Responding to Dana: We know she died more than 80,000 (or something like that) years ago, because her death is what led the Endless to destroy the old, disrespectful Necropolis and create the new one. I don't have my facts straight, but I remember this from the Necropolis story in World's End.

Do you mean Brief Lives, or the entire series? Because it's a little bit dangerous to decide what it's all ultimately about when you've got a third of the series left.

Heh, well, Brief Lives for sure, but I'm also getting that from the series as a whole so far. I knew "ultimately" was a bad word choice, but it sounded good.

And Tep, Teen Titans?

The other thing that caught my eye -- which was hard to do past all the fucked-up mad scientist Timmy (who doesn't really resemble the Tim in the Batman title at all, but that's not surprising, as Johns' version of Tim has always been a bigger freakboy than in any other title) -- was when Kid Devil mentioned "the thing with Zatara." Now, I know it could be something as simple as Kid Devil being in some sort of fight with Zatara, or maybe they were competing for the same girl, or something, but my brain immediately went to a slashy place.

And let me just say one more time that Tim and Kon are my OTForeverP, but in the interim, while Tim keeps working on re-cloning Kon (that's where my Buffy comparison falls apart, by the way, because I fully expect Kon to come back wrong, which doesn't work in my Tim = Buffy comparison), I am totally in favor of a twisted and wrong Tim/Rose hookup. (Not whitefonted b/c I'm just putting them together in my brain.)

You know what totally rocked about TT? Cassie has her personality back! Okay, so it took killing Kon to do it, but damn! That's the kick-ass Cassie I knew and loved, only with extra bitter sauce!

Meanwhile, over in BoP, clearly, Dinah's request to Shiva involves the fishnets. They are SO my snarky snarly deadly OTP. And the line about half a six pack of hookers continues to crack me up. And Zinda calling shotgun rocked. I love the look on her face. I'm such a sucker for girls in short skirts with large guns.

Oh, in BoP -- TOTALLY the fishnets, and I can't wait to see it.

Heh. I just realized that, in BoP the Dinah Shiva switcheroo is Freaky Friday, only with a wee bit more free will. Heh.

I would like to like Worlds' End more than I do because I should ostensibly love it, given how I go on and on about how I love story. And of course I enjoy the conceit of a bunch of travelers telling stories to each other to pass the time, and I am amused by the fact that these stories sometimes have stories within their own narratives (and those can have nested stories as well), and then at the end a surprise layer of narrative is peeled away. Charlene kind of speaks for me at the end with her discontent. Most of the stories didn't really grab me, and I found some a little confusing.

I really like "Tale of Two Cities," especially for the art. It's very, very different from anything else in the series, but it works perfectly for the story. And the idea that cities have dreams is rather lovely.

"Cluracan's Tale" is one I felt okay about not liking a lot because Cluracan himself kept saying it was boring and insipid. What I did like was the notion that he'd embellished the tale with a swordfight, among other things. Mainly, I couldn't make sense of the faerie politics (psychopomp? carnifex?) and thus couldn't understand the big deal.

"Hob's Leviathan" was all right, a nice little sea story with a sea monster spread. And I liked the tale of the immortality-giving fruit, especially since it was told to Hob, of all people. And the denouement touches on a theme that pops up a lot in the series, humanity's disbelief in the fantastic. Even though Jim saw the sea serpent with her own eyes, no one will believe her.

I liked "The Golden Boy," which also had very nice art. Boss Smiley is amusing. And I just liked the character of Prez, his unflagging idealism and the way it was tied to the desire to fix watches.

"Cerements" was similar to "Cluracan's Tale" in that I couldn't really understand the world, so I found the stories confusing. I liked Destruction's cameo, though.

The Chaucerian frame story was a nice one. The first thing I noticed was that the art was more similar to what I'm used to these days, with the characters much sharper and distinct (plus the color gradient in the narration boxes). Most of the art in the series has been kind of scraggly (although I really did like the original penciller who quit after a few issues). But the story itself was good too. My guess is that the reality storm is a result of Death's shedding family blood, but the funeral march of the Endless makes it seem to relate to the death of whichever Endless was destroyed so long ago. And, well, since time is all a muddle at the end of the worlds, maybe that's what it is. Unless another Endless just died, in which case...uh.

It's a strange tale, this one.

Aw, fuck. I knew I shouldn't even be SKIMMING the introductions. I mean, I had a slight inkling Dream was going to die, what with the final book being called The Wake, but I still hate being actually spoiled.

And I just liked the character of Prez, his unflagging idealism and the way it was tied to the desire to fix watches.

Not sure if you know this, but there was a short-lived comic called Prez back in the 70's that starred that character. Short-lived as in 4 issues, I believe. [ yep: [link] ]

I didn't know it when I read it, but I have since been notified.

Re: "It's about family," I feel very much that "Brief Lives" is more about change than family. "You can stop being anything." Destruction is change, so he changes and stops being Destruction. This to be contrasted with Dream's resistance to change in himself, though he's already undergone some of it despite this. Delirium having such a large role points at this further. Together they are, in order, one who has changed and become something other, one who has neither changed (much) nor left the Endless, and one who has changed and stayed Endless. They almost describe a cycle in three persons.

(I'm reading along at this point. Damn you.)