Somebody’s First Comic-Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sleep of Reason #4
Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!
TITLE: Sleep of Reason Chapter Four
Writer: John Ney Rieber
Art: Eric Nguyen
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Rob Leigh
Cover Art: Tim Bradstreet
Editor: Jonathan Vankin
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: The Sandman is the guy who puts you to sleep at night, right? But why’s the guy on this cover wearing a gas mask? Looks more like he could give you nightmares.
IMPRESSIONS: This comic book seems to be telling two different stories at the same time. One of them is in the present day (which I assume is 2007, when this book was published) and the other set in the year 1997. Both of them involve guys in gas masks fighting terrorism or something. To be honest, it’s a little confusing.
The present-day sequence works much better, I think. We quickly learn the hero’s name (Kieran Marshall) and the situation is obvious. His buddy Jake is strapped into a bomb that he can’t remove without killing him. Also, his face is really messed up by the same guy responsible for the bomb. Vengeance time.
The other sequence features a guy named Wesley Dodds, also fighting someone in the Middle East, but this one is a lot more muddled. I can’t really tell who the rest of the characters are or why they’re fighting, or for that matter, why Dodds looks so old when he takes the mask off.
The mask makes for another problem. Since the heroes of both stories are wearing the gas mask, it makes it really difficult sometimes to tell which time period we’re reading on any particular page. We bounce back and forth so much that it gets very confusing. The artwork isn’t clear enough here either.
The book has some good elements, but the time jumps and confusion in the plot make it too hard to recommend to somebody. I doubt I’ll look for more of this story.