Night Mary

by Rick Remender, Kieron Dwyer (Artist), Robbie Robbins (Letterer)

Meet Mary Specter, a misunderstood teenage girl trained to be a lucid dreamer. Mary's father runs a sleep disorder clinic where Mary enters the ghastly dreams of severely disturbed people in an attempt to help them. When a patient is revealed to be a serial killer, the nightmare world and the waking one become intertwined, putting Mary in real jeopardy. Set in a world where the boundaries between dreams and reality are tenuous, Night Maryis a very dark and terrifying trip into psychological horror.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Rick Remender is an American comic book writer and artist who resides in Los Angeles, California. He is the writer/co-creator of many independent comic books like Black Science, Deadly Class, LOW, Fear Agent and Seven to Eternity. Previously, he wrote The Punisher, Uncanny X-Force, Captain America and Uncanny Avengers for Marvel Comics.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Night Mary was one of the comics that a friend of mine sent me as part of a Halloween Horror Comic gift. <--Thank you, evil friend.



To put it politely, I'm a horror comic novice. To put it honestly, I actively avoid most of them.
Why?
Because a lot of horror comics are pretty fucking gory.
AND GORY SHIT FREAKS ME OUT.

Thankfully, this one wasn't high on the gross-out scale.
Nope, this is basically a psychological thriller with a paranormal twist to it.
*breathes sigh of relief*



Mary is a teenager whose father runs a shady sort of psychological center out of his home, and he uses Mary's ability to enter other people's minds as a lucid dreamer to (hopefully) sort out their issues.
However, recently several of their patients have gone full-on crazy and murdered their families. At the same time, Mary is hearing and seeing a frightening shadowy figure in the dreams, who keeps repeating the phrase, "Dreamer, wake unto me". <--alarm bells, right?
But her mother has been in an odd dream-state coma for years, and her father's research on the other patients may be her only hope for a cure. Add to that a real-life serial killer who has his sights on her and an investigator who starts looking into her father's past, and you have the gist of the story.



The good?
It's a self-contained story. Yay! I'm not going to have to keep reading another long, drawn-out comic to get a resolution to this thing.
The bad?
It's not some super duper awesome tale of suspense.
The real life serial killer made the dream killer plot too convoluted for me. I don't know.
It wasn't a bad book, but considering this isn't a genre I tend to gravitate towards naturally, I just...eh.

[Schizanthus Nerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was quite interested in the premise of this graphic novel. Mary enters the dreams of some seriously troubled people to gain insights that will help her father (who runs a sleep disorder clinic) to help them. Mary is trying to cope with the ‘loss’ of a patient and the guilt she feels for what she feels is her responsibility in the circumstances surrounding the loss. The fact that there’s been another presence in Mary’s lucid dreams since the ‘loss’, in the form of a disembodied eye and the words “Dreamer, wake unto me”, only adds to the creep factor.

There were too many backstories and ethical dilemmas that were dealt with too superficially for me to love this one. I would have preferred there to be less ‘stuff’ going on. You’ve got a daughter lucid dreaming for her father while clearly traumatised. He’s quite happy for her to be missing out on school because she’s doing what he trained her to do since she was a small child. You’ve got a mother who’s in a coma due to ‘the accident’ and the daughter who’s supposedly responsible for bringing her mother out of the coma. The father has his own backstory. Each patient has their own backstory. The FBI is involved. There’s the “Dreamer, wake unto me” thing throughout the story.

The artwork was interesting and the splashes of blood worked well in the scenes that were mostly greyscale. Having the dream/nightmare sequences in different colour schemes depending on the content and dreamer was a nice touch and I liked that it was the time the characters were awake that had the least amount of colour.

I didn’t have any problems with the dream/nightmare sequences being disjointed and strange. Had they all flowed seamlessly with no weird elements they wouldn’t have appeared dreamlike to me. What l did have a problem with was how quickly the story was wrapped up. It was all a bit too neat towards the end and the final few panels provided a pretty clichéd conclusion. Ultimately I didn’t love or hate it. While I was reading I wanted to continue to see how it would end but I don’t feel the need to urge you to read it immediately so we can gush over its awesomeness together.

[mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary is a teenage girl. She is a lucid dreamer and helps his father in his sleep disorder clinic.

