brown-Eagle and Fischer Ayers, the misconception that it was somehow about carrying out some sacred, honor-bound tradition rather than about evening the cosmic score.  John Lincoln is under no such illusions.  Unlike Ayers and both Brown-Eagles, who made this phenomenon about them, Lincoln remembers the victims instead.  The act of revenge itself is petty and largely inconsequential, that it is done is its only relevance.  As Ayers tells Brown-Eagle, "It's better that way.  He's pure.  Your dad and I thought we knew better than the universe.  We handed out our own justice.  Look where it got us" (18).  Ayers may be more right than he knows.  By leaving his family cold, he may very well have allowed John to become just what a Dream Thief should be.