Marval Movie

"I have no idea where this will lead us. But I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange"

-S.A. Dale Cooper

Being that DC had great success with bringing in a British writer for Swamp Thing they wanted to see if they could replicate the same results and started holding talent scouting meetings in London. It was through these meetings where they discovered such talent like Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan and the all-black wearing, messy haired writer Neil Gaiman.

Karen Berger was the Chief Editor for DC's Vertigo imprint and is a living legend. She is also responsible for supporting some of the greatest talent in comics. It was her who was in charge of recruiting in the London branch and she accepted Neil Gaiman's pitch for Black Orchid, an old Superhero nobody remembered. It was a sort of a prettier Swamp Thing.

After the meeting Berger phoned Gaiman and told him that he was currently an unknown and his comic had a girl for its main character and those typically didn't sell well. So she asked him if he could write another project to help sell Black Orchid. Off the top of his head he didn't have anything until Berger mentioned "that dream character, thing".

Gaiman got a little stuck in the development process of the idea but then a hurricane hit Britain and Gaiman was stuck in a little cottage in Nutley. There was no power and Gaiman had nothing to do put think and think about the idea and then it was on that dark night, surrounded by a hurricane that Sandman was truly born. As soon as the power came back on Gaiman rushed to his computer and typed out his ajuan for the first eight issues of Sandman, it was approved and Sandman number one hit comic shelves in October 1988.

I got the first volume of Absolute Sandman for my nineteenth birthday. It was easily one of the best presents I got that, or any other year. Mostly because I thought that I would be kidding myself in thinking that my family would get it for me, but they went the extra mile just like they always do. Absolute Sandman volume One contains Sandman issues 1 to 20 and so I settled down one dark October night and read the first issue of Sandman for the first time.

The introduction is written by former DC President & Publisher Paul Levitz. He writes a very sincere introduction about the feel and mood of the series and the reoccurring themes of it as a whole.

The cover is beautiful, it is so surreal with its illustration, with the image looking like scratched film. I do however struggle to come up with an interpretation for it. There is a figure head at the center of the cover as well as certain objects placed around the face. The Sandman covers operate on a different level from the other American comic books, there will be no images of Sandman trading punches with the villain of the month, these covers are off-beat, surreal and I wouldn't have them any other way.

The covers, all the covers, are illustrated by the great Dave McKean. McKean illustrated all the covers to every single issue of Sandman, all seventy five of them. All of them are unique and visually appealing and I can only imagine what they looked like on the shelf of the local comic book store in the late eighties. They invoke a feeling of the work of David Lynch (at least to me) with the use of photograph and scratchy film. His covers are also so abstract that there isn't really much I can analyze from them. What I can definitely say is that I love all of them. 

And so the first issue starts like so many other issues will start, with an old house. It starts in 1929 and there is a mysterious group of people in robes that gather around a circle that is drawn on the ground (of course), their leader is a man named Burges. They seek to capture Death itself to gain eternal life, they perform the ceremony and a man appears, dressed in an all-black robe with flames dancing at the bottom, skin as white as snow, carrying only a small sack, a ruby and a strange helmet made of bone and metal. 

This man is not Death but he is also not human, so they imprison him in a huge glass bowl. The man sits there, says nothing, responds to nothing. He merely sits there, staring with eyes that are like bright stars in a pool of darkness. Burges knows that he is not Death but thinks that they can still use him to their advantage.

The design for The Sandman came from a very unusual source. There were a lot  of designs floating around, but it was Dave McKean that came up with the simpulan character design of The Sandman from, of all places, a U2 music video. The image of Bono walking around in Ireland with long hair and a big black coat seemed to resonate with McKean.

Over the years the magic fades and the guards grow less and less enthusiastic about their duties. Burges dies, the objects that the prisoner had on him are scattered and all that's left is Burges son left in charge. Then comes a night where one of the guards lays his head down to take a little rest and that's all it takes. With that one little dream the guard takes the prisoner is able to get into his dream and take some sand from within that dream, which is all he needs for his escape. He then confronts his captor of seventy years, he tries to explain that they got him by mistake and they really wanted Death. He then tells him that they captured "Deaths younger brother" and his rule is not Death but Dream, his name is Morpheus and he is The Sandman. He punishes Burges by giving him "ETERNAL WAKING" where he will always be waking up from a bad nightmare, always he will think that the nightmare has passed when in fact it is only the start to another.

The letters are done by Todd Klein, one of the greatest letters in all of comic books. Klein gives great character to all the letters he does. For Morpheus he reverses the color, making them black balloons with white text and the balloons themselves are always wavy and drippy.  The trick of reversing the colors was something that Gaiman tried out with writing Batman in Black Orchid and he thought it was so good he applied it to Morpheus. I love it. It is so unique, looks great and makes you aware of the work that the letterer does, before they were unsung heroes but now I know they are a vital piece of comic story telling.