The story jumps in and out of dreams. We can see that in changes in the art because the author uses different styles of illustrations. One style is for the awake world and more different styles for the dream world. Art is ok. Sometimes it’s very good, sometimes a bit less. One thing that I didn’t like about it is that there are too many styles.

This horror graphic novel had a good premise, but I would say art and the story could use a bit of polishing, and then it could turn out better.

Thanks to Image Comics for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review, and all opinions are my own.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Early work from Rick Remender, a reprint of an IDW book from 2006, it certainly reads like it. The story is quite derivative and cliched, and ends with pages of exposition.

The various art styles used in the book are interesting, and are better than the cover suggests - let's be blunt, it's a terrible cover. I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't changed for this edition.

Still, interesting for Remender fans.

(Picked up a review copy through Edelweiss)

[Erika HerO✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me enganchó desde el principio. La premisa es muy original y logra crear una atmósfera inquietante y misteriosa que te mantiene atrapada. Me gustó mucho el ritmo narrativo, con una tensión constante entre lo real y lo onírico.
Sin embargo, la explicación sobre los sueños no me convenció del todo y me pareció un cierre algo flojo para una historia que había comenzado con tanta fuerza.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay...think Nightmare on Elm Street kinda theme. The artwork really bothered me for most of the panels as you could see thru the characters and I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be symbolic or just bad lazy art. Wouldn't bother reading further into this series as it ended on cliffhanger.

[Rachels_booknook_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the art and premise, execution not so much.

[Zoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story's pretty interesting, but the art is beyond awful

[Alex Sarll]

Rick Remender has written some very good comics, like Low and most of Uncanny X-Force. Hell, he even did a decent run on Venom, a character I usually dislike sufficiently that I still found myself bailing when Al Ewing and Ram V were at the helm. However, Remender has also written a fair amount of right old pony, not to mention a few infuriating mixtures of the two like The Scumbag. This is at best another one for the mixed bag file, with a blatantly untrustworthy scientist forcing his lucid dreamer daughter to enter the minds of his patients, theoretically to help them, except they do seem to keep going a bit murdery afterwards. All of this established in dialogue which, if the amount of exposition can sometimes be justified by the context, still isn't exactly a pleasure to read – and which is dotted with odd mistakes (I know 'schizophrenic' does to some extent survive as colloquial shorthand for multiple personalities, but for a character working in the field to conflate them as happens here feels jarring). Kieron Dwyer's art goes some way to salvaging matters, rendering the dreamworlds as fairytales growing steadily more queasy panel by panel, or everyday scenes slowly waxing nightmarish – but even here, the device of full colour dream vs grey reality feels a bit played out, especially when other Image books like Black Magick are doing similar tricks with much more nuance and aplomb. Checking the indicia, it is a reprint of earlier work – but only from the noughties, not prehistory, so I'm not sure how much leeway I can extend it on that account. Especially once there's a mention of Dreamweaver Serum to remind one of a real horror master.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Anna (Bananas) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dreamer, wake unto me.

What a great comic and a nice surprise - better than expected. Night Mary is genuinely creepy and downright disturbing at times. This one's going to stick with me for a while.

Mary is a lucid dreamer who coaches patients inside their dreams, helping them overcome personal issues. She's also trying to pull her comatose mother out of her receding mind, while dealing with her father who runs the dreaming clinic, and deflecting the aggression of some mean girls.

The real problems start when a patient flips out and murders her loved ones and herself. Mary also begins seeing a recurring image in her patients' dreams, a strange eye and a voice calling, "Dreamer, wake unto me." When it first appears, she thinks it's coming from the patient, until it appears in another dream and another.

Things progress quickly, and Mary soon realizes the dream invader is a real threat and also connected to her in a sinister way. The pace of the story is quick, adding to the overall tension. And the ending, well, it's both satisfying and chilling.

Definitely recommended for horror fans.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

An ambitious graphic novel with some intriguing ideas ultimately fails in its attempt to execute them. The beautifully eerie art adds a nice creepiness, but the storytelling is sloppy. There is a very large info dump toward the end that seems like too much too late, and could have been handled much better. Also, I thought the ending was lame.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun little story about a girl who can enter people's dreams; nothing wholly original, but it's right up my alley. I don't do summaries in my reviews, so I will focus on what I liked and disliked about this comic. I read this in the Crawl Space oversized hardcover as part of my October horror reading.

