• Story: G Willow Wilson
• Art: Nick Robles

It’s good but doesn’t feel compelling, at least so far. One thing that’s clear is it’s beautifully constructed – Nick Robles’ art is as gorgeous as you’d imagine and Mat Lopes’ sensitive colour palette is excellent in setting the mood for the different levels it feels G Willow Wilson is aiming her story from. It’s interesting stuff, merging Lindy into a Shakespeare dream, allowing her to look at the diverse set of voices attributed to the subject of her research, as her voice is oppressed by her PhD supervisor. Given the effectiveness which which Neil Gaiman used The Bard in past Sandman classics, it’ll be interesting to see how Wilson takes this opportunity to use him to look at the issues around diversity her protagonist’s supervisor dismisses . Meanwhile Ruin escapes into the real world in Lindy’s body, switching her gender in the process, and decides fellow exile Jophiel (who appears to be gay) is the only one who can help with the childcare nightmare (cute too, given Ruin is a nightmare) he creates through his escape. This too is an enjoyable look at diversity and intersectionality, and I hope both strands dovetail together as the story progresses.

For now things feel a disjointed, maybe there are more story ideas than plot currently in play – there are only three principal characters (four if you count Jophiel, whose purpose isn’t yet clear), but their stories don’t yet intersect engagingly. Lindy is a nice character, but hardly compelling, and for a story published under DC’s Black Label it all feels very safe, tame even. Also as much as I adore Robles, for this story to take off it feels like it needs more of an artistic edge, and for the tone to vary more often than it does through the linework – instead much of that’s left to Lopes’ remarkable colours. This isn’t exactly a huge peeve though, and we are treated to lovely pages like the one above! Lindy is likeable, Ruin has potential, but I’m not sure why Morpheus himself is needed – adding such an iconic character, (almost) always used sparingly and drawn iconically, feels a little overly casual, adding more confusion to the tone of an otherwise excellent book. It’s not as good as it feels it should be so far, plot, story and art need to settle down, but I’m definitely up for seeing what’s next.