GFT Retrospective #92: The Dream Eater Saga #12 (Ever After)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Retrospective Dreamer,

Disappointed Ticketmaster.

Apologies for spoiling my opinions right out of the gate, but one thing I do not miss being reminded of is how much hype Zenescope (and comic book companies at large, and even Japanese media sometimes) build with big events like this, promising to shake things up, escalate threat levels, and make good on forgotten plot elements, only to trade an epic final battle and impactful moments for a pointless squabble and a slow winding down after the seemingly unstoppable, world-ending threat suffers from a plot armor malfunction out of nowhere and can be defeated by a random extra poking it with a stick or something.

It's not like the Zenescope team are or were bad at things like this. The eighteen-plus-issue Wonderland trilogy, for all of its scattershot lore and endgame contrivances, managed a thematically powerful ending. Even Neverland, before the Tales came along to shit the bed with underwhelming retcons, made two grown men grabassing to the death in a shipyard look epic and nailed the thematic weight of its short epilogue. 

The Dream Eater Saga #12

Ever After

Turning from this gorgeous cover by Fan Yang (GFT #61) - or the badass EBas/Embury and Medina/Nunes covers, or the New York Comic Con EBas/Ruffino exclusive that 500 people got to spend their paychecks on in 2011 - the event flashes back to a time following Pots' tragic encounter with Belinda and The Lamp (with an Editor's Note that reminds us Zenescope was still trying to make fetch happen five years after its first announcement, and there has never been a Lamp miniseries to this day...again). The five cosmic forces visit Pots in a moment of tragedy and inform him (but really, it's just more, "let's fill in as many unanswered questions as we can whether it makes sense or not in case we end up canceling what we promised because the Sinbad world is a dead property now anyway" exposition for the reader) that he should not make any more wishes or a demon will be unleashed that will destroy the world. We find out later in the issue that this vague but technically correct duty, and not any backfiring wish he made on the Lamp like I originally thought, is the reason for Pots' limited, binary speech: he can speak, he just has the fortitude to choose not to. I like that.

While Samantha, Baba Yaga, Sinbad (who contributes disappointingly little to the fight ahead despite being fucking Sinbad), Samelia (ditto, despite being the crew's white mage), the Piper (ditto, despite being able to control minds with music, and I forgot he was even here), and Pots (who can somehow make four wishes, probably because the writers forgot he made one at the end of the Sinbad One-Shot) wait in the Inner Sanctum for Sela and Belinda to bring the Dark One as bait (they take a taxi to a magic phone booth to keep the Horde from finding them, which doesn't work because the story needs stakes.

Mmm...steaks....), Pan is "helping" the Dream Eater kill off Samantha's spirit guides (solidifying the message that Grimm Tales is definitely not happening, either) and a few random creatures of myth and legend.

And remember how the Inner Sanctum Of the Nexus was this special place beyond Earth, wrapped in layers of plot armor and undetectable anti-magic magic? Well, now, anyone can just waltz in and it's a desolate splash page dimension made of rock and monochromatic sky where the heroes, villains, and the Dream Eater (who is now just a generic Dark Souls-sized Doom demon so the "What do we do now?" "RUN!" trope can happen

and Pots can use his second or third wish to put the djinn - Spoilers: Pots' father - in a kaiju fight with him) can cross swords and shoot magic at each other until the lampcage glows so Sela can do her quick-time event and re-seal the Dream Eater for the rest of history (or until someone else remembers it exists and they try to end the world again). Yeah, the primordial failsafe programmed with an appetite for magical genocide across time and space and crafted with an amorphous, indestructible body that was much more intimidating and enjoyable as an old man...just...falls over between panels because the djinn drained its power or something, and "Hey, Sela, press X now!" It makes no sense and feels lazy and underwhelming.

In the ensuing chaos, we get little dialogue and action reminders of character dynamics (Pots and Belinda exchanging incredulous words and expressions, Baba Yaga revealing her motives to the Dark One, Samantha and Cindy coming to blows over Shang's death, Fenton being useful, Morrigan regenerating from the Dream Eater biting his head off because of the whole "not being able to interfere with other personifications of death or the Inferno" thing from the previous issue, etc.), and the deaths of Fenton (when he takes a knife to the heart that Baba Yaga meant for the Dark One), Pan (by the Dream Eater vaporizing him with his own magic, so that's two hateworthy scumbags I don't have to think about anymore), and Pots (slowly, when the Dream Eater kills his father/the djinn, giving him just enough time to fix everything with a fourth wish to "return everything to its proper place"). The only thing that really got me this issue was Belinda taking a hit for Pots, redeeming herself and making amends for her role in his fate.