First of all, I have to address some of the negative criticism towards this story. While it is understandable that people seem to think the story was disjointed and incoherent, I think that it was mostly intended. As I was reading it, I felt like I was in the dream with Mary. As with most dreams, there were lots of jumps from location to location, all with different art styles and odd dreamlike features such a jumbled clocks, locations bleeding into one another, distorted faces and unclear details, and of course plenty of symbolism. The real world sections were always drawn in black and white, which is symbolic in itself. Initially, I thought the art would be the weak point of the book, and while it is sloppy in places, it fit the story perfectly. I might even go as far as to say it carried the book.

As for the writing, it's okay. I generally love Remender's writing, but it's clear this is not his best work (keeping in mind Kieron Dwyer also shared writing duties). It's not bad, but it felt rushed in places, especially in the last issue where we are presented with an infodump of revelations that didn't quite stick the landing. Not to mention several typos that were somehow overlooked. That said, the writing team was wise to keep the writing to a minimum and let Dwyer's artwork tell most of the story.

If I were to rate this on the quality of the comic while being objective, I'd rate it 3/5, maybe lower, but if I were to read books with that mindset I'd never enjoy anything. So I give this a strong 4/5 because I enjoyed it quite a lot and I always weigh my enjoyment very highly when rating books. It engrossed me and kept my interest all the way through. As I said earlier, the subject matter is right up my alley, so I knew I'd like it to some degree, but it definitely ended up exceeding my expectations.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I enjoyed this – which surprised me, looking back on how many one stars and DNFs I'd been forced to give this author over recent years. Still, this tale is an old one of his, from the mid-2000s. Mary is an older teen, tasked with using her lucid dreaming abilities and some wacky science from her domineering father to enter the psychotic dreams of nutjobs and try and put them right. On the one hand it's supposed to help with a case very close to home, and on the other it's supposed to prevent people going postal – and it's definitely failing...

Entering the dreamscapes of so many people means the art is allowed to veer crazily from one style to another, and the book does this with aplomb, just as its base style of heavily-inked black or blue lines is more than commendable. Plotting could have been tighter – we get a needless recap at the halfway stage, and things get a little rushed at the end to disguise some of the more mundane aspects of the truth behind the whole story. But this engaged me, and proved a most entertaining dark fantasy.

[Devon Munn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty decent horror comic, now on to my pro's and con's

Pro's
The dream sequences can get pretty freaky
This is a perfect comic to read around Halloween, it's even set around Halloween
The art definitely provides some good atmosphere for the comic, most of the sequences set in reality are drawn in blue, some in green and the dream sequences are fully colored

Con's
I have never been of fan of Kieron Dwyer's art, and it's not great here, it's okay, but it is very scratchy

Overall, if you're looking to for quick and spooky read, this is for you

[OmniBen · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review, though reading it may spoil your day)
An amateurish, ham fisted, irredeemable piece of utter garbage. Quite how a man of such moderate standing in the comics industry as Rick Remender could ever write something this terrible, and then allow it to be reprinted at a later date is beyond me. The art is horrifically bad, and somehow is far from the worst thing about this story. It ruined my Sunday afternoon. It needs to go away somewhere cold and dark, forever. 1/5


OmniBen.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this graphic novel, the protagonist is a young woman, Mary, who is a talented lucid dreamer – i.e. being conscious in one’s dreams. While lucid dreaming is a real thing, the sci-fi “magic” of the story world is that, using an experimental medication in conjunction with skilled dreamers allows the lucid dreamer to observe and take part in the dreams of another person. Said experimental medication was developed by Mary’s father, who’s a bit of a shady “evil scientist” type, and he employs Mary as his lucid dreamer (even though she is still a high school student.)

The story is intense and provocative. Character development is good and we learn that Mary is dealing with her own mental health issues, presumably PTSD-like traumatization related to an automobile accident she was in with her mother, but she may have already been anxiety prone. Mary’s father is a complex character throughout. He’s cold and distant as a father and obsessive as a scientist, but not altogether dastardly. I enjoyed falling into the story and found it to be narratively taut. That said, it wasn’t with out some problems of pacing and villain monologuing around the climax.

The artwork by Kieron Dwyer succeeded in creating a visceral horror / surreal feel. Also, the use of different color palettes for the real world versus various dream worlds helps to clarify where one is, which is useful in a story that shifts between the real (waking) world and dream scenes.

