The Sandman vols. 4 & 5

The Sandman vol. 4 & 5 by Neil Gaiman, various artists, 416 pages

Having regained his position as king of dreams, Morpheus/Dream is now on to other adventures, namely those that his mischievous sibling Desire prods him into. In volume 4 (Season of Mists), Dream finds himself traveling to Hell to undo a wrong that has lasted eons, only to find that Lucifer is quitting and leaving the keys to Hell in Dream's hands. Cue the various religious traditions and other stakeholders who want him to give it to them instead. Volume 5 (A Game of You) revisits a dreamer from a previous adventure who must battle her demons both in real life and in the dreaming.

I really enjoy Dream when he's particularly sulky and I love seeing gods from world religious interact (a drunken Thor hitting on Bast is particularly amusing), and Season of Mists really delivers on both of these things. That said, A Game of You always seems like a spin-off of the series, since Dream only pops up a bit toward the end as a true deus ex machina device. The main thing I get out of that is disappointment that we didn't get to spend more time with trans woman extraordinaire Wanda. But on we go with the series.