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One of the most appealing parts of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series was that it was one of those rare long-running comic books that had a definitive end. It ran for a total of 75 issues and, for a while, that was it. Over the years, Gaiman had returned a few times to the universe in order to pen a short spin-off here or a short prequel comic there, but there had never really been anything major that expanded on the world of The Sandman - aside from Mike Carey's equally long-running Lucifer series, spun off from the character's few appearances in the main Sandman run. So, when it was announced that Gaiman would be teaming up with Vertigo to launch The Sandman Universe, a collection of four series inspired by and expanding upon the original Sandman run, I was a bit skeptical. Of the four titles that were revealed, there were two that interested me the most: Simon Spurrier's The Dreaming and Dan Watters' Lucifer. As The Dreaming was the first of the four books to launch, it'll be the first of the four that I'll cover here. In volume one of The Dreaming, Spurrier takes us back into the realm of the Dreaming where Daniel, the current Lord of Dreams, has disappeared just as things are going wrong. And it only gets crazier from there.

Neil Gaiman's original Sandman series was known for its dense plots and surreal imagery and The Dreaming beautifully continues that trend. From the very first page of this graphic novel, readers are assaulted with a barrage of crazy, fantastical imagery, accompanied by an immediately dense plot. To be totally honest, I'm not sure any description I could provide for this graphic novel would do the plot any real justice. Essentially, Daniel has gone missing and Lucien, Marv, and Matthew are trying to cope in his absence. Meanwhile, a new being has appeared in the Dreaming - Dora - who is angry at her perceived betrayal by Dream and seeking for her memories. All of these characters' fates soon become intertwined as the Dreaming begins to fracture in the absence of Dream. In order to restore some kind of order to the realm, Marv unleashes Judge Gallows, a nightmare previously imprisoned by Dream after having gone a bit too far with his goal of fairly judging people. Naturally, this blows up in Marv's face and everything just gets worse and worse.

Much of Spurrier's plot reminded me of the way that Gaiman's original run was as much a story about storytelling as it was a story in its own right. In The Dreaming, there are frequent meta-comments about who is narrating at any given moment and it's really interesting. The Dreaming acts as an ending and a beginning both in a metatextual way and in a practical, narrative way. It's the ending of the Sandman universe as we previously knew it and the beginning of The Sandman Universe as it will now be. In the context of the story, it's the ending of the Dreaming as the characters knew it and the beginning of something new. This combination of these elements makes for a really interesting read. Plus, the plot itself unfurls in a very interesting and surprising way. Like The Sandman, The Dreaming is largely character-driven - here, Dora's quest to learn her identity and come into her own makes up a large part of the character drama in the story, alongside Lucien's crisis of faith and strong desire to find Dream and return him to power before everything can end. The character arcs are every bit as compelling as the plot and it's nice to get to see all of these characters in The Dreaming take a more central role in this series than they were able to do in the original Sandman series.

Not only is Spurrier's plot really good, but Evely's art (and Lopes' colors) are stunning. The Sandman is known for having a specific, surreal look and Evely and Lopes' work perfectly fits into that established universe without feeling like a mere imitation of the work of all the artists from the original run. The characters still look like readers remember them looking, but Evely has clearly brought her own style to the artwork here - as she should! The artwork and the colors really mesh together in such a visually interesting way that you're immediately dragged into this world. Lopes' colors pop when they need to pop and they're more muted when they need to be muted; Lopes uses his colors to elevate every scene he's working on and the combination of his colors and Evely's art just really worked for me. This book was just as beautiful to look at as it was to read. The combination of all three of these creatives was a combination that worked really, really well.

All in all, The Dreaming: Pathways and Emanations is a really good start to The Sandman Universe. It confidently kicks open the walls of this universe, allowing it to expand in new directions that reach far outside of the confines of Gaiman's original run. The creative team behind the book understand this universe well and know how to tell really engaging stories within it. It's really nice to see all of these side characters from The Sandman have a chance to shine on their own, outside of Dream's shadow, though I am also intrigued at the little hints of Dream's current situation that are peppered throughout this first volume. It appears that the next volume will take us a bit further into Dream's story and I'm equally excited to see how this creative team handles that storyline while continuing to expand on all that's happening within the realm of the Dreaming. The Dreaming is a definite must-read for fans of The Sandman and it's a very worthy successor and continuation of this universe. ( )

