'The Dreaming' #20 Review: The beautiful series ends in the tidiest way possible for such a chaotic run
Spoilers for 'The Dreaming' #20
In many ways, Si Spurrier and Bilquis Evely's run on 'The Dreaming' reached its conclusion in #19, and all that's left for #20 to do is to confirm the dreamkin's gambit worked, and then a general tidying up.
'The Dreaming' #20 does just that, with some glorious pages that neatly encapsulate the entire run symbolically within the Kabbalah tree of life.
Like the first 'Sandman' series, the end makes every element of the entire run fall neatly into one long story, whose themes and elements were there right from the start. It's a wonderful ending, but as it points out, that's not really the point.
The issue not only ties up every loose end that sprung up through the course of the series but also restores the status quo to more or less where it was when the series began as if to help out the next creative team coming in to pick up the series.
Everyone gets their happy ending, in their own way, with the only inconvertible enemy wiped from existence. It's tidy, it's neat, it's gentle and it's soothing. The series ends like a pleasant dream or like a collection of fond farewells at the end of a school semester.
The run, while containing many elements that tie into the series' grand ending, was nonetheless never really all that focused on the ending. The series' strongest moments happened in issues between — from Dora's self-actualization to Rose Walker's tale of love and loss to Lucien's own tumbled journey in service of a much grander plan.
The characters have been through quite a journey on their way to the final issue, and the end rewards them all with a sense of peace and renewed purpose.
Evely's art transcends its usual vibrant magic into something truly glorious as a spark born again passes through the series' stages of development along the tree of life.
The art that gave every panel just the right amount of dreaminess and enough gentle warmth to feel a fondness for every character strewn across the series' pages — even the ones that were ostensibly the villains. No one is left entirely unsympathetic.
It's a neat ending to a brilliant series — a worthy successor to a story that's been largely untouched since Nail Gaiman first ended it decades ago. Spurrier and Evely knew exactly what they wanted to say with this series, and, having said it, left it with grace.
It's an important storytelling skill to know just when to end a story, and this run couldn't have ended more perfectly. "Ignore all the meta bull**** about beginnings and endings, if you must, the point is simply to feel," says the narration, a point that's reiterated throughout the issue.
'The Dreaming' #20 certainly ends with a good feeling of wonder, of satisfaction, but, most of all, of peace. DC Comics has made a tracker of just where it's possible to get a physical copy of 'The Dreaming' #20 here.