Customer Reviews

Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold

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There are people that do Neil Gaiman's world well (Mike Carey and Jill Thompson are two that come quickly to mind). Alisa Kwitney, a former editor at Vertigo attempts to tell the story of our near-future where the bubonic plague has struck and killed off most of the world's population a la Stephen King's "The Stand." Narrated by Ruth, Kwitney's stand-in, the story wants to be a meditation on what it is like to live simply because one is alive. Into this mix (and to justify the comic) appears a "mysterious stranger" who has a book that contains a stolen page from Destiny's book. How the page was stolen, how it pertains to the plague and the previous plagues through the centuries, plus the random appearances of Destiny of the Endless become the bulk of this bulky sloppy book. There is a story in here SOMEWHERE, but Kwitney seems to confuse her shallows with her depths with characters who are obvious archetypes. We've seen this story before, better written, with more clarity and skill than Kwitney delivers. The fact of her familiarity through her editing work on (or near) the Vertigo books DOESN'T make her writer of greater insight into the Sandman's world, which is really why anyone would pick this book up in the first place. For a read on a character that steps out and stands alone without losing any of the magic of the world of Sandman and the Endless, try "The Furies," which follows the story of Lyta Hall, the distraught former mother and destructor of the Sandman. That story is handled with grace, creating a new and unique story which doesn't attempt to force the history of another writer's book into its own. Ultimately, "Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold" acts as a crass attempt to capitalize on the Vertigo character. In a better writer's hands, who knows? But in Kwitney's: you're destined to be disappointed.

While this collection seemed to skimp on details in a few places, it was a nice read for someone still wanting more Sandman stories. However, the art is very nice, and appropriate for such a dark tale.

Written by Alisa Kwitney, this book is beautifully painted by, Kent Williams, the cover art and framing sequence artist, Michael Zulli in part one, Scott Hampton in part two and Revecca Guay in part three. This time, Kent renders his works mainly with pencils and watercolor washes.