I don’t normally review screenplays – and I especially don’t normally review screenplays that were never produced. But I am making an exception here. Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman has had a long road to being adapted for another medium. A film version languished in development hell for 20-some years before finally getting turned into an upcoming Netflix TV series and an Audible audio drama. One of the writing teams attached to the film was Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, most famous for writing Shrek and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. In 1996, they wrote a draft of a Sandman film. That draft is publicly available for reading on their website, Wordplayer. It is for this reason that I feel comfortable reading and reviewing the script – the writers have put it out there and, at that point, it’s fair game to be looked at. And, in all fairness, I actually think their attempt at adapting The Sandman is a relatively good one. Obviously, those comics are better suited for a TV series, but as far as film adaptations go, it’s pretty solid. (3.5 out of 5 wands.)
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I have consistently loved Simon Spurrier’s run on The Dreaming. Of all the Sandman Universe titles, it’s the one that feels the most similar in tone to Neil Gaiman’s original Sandman run. Much like Gaiman, Spurrier has been using his run on the title to muse on the very nature of storytelling. His run has been as much about the art of storytelling as it has been about the Dreaming, and its inhabitants. It’s routinely been one of my favorite titles to return to and when I heard that this volume would be the final one in his run, I was a mixture of sad and excited. It would be sad to see him go, but I was excited to see how he’d wrap up this story he’s been telling since the very first issue. And here we are, at the end. And how is that ending? Well, it’s everything I could’ve hoped for. Spurrier has taken all the threads he’d left dangling and woven them into a wholly satisfying conclusion, ending this story while leaving the door wide open for future creative teams to tell new stories. It’s simply superb. (Mild spoilers follow.)
I’ve never read a piece of Star Trek fiction before. Well, unless you count that weird crossover comic with Doctor Who from 2012/2013. In fact, my only real exposure to Star Trek, in general, comes from a handful of episodes of The Next Generation, the first two JJ Abrams movies, and general cultural osmosis. But when the trailers for Star Trek: Picard started dropping, I found my interest piqued. It looked like the kind of show I’d be interested in, so I made a point of watching it. At this point, several episodes have aired and I’m really enjoying the show, so I went and looked to see if anything had been released to tie into the show. And lo, and behold, there was this three-issue prequel comic from IDW, written by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson and illustrated by Angel Hernandez, that promised to reveal some of the events that happened prior to the start of the show. It sounded like the kind of thing I’d be interested in, so I picked up the issues and gave them a read and, I gotta say, it’s really solid. Though a bit short, Star Trek: Picard – Countdown tells a really good story that shines a bit of light on Picard’s history before the beginning of Star Trek: Picard. (Mild spoilers may follow.)
I really wish Doomsday Clock was better than it is. I love Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and I really enjoy the DC Universe; I even thought much of the lead up to this series was very good – or, at least, intriguing. But then the actual series came out and it was plagued by so many delays in its publication that it genuinely became difficult to follow the story as it went on. Unfortunately, rereading the whole series upon its completion didn’t really make it much easier to follow. But, I suppose, that’s in line with the original Watchmen graphic novel. (This review covers all twelve issues of Doomsday Clock and may contain mild spoilers.)
Birds of Prey is one of those comic properties that know very little about. While I’ve always been more of a DC fan, and Batman has always been my favorite of the DC heroes, I’ve rarely ventured too far outside of his main title. Of course, I’ve seen some of his various animated films and shows, so I’m familiar with characters like Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, but I’ve never been introduced to Huntress or Black Canary. So, going into this movie I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The DCEU has a historically uneven track record, with only Wonder Woman and Shazam being particularly good and this film is technically a sequel to the atrocious 2016 Suicide Squad film, so there was certainly no guarantee of quality here. Couple that with the slightly-unusual way the film was promoted and it became quite hard to predict just what kind of film Birds of Prey would be. Luckily, the film is an utter delight from start to finish and ranks among the best entries of the DCEU to date. (Mild spoilers follow!) 
As evidenced by my weekly coverage of the American Gods TV series when it airs, I adore the book, originally written by Neil Gaiman. It’s one of those books that’s super weird and truly hard to explain and honestly just needs to be experienced. But, sometimes it can be hard to find a swatch of time with reach to read a 600+ page novel. Which is where visual adaptations come in. Obviously, they can, and should, never be replacements for reading the original text, but they can often be a great way of experiencing a story you might otherwise not have the time to experience. Unfortunately, Starz’s television adaptation continues to both stray from the source material and be plagued by behind-the-scenes troubles. Luckily, Dark Horse Comics’ has an adaptation of their own. Helmed by P. Craig Russell, these three volumes have been a very faithful adaptation of the novel and an utter joy to read as they’ve released. Now, with the publication of the third and final volume of the adaptation, it’s nice to have a fully-completed, semi-visual adaptation of the novel – if you consider a graphic novel to be a visual adaptation; I do. (Mild spoilers for both the original novel and the graphic novel.)
Thoroughly Modern Reviewer 