If you enjoy stories set in dreams and the sci-fi of the unconscious mind, you may want to look into this one.

[Mai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo compré en uk sin saber ni de qué iba. Simplemente vi el estilo de dibujo y leí que era terror psicológico y me lo llevé sin hacer más preguntas.

La premisa de la que parte es muy interesante y el ritmo es perfecto. Creo que se ha acabado hilando todo de una manera super chula y que no me esperaba para nada. El arte además es simplemente superior. La manera en la que se va cambiando de estilo, como se utilizan los trazos y los colores... es que me ha encantado.

Si que he sentido que me faltaba contexto o historia en algún momento, pero supongo que es lo normal cuando no estás acostumbrado a los comics (o quizás ha sido por el idioma ? no se). Y bueno no voy a entrar en la actitud del padre porque soy incapaz de entender el personaje y el "desarrollo" que han intentado hacer (que si, que estás traumatizado pero ???? que fas tío estás tonto o que). En fin no soy yo mucho de comics, pero wow aún así este me ha parecido que no estaba nada mal.

(Por cierto apreciadme que haya sido capaz de acabarlo el día de halloween por eso de que es de susto y tal...)

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This GN skillfully balances familiar YA tropes with a credible, spine-tingling tale. It's about a girl who has (no surprise) issues with herself and the world around her, her dad included. It is a great story, if a bit familiar to someone who's seen read as much YA and seen as many slasher and serial killer formulas as I have. It does push the psychological aspects a bit, though (think a teen Hitchcock meets a female Donnie Darko). Good illustrations, as the cover art suggests. My favorite thing, though, is Mary herself. She's a bit of Carrie White (which is probably why I responded to her so much as character).
I won't give spoilers beyond that!
Happy reading. 👀

[Robert Bussie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is case where the book did not have enough cohension to flesh out story the story leaving it a confusing mess with a really cool, intersting, and promising plot. As a short graphic novel this does not work. However, this would make a good supernatural and psychological TV series with lots of plot twists to keep the audience guessing as who is causing the murders and what is going on.

The art is where this book really shines. The different art style and colors depending where the story is taking place really adds alot of atmosphere and tension to it. Artist Kieron Dwyer's art really draws the reader into this strange messed up world.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published in 2006 over at IDW and now given a new edition by Image. It's OK. It's got that Nightmare on Elm Street vibe with lots of it occurring in dream worlds. It's about a teenage girl whose father is helping people through dream therapy. His daughter is helping by going into the patient's dreams and helping them work through their issues. However, these same people are now killing people in the real world. The most interesting part about this is Dwyer's shifting art as he uses different styles for dreams versus reality.

[Paul Allard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horror comic paperback about adventures in a dream world with a hefty body count.

This book deals with Mary who enters people's dreams as part of a therapy to help them but all is not what it seems. It's quite good (I'm not great fan of horror comics) with a few interesting characters and a lot of bloodshed. It's quite short which is no bad thing and the story moves along at a good pace.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasnt exactly sure where this one was going but I enjoyed that it took a sort of X-Men theme to it and dreamstate horror. The story went a little quicker near the end when the antagonist is revealed and it would have been nice to have a slower description of the history/revenge seeking story to better get a grasp and have a smoother plot.

[David Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically the essence of being mediocre. Art is okayish, premise is still quite original, way the story is delivered is frankly quite boring and the point of the story is cliché piled unto cliché. On the other hand, pacing is okay and you will read it in 20 minutes tops.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great horror story - superb range of styles from Dwyer. Remender is becoming a must-read for me. Great, smart, fun, pulp-trash comic goodness.

[Noeli Cobaya Debiblioteca · Rating 4 out of 5]

muy bueno, la trama onirica me recuerda al ciclo del sueño de lovecraft, una historia muy interesante sin duda.

[Krishnakumar Mohanasundaram · Rating 2 out of 5]

Average storyline, unimpressive artwork...

[Hope Breighner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as I was hoping it would be. Decent story line but wasn't executed properly. And probably could have benefited from being longer. The ending feels rushed and discombobulated.

[Calvin Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rick Remender does weird well, and this is creepy and weird and good :)

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was better as every nightmare on elm street

[Eddie B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10