ICYMI! Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #5: At Dream’s End

It’s a wrap. The end is here. The grand final of Wesley Dodds: The Sandman starts with a grand entrance. Sandman comes crashing through a penthouse window with a grappling gun in hand while stunning Wheeler Vanderlyle in mid-crime. The series penciler Riley Rossmo jump starts the last issue with a splash page of the title hero crashing in through a window and using the debris of glass and papers to spell out the issue title “Shattered Lives.”

This quintessentially grandiose opener sets the pacing in both story and action, keeping it well maintained till the inevitable end. As the ultimate villain of the story, Vanderlyle, stands revealed. Sandman faces him gas gun to bayonet high above Manhattan in the same penthouse where the Fog met his demise. Vanderlyle jokes about the fortune he’s spending on window repair cause of Sandman’s heroism. He then demands that Sandman drops the pretense as he’s always known the vigilante was Wesley. Wesley obliges by removing his alter ego’s mask and equipment in a last-minute attempt for a merciful resolution. Squared up and each other’s sole focus, this pair attack one another with words. Vanderlyle gloats about using Wesley’s naivety against him and of the war-sanctioned massacre he can’t wait to create. Whereas Wesley reminds Vanderlyle of all his betrayals and once again tries to appeal to the man’s humanity by asking him to think of all the thousands of people he will have helped to kill. Vanderlyle responds by saying “millions” not thousands of people will die, paired with a horizontal slash of his bayonet across Wesley’s forearms. The unnerving pain of the deep cut gets intensified with Napolitano’s lettering of a large font “slash” the length of the panel as the background of the attack. Vanderlyle continues to taunt while quickly revealing and returning to his breast pocket the research journal. He then comes in close with bayonet raised high, anxious to stab Dodds. Wesley punches him dead in the mouth, which Rossmo captures in a wide panel that Napolitano focuses in on by encircling Vanderlyle’s head with the O of the sokk onomatopoeia. Wesley and empathy have reached their limit, so Vanderlyle follows up with another slash at Wesley. At this point in the story some of the footing is lost by giving readers an awkward moment. Wesley dodges the knife attack by performing this bizarre somersault on the ground with green bubbles forming around his head. The green bubbles have usually indicated that someone, has been drugged by sleep gas. But there isn’t any sleep gas used in this fight or the entire issue at all. This odd sequence is what cues up one of Wesley’s patented prophetic visions. A vision where Rossmo uses exaggerated lines and smoke to carve out panels. Panels of a hellish war landscape where Wesley’s father is a mangled battle fatigues-wearing corpse holding a scythe-like rifle who accuses Wesley of killing the world. Vanderlyle seizes the upper hand in the fight with a flurry of slashes and finally plunges the blade into Wesley’s gut. As he walks off, Vanderlyle thinks he’s won when Wesley pulls the bayonet out of his abdomen and pulls the research journal out of his coat. Wesley sacrificed himself so he could pick-pocket the journal away. WOOOSH goes the journal when Wesley tosses it into the fireplace, safeguarding the world from his hubris. Fully enraged from seeing all his scheming go up in flames, Vanderlyle grabs the poker and unleashes a barrage of strikes across Wesley’s face and body. Rossmo divides the pencils with a top panel of a brutal skull bash to Wesley and an upshot of Vanderlyle standing overhead. The top and bottom panels, are divided by ten mini panels that depict every injury Wesley endures.

Instead of finishing the job with the poker, Vanderlyle retrieves a pistol from his desk and tells Wesley to pick up the poker. Wesley refuses the order, thereby denying his killer an easy frame-up murder. BANG, a gun goes off and Vanderlyle’s robe becomes soaked with blood before he collapses and dies. At the eleventh hour, Dian arrives and saves Wesley by shooting Vanderlyle in the back. Six months later, we find Mr. Dodds in the study of his almost rebuilt mansion when Dian walks in with her little nephew “Sandy Hawkins,” if you know, you know. Ruminating over past deeds and future visions, Dian and Wesley look to one another for solace and embrace. Interrupting the romance, Humphries informs Wesley he has visitors at the back entrance who turn out to be none other than the original Justice Society of America. The pencils finish the book with an almost full splash of the Justice Society of America posing in their bright and colorful regalia.

It’s always a bit of a gamble for a comic company to bring back a vintage character, even a pulp icon like Sandman. Lucky for DC Comics, Robert Venditti took the task of reintroducing and updating Sandman by doing what any good writer should and getting to what makes a character uniquely engrossing. For Wesley Dodds: the Sandman, that distinctive quality is mercy, and Venditti displays that in every single issue. His weapon of choice, a gas gun, is non-lethal and either knocks out or makes evildoers confess, sometimes both. The original Sandman isn’t about punishing criminals or avenging innocent he’s about giving people the chance to choose a better way. Again and again, Sandman puts the greater good ahead of his well being. Even if it means catching a beating or taking a knife to the gut. It is always about saving lives with Wesley Dodds no matter what it might cost him. Venditti also remembers, albeit inconsistently, to weave in elements of golden age pulp heroism like Sandman’s Secret Lab, using 40’s slang, girl Friday, and best of all gadgets. Venditti even dares to have Sandman pave his moral path by making decisions contrary to popular appeal in an age of patriotic absolutism. The art team of Rossmo, Plascencia, and Napolitano fabulously capture the feel of the 1940s, the dark shadowy tones of pulp hero adventuring, and blow-by-blow action scenes. Rossmo’s layouts make most other current comics look boring in comparison, and his intricate panels keep the book gushing with excitement. Plascencia’s rich colors always seem to pop at the right moment. He couples that with his unexpected color hues to give everyone a signature look. Most surprising is Napolitano’s letters. His lettering, is so well placed they are embedded into the pencils in a way that makes them indispensable. I truly wish other letterers were allowed this level of integration. Essentially, the same degree of craftsmanship that was applied to all the stunning issue covers is what is served for interiors.