By: Neil Gaiman (story), J.H. Williams III (art), Dave Stewart (colors)
The Story: Sometimes, you can’t escape from your problems even in your dreams.
The Review: In the canon of great comic book works, Sandman must be counted among the very best, a masterpiece of storytelling that surpasses genre definitions, period conventions, and even the boundaries of its medium. Given how pristine its quality, you have to wonder how wise it is for Gaiman to return to the project that made his name and risk disturbing its legacy. Can anyone, even the master himself, really capture such fictional magic again?
That’s the question that runs through your head as, with both unbridled excitement and no little trepidation, we open the pages to Overture. And it’s with enormous relief to discover that although the writer has aged, his voice is still young, the imagination as wondrously pure as it ever was. Gaiman’s genius is quite different from the brooding inquiries of Alan Moore, or the conceptual ambitions of Grant Morrison, or any other writer of his level. The brilliance he displays even from the first pages comes less from the machinations of his brain and more from the depths of his subconscious, as radical and breathtaking as dreams. Listen to his description of the dominant species of a planet plucked at random in his universe:
“Small, mindless, insect-like creatures who swarmed when the mood took them, taking on shapes capable of making art or exploring the solar system, until they fragmented back into tiny flying cells interested only in egg-laying and food… And, on the southern continent, a race of huge, carnivorous plants, with limited mobility, but beautiful minds.”
But this passage only demonstrates that Gaiman still has his craft, which few would doubt. What about the characters at the heart of Sandman? How do they fare under Gaiman’s pen after all this time away from each other? Quite like they’ve never been away, thank goodness. The Endless are fully realized from the start: Destiny, cautious and sober; Death, warm and nurturing; and Dream, still so richly distant yet invested, mysterious and complicated.
Perhaps the most appealing quality of this immortal family is how their natures allow them power and knowledge beyond reckoning, yet still leaves room for them to continue to grow and learn. Their daily activities are, to us, adventures of the grandest scale, but the events that really capture their attention are the things that lead to more profound discoveries. So when Dream is compelled by a force beyond even his ability to resist, we know we are dealing with something extraordinary, even if we don’t know what it is yet.
The beauty of this issue in particular is how inviting it is to all readers, new and old alike. I confess that to date, I still have only read at most two volumes of the Sandmen series for reasons too poor to bother you with. Yet Gaiman still made me feel immediately at ease, carrying me along his ride with no bumps on the way. Every scene, even the least consequential, holds great interest, points that you can return to again and again to re-read, explore, analyze, speculate. Whether it’s the fate of a shop clerk in early twentieth century London, the motivations of a creature who decides to violate the boundaries between waking and Dreaming, or the nature of the problem that has drawn out Dream in all his endless incarnations, you have more than enough material to keep you occupied for the month between issues.
If having a confirmed legend work the script isn’t reason enough to cheer, what about having another legend in the artist’s seat. The writing is top-notch; the art is its equal, as perfectly formed as Williams can possibly make it. If you thought his Batwoman work is marvelous, you will be astounded by the inspired leaps in quality he makes here. With every few pages, Williams makes another storytelling experiment and surpasses himself, producing more visual wonder than whole stacks of comic books. Who else can tell a story through the individual teeth of a bared grin? Who else can draw a plant with such scientific accuracy, yet imbue it with the shape and form of a person who is beyond human? Gaiman instructs us to “[i]magine a book that contains everything that is happening, everything that has happened, everything that will happen.” With Williams drawing it, we don’t have to; we can see and believe it, right there.
It would be a crime not to call attention to the mastery of the other creative players of this series. If Gaiman’s script has driven Williams to new heights of artistic ingenuity, Williams’ art pushes Stewart to take bold risks of coloring that easily puts everything he’s done on Batwoman to shame. Just look at the audacity and balance of hues he gives to a single, dreaming plant: the fleshy aquamarine and teal of its body, the blood-orange veins criss-crossing its leaves, the scarlet petals of its mouth, the indigos, violets, magentas, and golds streaking its mobile roots and stem. And then there’s letterer Todd Klein, mixing and matching fonts, balloon shapes, and colors to give each character his or her own voice beyond the content of their words.
Conclusion: In a single issue, Overture establishes itself firmly as the crown jewel of not only Vertigo’s current renaissance, but of nearly all the comic book output there is.
Grade: A
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – “Concatenation,” for those who are curious about these things, is defined as the state of being linked.
– I imagine Corinthian has a good incentive to exercise good dental hygiene. Imagine the cleaning costs alone.