I really didn't know what to expect from J. Michael Straczynski when it came to this new creator-owned project. The writer's work has run hot and cold for me, and the awkwardness of the title didn't fill me with anticipation. What I didn't expect to find was a comedy, a satirical send-up of society and psyche. It's pleasantly diverting at first, but it doesn't take too long for the dream jokes to get a bit obvious and predictable. Mike Deodato offers up some of his strongest work in recent memory, but unlike the script, he plays it straight. There hasn't been a whiff of a second issue in the near future, as far as I know, and this first issue/one-shot reads a little bit like a pitch for a TV series.
Joe Thursday and Frank Stanford are cops, plainclothes detectives working for the Dream Police. They patrol the Dreamscape, a fluid world where all human dreamers visit when in REM sleep. Thursday and Stanford make sure things go smoothly, that the other residents of the Dreamscape are playing their roles and not mucking around with dreams without authorization. After investigating a couple of routine cases, the detectives find themselves face to face with catastrophe: a vivid dreamer, someone who can take control of his dream. It's a nightmare for the Dream Police.
Deodato's self-inked art here achieves a dark, moody and supernatural atmosphere that's impressive. The detail he pours into the art is impressive, and he makes the unreal seem real. The colors also reinforce that eerie, mysterious feel. Deodato also offers up some strong likenesses to real-world figures, Ellen Degeneres to Danny Glover. There's just one problem: the playfulness and over-the-top nature of the satirical script really calls for a more exaggerated and simple tone for the visuals. It's not that Deodato performs poorly here; it's that his style is a poor match for the material.
It takes a while before the structure of the premise is fully unveiled, but eventually, a cute, entertaining concept emerges. Straczynski is clearly having some fun here, exploring the weird way the human unconscious mind works. The writer not only poks fun at dreaming and psychology, but he mocks the noir cop genre as well. I'm reminded a bit of Men in Black, as we watch these two special protectors patrol a secret world that lies right on top of the normal one.
Maybe one reason this seems to be a one-shot as opposed to a series is that there's just not enough gas in the concept to keep it going any further. By the end of the issue, the novelty of the concept was wearing thin. 6/10
