John’s ProFan Review: Dream Police #2

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Previously: “Dream Police #1”

After the twisting cliffhanger the previous issue left us with, this issue of Dream Police picks right up and continues our slumbering trip down the rabbit hole of nightmares and dreamscapes.

This issue of J. Michael Straczynski’s Dream Police picks up right after we were introduced to a shocking, new character at the end of the first issue, and quickly moves forward with the eerily slow pace of normality in an extremely abnormal situation. The mystery of Detective Joe Thursday, his partner, and just what exactly it all means has quickly grown into a mindbending riddle of shocking proportions that have me eagerly anticipating the next issue. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I still understand exactly what is happening.

Speaking of mindbending, this issue deals with a very rare crime in The Dreamscape and what it means for The Dreamscape when those in the waking world go to sleep after taking illicit and powerful drugs. With that, the world of Dream Police that, up to this point, had felt like a bit of a whimsically askew fairy tale takes a decidedly more psychedelic turn. The artwork of Sid Kotian and Bill Farmer terrifically turns a world that had seemed just slightly different from our own into the realm of mad men and psychopaths; then it navigates between the two with seamless precision.

Lastly, this issue goes into greater detail about the inhabitants-some of the inhabitants-of The Dreamscape: changelings, architects, echoes, nightmares, nightwalkers, elders, wisps, supervisors, and shades. The introduction and explanation of so many characters and the hierarchy between them is packed very neatly into this single issue, and now I feel very much like I can live comfortably in the world of this series.

I hope you’re enjoying this series as much as I am; I will be back with a review of the next all new issue of Dream Police, whenever it happens to be published.