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SEQUENTIAL CULTURE #26 21 May 04 |
The DC Canon, Part 7: Neil
Gaiman’s The Sandman |
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JULIAN DARIUS |
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THE DC CANON Read Part 1: Batman. Read Part 2: Superman. Read Part 3: Kingdom Come. Read Part 4: The Justice
League. Read Part 5: Superman: Red Son. Read Part 6: Alan Moore’s Swamp
Thing. You are reading Part 7: Gaiman’s The Sandman. Read Part 8: Vertigo, Part 1. Read Part 9: Vertigo, Part 2. Read Part 10: Vertigo, Part
3. |
DC Comics’ super-heroes star in a plethora
of ongoing series, mini-series, specials, original graphic novels of various
sizes, and collections every month.
Characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are more iconic
than any other super-heroes around.
Yet for all of their sales, some have not explored the best that these
icons have to offer. This, then, acts as a guide for those new
to DC’s characters, for those who may be missing a classic of one of them,
and for those who simply wish to argue what merits such concern. Lists of such a nature are always a matter
of some debate and always involve some subjectivity. They are, nonetheless, not without their
purposes of stirring thought, guiding future reading, and solidifying the
canon. Take this one as you will. Vertigo |
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The “Vertigo” contingent of DC’s canon is shockingly strong, even
if it rests a bit towards the margin of that universe. |
The Vertigo imprint, launched in January
1993, has seen a number of classics that belong in the DC canon. While Vertigo has increasingly published
creator-owned material, material not part of the DC Universe’s continuity,
its earliest years were dominated by DC Universe material. Moreover, when one includes a part of Vertigo
its antecedents at DC -- such as Alan Moore’s seminal Swamp Thing -- that
naturally all occurred within the DC Universe, the “Vertigo” contingent of
DC’s canon is shockingly strong, even if it rests a bit towards the margin of
that universe. The last Sequential Culture dealt
in depth with Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, ranked #1. Here, then, is the continuation. |
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Gaiman did not so much update the old DC character as invent a
new mythology, seemingly out of whole cloth. |
RANKED SECOND is Neil Gaiman’s The
Sandman, beloved by fans and scholars alike. Gaiman was recruited by DC Comics in the wake of Alan Moore’s
success on Swamp Thing: the
publisher wanted other British writers who might bring a similar sensibility
to American comics. Gaiman was given
an ongoing called The Sandman but did not so much update the old DC
character as invent a new mythology, seemingly out of whole cloth. |
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This first storyline featured many characters from the DC
universe. |
Gaiman made the new Sandman the
incarnation of Dream and covered almost a century in his first issue
(cover-dated January 1989), ending with his release in the present day after
a long imprisonment. The first
storyline saw Dream return to his realm, then track down three items stolen
from him during his imprisonment.
Each issue showcasing a different genre or type of story. This first storyline featured many
characters from the DC universe. The
second issue brought Cain and Abel, the old hosts of House of Mystery
and House of Secrets who had been seen in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. The third issue featured John Constantine
of Hellblazer (and formerly Swamp Thing). The fourth had Dream visit Hell, echoing
Moore’s Swamp Thing annual, and introduced Lucifer while featuring
other demonic DC characters and making reference to Dante and others. The fifth issue featured the Justice
League of that era and the next two issues saw Dream getting his last item
back from Doctor Destiny, an old Justice League villain. The sixth issue, occurring over a span of
24 hours as Doctor Destiny amuses himself by tormenting a restaurant’s
various customers, with Dream arriving only at the end of the story, is
particularly memorable for its horror, its subtleties of character, and its
lack of the title’s protagonist.
Following the storyline’s conclusion, the epilogue in the eighth issue
featured little more than a conversation and introduced Dream’s sister, Death
-- a character who would become intensely popular in the years following. Issues #9-28 would continue to establish
Dream’s world. #9 told a single-issue
story that did not advance the main narrative of the series -- an innovation
that would be much imitated. #10
began the second storyline that saw Dream chasing down particular dreams who
had escaped into the world during his imprisonment. It focused, however, mostly on a group of human characters --
one of which was a dream vortex who would have to be removed. Dream’s sister-brother, Desire, was
featured prominently; it also featured DC’s Silver Age Sandman, reconciling
that character with the new series.
#13 interrupted the storyline for another single-issue tale, this one
aggressively covering centuries and introducing Hob Gadling, a rare human
acquaintance of Dream who Dream realizes, in the present day, to be a friend. #14 was extra-sized -- another element of
the series was expanded, non-anniversary issues, allowing stories room to
breathe. That issue featured a serial
killer convention and focused brilliantly on those killers. |
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“Dream Country” would help to flesh out the breadth of The
Sandman’s world. |
Following the conclusion of the storyline
in #16, issues #17-20 (entitled “Dream Country”) contained four single-issue
stories and would be the first of several sets of such stories to come. These stories would help to flesh out the
breadth of The Sandman’s world:
from a Greek muse Dream once loved to the dreams of cats, from William
Shakepeare’s deal with Dream to a story in which Death comes for the old DC
character Element Girl (a story in which Dream does not appear). Gaiman was rapidly showing himself to be a
masterful and versatile writer. “Season of Mists,” running from #21-28,
would end the title’s earliest phase.
