ICYMI! Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #4: A Bitter Pill

Unconscious, unmasked, and unhoused the Sandman is having a series of unfortunate events. Barely surviving his first face-to-face confrontation with The Fog, the man responsible for the calamitous past few weeks of life. Wesley Dodds lies trapped in a prison of the mind thanks to his very own concoction used against him. The title page has a gas-formed grim reaper circling in on Wesley at the ruins of his burnt-out home.

What follows is three absolutely gorgeous full-spread splash pages that are as thoughtful as they are visually stunning. Vendetti’s consistent portrayal of Wesley Dodds as the conscientious vigilante with or without the mask is brought into perfect clarity by Rossmo’s beautiful interpretation of Wesley’s introspective view on life. An intimated depiction of Wesley’s past failing of his youth followed by present torment of machination out of his control, and concludes with future worries of war and fantastic battles between heroes and villains he can’t possibly understand. At this point in the mini-series, I would be hard-pressed to recommend a more wondrously drawn book currently out. Doods awakens in bed in the most art deco room the 1940s can muster with Dian tending to him. She informs him he’s been unconscious for two days and that he needs to take it easy. Dodds fills in Dian on all that’s happened to him and comes to the logical conclusion that the mastermind behind all of this is not Kluge or even The Fog but Colonel Breckinridge and that Mr. Vanderlyle has something to do with it.

This all makes sense and the story is clearly leading readers in this direction but it jumps too fast to this judgment with little proof, especially if the reader considers that the true identity of The Fog is still unknown. Now dressed and brimming with accusations Dodds is at Vanderlyle’s penthouse door but hears a scuffle and barges in to find The Fog unmasked and still wounded choking out Mr. Vanderlyle. With this set up Rossmo, Plascencia, and Napolitano produce a rip-roaring action scene. In each other’s sights, The Fog pulls a gun but can’t properly aim it as Dodds nails him with a thrown lamp, which is keenly paced by Rossmo in small block panels at the top of the page. The one-sided fistfight begins and every blow and facial expression is shown in more small block panels that Napolitano injects with KRAK, KLOK, and KERAK.

Dodds asks The Fog for the truth but responds with a knife slash, spelled in blood, across the abdomen. The Fog follows that up with a forward lunge that Dodds counter with a kick, sending The Fog crashing through a set of glass doors out of the penthouse to fall to his death. Dodds’s horror of what he’s done and The Fog in mid-air plummeting to his demise are portrayed in three small block panels layered over the splash page of The Fog smashing into the roof of a parked taxi. Napolitano’s hollow lettered BAM encases The Fog’s body hitting the cab on the street. Plascencia tactfully highlights the darker earth tones of the penthouse during the fight with the reds of The Fogs cape and the blood coming off the combatants. It all ends with Dian barging into the penthouse with an oddly shaped gun and asking Wesley what’s he gonna do now with a large image of an army barracks taking up half the page, indicating that he has to confront Colonel Breckinridge.