The Dreaming #9 Review and **SPOILERS**

That Damned Daniel

Written By: Simon Spurrier

Illustrated By: Bilquis Evely

Colors By: Mat Lopes

Letters By: Simon Bowland

Cover By: Yanick Paquette & Nathan Fairbairn

Edited By: Molly Mahan

Associate Editor: Amedeo Turturro

Assistant Editor: Maggie Howell

Executive Editor: Mark Doyle

Cover Price: $3.99

On Sale Date: May 1, 2019

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

After our little dalliance in the real world, looks like we’re headed back to the Dreaming to find out what’s going on with Dora, Mervyn…and that weird doll-faced moth thing. Yeesh, that thing freaks me out. Let’s see what’s new in The Dreaming #9, which I have reviewed for your convenience, right here!

Explain It!

After having ditched him unceremoniously in between dimensions a few issues back, Dora is having a crisis of conscience about Lucien. She wants the Creepy Moth to bring him back from wherever, and indeed all of the inhabitants of the Dreaming want the moth to solve their problems. Thing is, the moth has problems of its own; it doesn’t understand itself or what’s going on around it. I’ve felt that way for the last twenty years, and it hasn’t slowed me down. After finding one of Daniel Dream’s fingernails wreaking havoc in some spooky twilight dimension, the moth concurs with the general consensus: they’ve got to get Daniel back, and find out why he’s losing his fingernails.

Using a Baku as a dreamtime bloodhound—and riding him like He-Man rides Battlecat—Dora and Matthew the Raven flit through dimensions, hunting down the scent of Daniel Dream. They finally come to the Land of Faerie, where…say, wasn’t Tim Hunter and Dr. Rose there in the last Books of Magic? They chat it up with Nuala,the glamour-less fairy from the original Sandmanrun, who brings them up to speed: Daniel was there, looking like reheated crap, asking the Fairy Queen Titania to watch some of his stuff while he went off to get that tramp stamp removed. She’s only all too willing, and knowing that Nuala was a friend of the original Morpheus, asks her what the rubber duck is that Daniel left—and Nuala reveals that it is he Eye of Agommotto.

Er, I mean the Fire Opal, one of the trinkets Sandman carries around to remind him of his sainted mudder. Now Titania, always looking for a way to screw others, wants to possess the gem, but cannot due to the rules of bargaining, never mind the “finders, keepers” caveat. When Daniel returns to Faerie, looking more like a pile of shit than ever, Titania offers to buy the stuff he’s keeping in her bathroom, and he can buy it back when he’s done with his laser treatments. Thus, Daniel leaves with some fairy loot, but more importantly is that Nuala and he ran game on Titania! The rubber duck was not the Fire Opal at all, but an actual rubber duck. I mean, Daniel made it, so it probably farts firecrackers, but it’s otherwise a normal thing. When Nuala gets to that part of the story, Titania, having detected the ruse, is on her way with hordes of beasts in a wide panel that should be framed and be hanging in a museum. Nuala was left with some defenses, but for the rest of the team, it’s back on the Baku and off to the next dimension—where they meet a gigantic blind guy riding an even more gigantic bear!

There’s also a pretty important scene where the moth is talking to Cain about having killed his own brother, and something something genesis of mankind, but I was really into Nuala’s story. It unfolded very nicely and was illustrated so well that I didn’t detect the Fire Opal switcheroo until it was upon us. And the characterizations of these folks from the old Sandman series seemed spot-on to me. The flagship book of The Sandman Universe is really hitting every target for Sandman fans, and if you’re trade-waiting…well, that makes sense. But you should consider buying the singles, the story is that good!

Bits and Pieces:

We leave the story of Lucien and Rose Walker and return to the Dreaming and the story of where the flipping heck Daniel is at. We don’t find Daniel, but we do get a cool story of his time in Faerie, and, uh…one of his fingernails. What a weird book.

8.5/10