#21 (cover-dated December 1990) featured a meeting of the Endless,
Dream’s family: we had heard
allusions throughout the series to the Endless, but the particular members
thereof were largely open to debate.
Here, at last, we established them:
Dream, Death, Destiny (actually the host of an old DC horror title),
Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Destruction (who had gone missing some time
before and did not appear). The
meeting was contentious, illustrating the characters’ personalities and
alluding to their pasts, and ended with Death challenging Dream over the
morality of his actions in sending his human lover Nada to Hell (as seen in
#9). |
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We are given a masterful epilogue in #28. |
In #22, Dream prepared for the dangerous
journey to Hell to rescue Nada -- only, in #23, to arrive to find no
opposition and a Lucifer who had abdicated and sent the damned back to
Earth. The dutiful Dream balked at
Lucifer forsaking his responsibilities to the cosmic order, but took the key
to Hell from Lucifer anyway. The remainder
of the storyline followed the implications of this event, as contingents from
various pantheons of gods arrived in the Dreaming to plead for the key and
thus for Hell. One issue focused on
the dead returning to Earth, particularly one pair of dead boys. With Hell given to angels, who serve God’s
will by serving in Hell, we are given a masterful epilogue in #28. Dream deals with Nada, who gets
reincarnated; Lucifer beautifully admires God’s handiwork in an Australian
sunset; and the new exiled angelic masters of Hell torment not to punish but
to reform, out of love -- which, we are told by one of the damned, is so much
worse. |
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As if to upset readers’ desires and avoid commercialism, the next
storyline -- entitled “A Game of You” and running from #32-37 -- focused on a
set of human characters. |
The second phase of Gaiman’s The
Sandman would begin with three single-issue stories in #29-31 along with
the equally autonomous The Sandman Special #1. The title was becoming considerably
popular at this time, garnering awards and receiving attention in the
press. As if to upset readers’
desires and avoid commercialism, the next storyline -- entitled “A Game of
You” and running from #32-37 -- focused on a set of human characters and, in
particular, on one girl’s childhood dreams of a detailed fantasy world she
had created. Dream appeared only in
the climax, which was itself anti-climatic.
The focus was entirely upon people’s dreams of themselves --
particularly women’s -- from childhood to the transgendered. |
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It was as if the world of The Sandman was so large that placing
it within the larger DC Universe would almost limit it. |
It warrants mentioning that, while The
Sandman is (and its successors are) set in the DC Universe, the title was
increasingly independent of that universe.
The appearances of other DC characters, a commonplace during the first
year or so, had stopped as the title acquired its own world of characters and
reference points. Perhaps symbolic of
this is the use of Bizarros, the imperfect duplicates of Superman from the
Silver Age, in #37. Gaiman had
originally written comic books featuring the Bizarros into the script, only
to have it changed to “Wierdzos.”
Whether Gaiman’s original -- since Bizarros only existed in the comic
books and not in the narrative proper -- or the printed version placed The
Sandman more firmly in the DC Universe, the awkward reference illustrates
the ambiguity and anxiety surrounding the title’s relationship with the DC
Universe. It was as if the world of The
Sandman was so large that placing it within the larger DC Universe would
almost limit it. #38-40 (entitled “Convergence”) contained
three more single-issue stories. This
second phase ended with “Brief Lives” -- the longest storyline at the time,
running from #41-49. It saw Delirium
and Dream -- the latter depressed over the end of an affair not shown to
readers -- searching Earth for their missing sibling, Destruction, and ended
with them meeting him before he departed again. To learn his location, however, Dream had to grant the request
of his son, Orpheus (previously seen in #29 and The Sandman Special
#1), living as a severed head attended by a lineage of Greek men. That request was for death, and so Dream
killed his wayward son. It should be mentioned, at this point,
that the series possessed several ominous elements from the start. In #16 (the conclusion to the second
storyline), Desire sought to get Dream to shed family blood, which would seem
to doom he who does so. Desire’s
designs against Dream had been seen occasionally thereafter (such as in #31,
in which the two compete over a philosophical point through the life of an
eccentric American man). With the
conclusion of “Brief Lives,” Dream had indeed shed family blood. The Vertigo imprint had been launched in
January 1993, and its logo had graced the last three issues of “Brief
Lives.” A single-issue Vertigo
Preview featured a short Sandman story by Gaiman. Vertigo’s first month saw the debut of Death: The High Cost of Living, a three-issue
mini-series written by Gaiman and starring Dream’s popular sister. #50, the anniversary issue (cover-dated
June 1993), told an expanded single-issue story entitled “Ramadan” and
depicting classical Baghdad; it would itself become a classic. A short story would also appear in Vertigo
Jam #1, a one-shot anthology. The last phase of The Sandman began
with “Worlds’ End” (running from #51-56).
The storyline was an attempt to mediate between the single-issue story
collection and the longer storyline formats:
each issue told a story inset within a framing sequence. #54 featured the Prez, a strange old DC
character who was elected U.S. President while still a teenager. The last issue featured a vision of a
funeral procession, highly suggested to be that of Dream. |
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Ultimately, with this surplus of suspects, the deed is done by
Dream himself. |
The last major storyline, entitled “The
Kindly Ones,” had a meandering structure.
