Jai Nitz and Greg Smallwood‘s Dream Thief continues! I loved the first issue, but how does issue two compare? Here’s the official description from Dark Horse:

The spirits of the dead possess John Lincoln’s mind and body while he sleeps! With a head full of dead men’s memories—and an arsenal of their skills—the new Dream Thief invades the grungy underworld of drugs and pornography on a vengeful errand . . . and tries to stay awake!

Yes, this issue involves John taking out a group of drug smuggling porn stars, just in case you were wondering if the book had any humor. Or if it was suitable for kids.

Unfortunately, not that much happens in terms of story progression. Everything gets bogged down in what feels like a “revenge of the week” and John’s personal story is largely ignored. We certainly don’t get any real follow-up on the letter from John’s father, who, as we found out at the end of last issue, is in prison. What Nitz does give us is a crime drama told partly through the dead man’s memories, which, in turn, gives us a more concrete understanding of how the Dream Thief powers work.

Greg Smallwood’s art is once again excellent; it’s not unlike Chris Samnee and David Aja‘s work on Daredevil and Hawkeye, respectively. That should tell you how good he is. His characters are simple, but well-defined. He uses the white spaces on the page to great effect, such as to streamline an action sequence, or to call attention to specific elements of a scene. He also changes his art style as needed, switching to monochrome with gradients for panels depicting memories. Not only are the memory panels beautiful on their own, but they provide a greater sense of the depth for each page.

Dream Thief #2 isn’t quite as good as it’s predecessor, but it’s still enjoyable, and the art in particular is gorgeous. I’ll certainly be sticking around for issue 3 (and not just because I’ve been assigned to.)

4/5

Zac has had Owl City’s Oreo song on repeat for three hours. Follow him on twitter.