DCU Comic Book Reviews

JSA #64

Waking The Sandman, Part Two:  Night Terrors

October 2004

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Jerry Ordway

Inks by Prentis Rollins

Cover by Ethan Van Sciver

Synopsis

At the JSA Brownstone, Dr. Mid-Nite monitors Stargirl, Hawkgirl, Flash, Brainwave, Hector and Lyta Hall as the enter the dream world looking for Sand.  In the dream world, Sandman thinks the JSA members are nightmare that he needs to defeat, so he brings in Brute and Glob to help.  Meanwhile, 200 miles below the surface of the Earth, Power Girl, Wildcat, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Hourman are led by Cave Carson in search of Sand’s body.  Instead, they find rock creatures that are protecting the molten lava form of Sand.  While the rest of the JSA deals with the rock men, Power Girl grabs the molten rock and heads to the surface.  When she reaches the brownstone, the molten form turns into Sand’s body.  In the dream world, Brainwave attempts to unlock Sand to free him from the dream.  However, it is Hawkgirl who breaks the dream and frees Sand.  Later, the JSA has a welcome party for Sand.  Rex Tyler (aka Hourman) leaves the brownstone and goes home to visit his wife, who thinks he is dead.   

Review

The Sand storyline was mercifully short and it looks like we are (finally) going to get the Hourman story as he returns to his wife and possibly frees his son from the time point.  No offense to Sand, but this is the story I have been waiting for.  As such, wading through this two-parter has been difficult to begin with since I am not invested emotionally in the Sand’s plight, but it was made all the worse by the visit to the “dream word” and the drilling into the Earth to find Sand.  As I said in my review of the previous issue, I found neither concept all that strange, but taken together it seemed too much for the story.  It felt as if Johns wanted or needed to get all of the JSA involved in the story but in the process the team gets short shrift.  For instance, let’s take a look at Power Girl, whose small scenes in the past two issues have obviously been some kind of set up for something.  The scenes themselves seem like they should have an emotional impact, especially her rescue of Sand, but it fails to connect with me, mostly because the set-up is either non-existent or small.  It is difficult to keep track of a large team like the JSA and keep all of them in the book and I give Johns credit for doing a good job, but each story, regardless of the size of the cast, still depends on moving from beginning to end either in terms of  character growth or solving a mystery.  Johns attempts at character moments for multiple JSA members is laudable but it tends to devalue any emotional impact.-- Review by MRB

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