It’s been quite some time since I last visited the Dreaming, so I was understandably pretty excited to delve back into one of the most innovative fantasy settings that I’ve ever encountered. The story opens being led by one of my favourite characters, Lucien the Librarian of the Dreaming, but all is not well in the land of dreams. Like the outset of the original Sandman storyarc, Dream of the Endless is gone from his realm and things have become rather unstable. Unfortunately in this case, Daniel, the newly anointed Dream, has chosen to step away from his realm with no real explanation and no contingency plan to keep things running smoothly. As expected, all quickly becomes chaos as the various denizens of the Dreaming attempt to bring order and rationality to dream, prevent the increasing cracks that are destroying the land, and find new leadership. The story overall is pretty all over the place, with not a lot of explanation from the writers and a general feeling like we’re missing parts of the story because we’re missing other books or connected material (though they don’t really exist), but it set up some interesting premises. Obviously most of the story explored the inability of dream-beings to rule or function without some sort of leadership, which is an interesting concept considering that dreams are rather chaotic by nature, but in their quest for stability we also explore themes of authoritarian leadership, well-meaning going awry, and rebellion from unexpected quarters. Ultimately, we’re left with a lot of questions at the finale, as the new ruler of Dream is a self-admittedly potentially insane AI, so I’m honestly not sure how this story is going to turn out in the long run… But we’ll stick with this chaos dream, since it might have some interesting plot points along the way! ( )

The Dreaming began as a spin-off of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, working as an anthology series of tales set in Dream of the Endless’ realm. The original series, which ran from June 1996 to May 2001 featured stories by Terry LaBan, Alisa Kwitney, Bryan Talbot, and Caitlín R. Kiernan. In celebration of The Sandman’s 30th anniversary, DC fully rebooted the title with Simon Spurrier as the writer. This new series does not follow what preceded it and takes place after the events of The Wake, when Daniel Hall replaced Morpheus as Dream of the Endless. The first story in Pathways and Emanations is from Neil Gaiman and explains that Daniel has disappeared, putting the future of the Dreaming in danger. Matthew the Raven goes searching for him, exploring the realms of other stories that appeared under DC’s Sandman Universe banner including Lucifer, House of Whispers, and Books of Magic.

Cracks begin appearing in the Dreamining, with blank humanoid creatures and a fractal object coming through. Worse, one of the Dukes of Hell manages to enter the Dreaming without the approval of its master and is only repelled when Lucien impersonates Daniel, wearing his cloak and helmet. Dora, a young woman with wings on her head who is not originally of the dreamining and has abilities resembling those of Dream himself, takes one of the blanks as a friend and sidekick as she travels to other dreams for food and resources. Unlike the other creatures of the Dreamining, who are not flesh and blood, she has the needs of a living being. Mervyn Pumpkinhead feels his world crumbling around him and, in his sense of powerlessness, frees a nightmare to help restore order, leading to further chaos. Amid the fantasy elements, Spurrier examines the nature of breakage and identity, whether a person who suffered needs to become who they were before or if they can redefine themselves. Artist Bilquis Evely’s work perfectly depicts the familiar characters from The Sandman while giving life to the new ones from this series, portraying them and their world with all the beauty and gravitas that the realm of the Dreaming deserves.

This volume collects The Sandman Universe no. 1 and The Dreaming nos. 1-6 from the duo, with some guest art by Abigail Larson, colors by Mat Lopes and Quinton Winter, and letters by Simon Bowland. The Sandman Universe includes writing by Kat Howard, Nalo Hopkinson, and Dan Watters with art by Tom Fowler, Dominike “DOMO” Stanton, Max Fiumara, and Sebastian Fiumara – the creative teams behind the other books DC published under the “Sandman Universe” banner. Finally, all the book feature stunning covers by Jae Lee and June Chung. Fans of The Sandman looking for more stories to read set in the world Gaiman created need look no further than this collection. ( )

Always nice to visit the Dreaming--but this series does not seem as well put together--there seems to be a lot of crossover going on. Will see how it works out for at least one more volume. On second thought and a rereading I don't really care for this -- just doesn't have the flavor of the original--the new Dream goes away with no ezplanation, things a re falling apart, violence, etc. Not as much feeling of bricolage of real myth. ( )