Sai: Dimensional Rivals #3: Kaleidoscope Dreams

Sai’s journey for the seventh stone takes her through the furthest reaches of the multiverse, bending and shaping her perception of self and reality. Where she is chasing a cat through the sky, fighting an old foe that she has seemingly never met, or even being turned into a caterpillar. The longer she travels, the more her own destiny comes into view. 

This anthology is less about telling a complex narrative through dialogue, and more about pulling the reader into these complex and varied worlds the same way Sai is. The surrealism of the narrative is meant to immerse you in the journey in an abrasive way that forces you to engage with the medium in it’s purest form, and in that it succeeds on multiple levels. This time around, Peach enlists the help of Elena Casagrande, Bengal, and Mike Del Mundo. 

Casagrande starts us off with Sai chasing a version of Sleeper (the symbiote cat) who appears to have the elusive seventh gem lodged in its forehead. Casagrande beautifully illustrates this chase in a multi-panel format that shows both Sai and her quarry falling through the pages in an off beat manner as if they are skipping around the panels. The floating islands they are running on makes me think about Angel Island from Sonic the Hedgehog, helped along by Casagrande’s beautiful cascade of vibrant colors. 

Bengal is next, and while his backgrounds aren’t as visually interesting as Casagrande’s (trading the lively floating islands for a pure white space inside of Battleworld), that doesn’t make his portion any less important. Here Sai faces off against a woman  named Eternia who claims to have faced versions of her before. Bengal is a master of fast-paced kinetic action and that skill is on full display here as Sai and Eternia cross blades in a battle that breaks boundaries on the page. 

Finally, Mike del Mundo slows things down by giving Sai a different kind of trial. Turned into a caterpillar, Sai has to eat her way through the skeletal remains of various X-Characters in a dystopian earth full of plants. His well-known painterly style fits perfectly as a continuation of this story, ending with Peach Momoko bringing Sai back to Galackto for her next adventure.