It saw Dream hounded by the Eumenides, a.k.a. the Furies or the
“Kindly Ones” of Greek mythology, in response for his taking family blood. The Furies needed a mortal agent, however,
and they found one in a character who first appeared during the second
storyline -- a woman angry at Dream for stealing her baby, Daniel, who was
conceived in the Dreaming and named by Dream himself. Dream, of course, is not responsible, but
the Norse trickster god Loki -- seen during “Seasons of Mists” -- is
involved. Lucifer, who swore to
destroy Dream back in #4, appears, but he seems -- delightfully -- to be a
simple nightclub owner / piano player.
Ultimately, with this surplus of suspects, the deed is done by Dream
himself: having changed since his
release in the first issue yet unable to abandon his realm as had both
Destruction or Lucifer, he asks Death to take him and rid the Dreaming of its
scourge. And thus, Dream dies. “The Wake” followed, in many ways more
successful than the story to which it was only a coda. The Endless gather for Dream’s funeral,
and virtually every character from the series appears -- along with, to some extent,
all of humanity -- along with, albeit briefly, DC’s super-heroes (a rare late
demonstration of The Sandman being set within the DC Universe). “The Wake” itself had a successful coda in
#73’s epilogue, focusing on Hob Gadling.
#74 told a single story, a sequel of sorts to #39, and the extra-sized
#75 (cover-dated March 1996) told a single story as well, a sequel to #19
featuring Shakespeare writing “The Tempest” at the end of his writing career,
analogous to Gaiman’s departure from The Sandman. DC allowed the series to end with Gaiman’s
departure, as per their agreement earlier in his run that allowed him
unprecedented control over a corporate-owned character. Gaiman would return almost immediately,
however. He did so in 1996’s
three-issue Death: The Time of
Your Life, a sequel to the successful first Death mini-series, featuring
some of the human characters from the series. Gaiman penned a short Desire story for the 1997 anthology Vertigo: Winter’s Edge, a short Death story for
the 1998 anthology Vertigo:
Winter’s Edge 2, a short Desire story for the 1999 anthology Vertigo: Winter’s Edge III, and a short Death
story for the 2002 anthology 9-11 Volume 2. The Sandman: The
Dream Hunters, an original graphic novel told in illustrated prose and focused
on Japan, appeared in 1999. The
Sandman: Endless Nights, a
particularly successful original collection of short stories, one for each of
the Endless, appeared in 2003. These 75 issues, one special, two
three-issue mini-series, two original graphic novels, and six short stories
are available in some fourteen volumes, often in superior versions --
slightly expanded or altered -- from those printed. Only the four short stories from 1997-2002 remain uncollected. Also of note is Sandman Midnight Theatre,
a prestige format one-shot cowritten by Gaiman and Matt Wagner, telling a
tale of the Golden Age Sandman’s encounter with Dream during the later’s
imprisonment during #1; it is now available in the trade paperback Neil
Gaiman’s Midnight Days. |
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Of the longer stories, “Season of Mists” has always been the most
pleasing to me, largely due to its subject.
“Brief Lives” remains the most artistically consistent, however,
featuring the same artistic team all the way through and having the most
perfect narrative structure. |
So what was the best of Gaiman’s The
Sandman? Of the longer stories,
“Season of Mists” has always been the most pleasing to me, largely due to its
subject. “Brief Lives” remains the
most artistically consistent, however, featuring the same artistic team all
the way through and having the most perfect narrative structure. Of the short stories, “Calliope” in #17
and “Ramadan” in #50 stand out for me as the best, although this depends on
mood. “The Tempest” in #75 is better
than “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in #19 because the former gets at
Shakespeare’s interior space, and at writing, while the latter lacks emotion
despite its unprecedented winning of the World Fantasy Award. The Sandman has spawned three ongoing spin-off series
to date. Sandman Mystery Theatre,
focusing on the Golden Age Sandman, began in Vertigo’s first year and ran 70
issues, an annual, and the afore-mentioned Sandman Midnight Theatre;
it featured several satisfactory tales.
The Dreaming directly succeeded The Sandman and focused
on the original series’ supporting cast; originally an anthology, it acquired
regular authors and ran 60 issues plus specials. Lucifer, written by Mike Carey and focusing on that
character from The Sandman, began in 2000 and is still in publication. Numerous mini-series and specials have
also been offered, most frequently with the sur-title The Sandman Presents. None of these bodies of work, however,
rises to the level of Gaiman’s The Sandman. |
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Read every Sequential Culture on Sequart.com! Read about the author on our About page. Julian Darius can be reached at julian@sequart.com. Discuss this column online on Sequart.com’s messageboards. |
To Be Continued The
next Sequential Culture will appear in two weeks -- on Friday, 4
June. In it, Julian Darius will
continue The DC Canon by continuing his examination of the classics of
DC’s Vertigo imprint. Read more about Neil Gaiman's The Sandman on Sequart.com. |
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