Granted, further development of Belinda as a co-lead for Sela is also something of a hint that The Lamp wasn't going to happen, as giving a character a villain-focused prequel at a time when they have pretty visibly reformed could be seen as confusing. But Belinda is a fascinating character, and giving her this moment in an otherwise contrived and disappointing issue is a big deal.

In the aftermath of Pots' final wish, we see that Sela and Belinda have been transported to Myst (where Belinda seemingly dies from her massive wound because Sela can't get her healing magic to work), and Sinbad's crew have been reunited in their own time (down a cook and never to be seen again in a Zenescope title). On Earth, Baba Yaga is back in her cave (vowing to kill the Dark One the next time they meet because cliché villains are villainously cliché), Samantha is back in the Sanctum (distressed by the burden of her savior complex and believing that she can prevent further tragedy by studying more - because shock of all shocks, Shang wasn't that good of a mentor after all - and boy is she in for a rude awakening or fifty over the next few years...), and the Dark One is lamenting his losses (Pan, Belinda, Baba Yaga, and especially Fenton for some reason) and announcing the final stage of his plan (as if everything that has happened so far, setbacks, betrayals, and failures included, has gone according to said plan from the beginning, which is either impressive or eye-rollingly delusional; guess what I'm doing with my eyes right now‽).

It's also important to note that the issue closes with an epilogue, where the Innocent (with Dream Eater lantern in hand, and the Dream Eater itself now reduced to a small, red insect) stands in the Stonehenge-like dimension (I think), having a similar "things didn't go as planned but they went as I meant them to, so now I know that the main characters have enough plot armor to survive something much worse than a multiversal Pac-Man designed to eat creation at the end of time" monologue to what the Dark One did the page before.

As infuriating as it is to see two characters play off their cosmic-level shortcomings with all the delusional, sociopathic grace of a cat who just ran into a sliding-glass door at thirty miles an hour, it's almost as infuriating that said major threat to the Realms Of Power and the Nexus is revealed to be the green-armored knight we first saw as a game piece way back in Pawns (and who will not be used to the potential he is promoted with here): the Warlord Of Oz.

From what I remember of later appearances, he has almost no direct effect on the overall story (not even in the Oz sequel miniseries that has his name in the title) for the next four years of publication time. I'm glad he proved to be such a formidable threat to reality. And that my obvious sarcasm still works.

Okay, two more things:

One is that, as is commonplace in Zenescope titles, time and location transitions are indicated by parchment-colored exposition boxes, here indicating Myst, Earth, and Sinbad's time of 762 A.D. But you know what else gets a transition text box this issue? Epilogue. So, does that mean the Stonehenge-like dimension is called Epilogue? I guess it makes a sort of sense (and that's what I'm calling it from now on, assuming I remember to do so) because it exists beyond the "present" continuity of the story as an epilogue to time and creation itself, which is better than assuming the letterers lacked the forethought to differentiate their location and story segment indicators from one another.

And finally, you might notice that this issue's interior has three art styles, and that's because there are three artists and three colorists who worked on it. Roberto Viacava and Tomas Aira (the Salem's Daughter One-Shot), and Anthony Spay (Dream Eater Saga Prologue) bring their recognizable styles to this massive, double-sized finale, with Jeff Balke (The White Knight), Eddy Swan (in his first credit with Zenescope), and Jason Embury (like, almost everything at this point, including one of the covers for this very issue) as the colorists. Everyone is used to their best here, particularly Viacava when a panel calls for his elastically expressive style.

The overall story, as I've said, didn't quite hit the mark with using all of its characters to the level they could have been. Many of the One-Shot issues felt less like IP explorations than fleeting stops on an aimless journey to getting "necessary" characters somewhere slightly more "important" as a means of setting up the finale and the next wave of things that mostly get dropped or pushed back because people have ideas.

Actually, I lied.

Not that they matter anymore, but Anslied the Piper and Anna Williams (or at least, the spirit living in her head that she agreed to forget about) have similar mind-control powers. Are they related? Does that mean Samantha and the Piper could be related, too?

As I leave you with this question to ponder, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of these posts, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't collapse from offscreen plot inconvenience, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Awake.