The second Issue stars with Kane and Abel. They are doing what they've been doing for the past hundred or so centuries, arguing, or at least Kane is. Suddenly they hear a noise and they think that Kane's pet gargoyle has caught something, they go to see and lo and behold it is Morpheus. Morpheus rests at their house to regain a little of his strength and then heads off to his castle of dreams. When he gets there he is in shock to learn that the castle has withered away. He enters and searches the faded withered hallways that are just about abandoned, almost. There is still Lucien there, Lucien is The Dreaming's librarian. Apparently in the time that Morpheus has been away The Dreaming has lost its power and many of the castle staff has abandoned their posts.

Of Neil Gaiman's influences, there are many. But one of the most prominent ones within his work on Sandman is Alan More's run on Swamp Thing. Gaiman himself has said that it was an issue of Swamp Thing that made him have hope in comics again and was the push he needed to really pursue doing it seriously. In the first story arch it is very prominent, it remains a prominent entity within the whole run but throughout it he delves into different influences and finds his own voice more but still it is clearly the main driving force for Gaiman's comic writing. But here is the first reference by including Kane and Abel.

Morpheus knows that he must regain his tools so he calls on the Hecateae, three witches, or one witch with three heads, one old and ugly, the other old but charming and another young and beautiful. They are ancient creatures that will offer him three answers for three questions. The first is where is his sack? In the possession of a man named John Constantine. The second is where is the Helm? traded with a Demon. Finally the Ruby? it was passed from mother to son and then taken by the "League of Justice". The Hecateae take their leave and Morpheus decides that he will go after the sack and Constantine first, after all he is "Just one human".

Issue 3 starts in London with that good old English, chain smoking, trench coat wearing John Constantine. Waking up in his flat in London. Morpheus suddenly appears in Constantine's flat and asks for the sack, Constantine tells him that it's in his storage garage. An extremely fun line is when Constantine says to Morpheus "I ought to introduce you to the big green bloke. You'd like him. He hasn't got a scene of humor either".

Gaiman injected another Swamp Thing reference within Sandman in this issue by having Constantine (who first appeared in Swamp Thing). By him saying "big green bloke" which he is clearly referring to Swamp Thing, just not by name.

They take a taxi to Constantine's warehouse and its not there, but Constantine thinks he knows who took it, his old girlfriend. They drive to her fathers house but there is a mysterious aura coming from within the house. The Dreaming is leaking out from the sack and is warping the real world, luckily this is the Sandman's area of expertise. They make it to the center of the house where the girlfriend lays in a virtual zombie state, Morpheus reclaims his sack but Constantine asks a favor, for her to go peacefully. He obliges and lets her go with a dream about better times.

Issue 4 has Sandman going to Hell, yeah. The cover has deep burgundy for the color and has pages of burned bible or Dante's Inferno across the panels and within the center figure itself. Burgundy is red which is associated with hell and the pages of the bible or Dante across it signifies the type of trials and tribulations that will be faced in the issue.

There was a time where Dave was falling behind on the covers because of his other commitments (like Batman: Arkham Asylum) and in a monthly comic book that cant be allowed and there came a time where Karen Berger almost had to fire him. So as soon as he learned this, McKean went straight to his office called Neil Gaiman and asked him what the next three issues of Sandman were about. Fourteen hours later Dave had the next three issue covers done and there was never another word about Dave getting fired again.

Meeting him at the gates is the rhyming demon Etrigan, this is the first and last time that Etrigan appears in the whole series, this is a huge disappointment to me because of how much I love the character from his guest appearances on Swamp Thing. The two work their way through Hell, which I believe draws influence from Dante's Inferno. On their way to see Lucifer, Morpheus comes across a cage with a woman named Nada trapped in it, she asks if he has finally forgiven her after a thousand years, he says no and the two move on. They then reach the center of Hell where Lucifer Morningstar watches over the entirety of Hell.

The design for Lucifer is interesting. He's drawn as a normal man, with long red hair and a beautiful face. His body is normal except for the giant bat-wings that come out from his back and is dressed in what looks like a white robe (from his days as an angel perhaps?).

Sandman asks for his helmet back, they summon the entirety of Hell, he finds the demon and challenges him to a game to reclaim the helm. They play and as you would expect Sandman wins, the helm is his and he gets ready to leave but Lucifer and the entirety of Hell stands in his way. Lucifer claims he has no power in Hell and they can do to him as they wish. Sandman stares at them and says that "What power would Hell have if you were not able to dream of Heaven?" and the hordes of hell slowly part and the Sandman walks out. While he walks out Lucifer swears that one day he shall "destroy him".

Parallel to all this is the story of Dr. Destiny, an old Justice League villain. He is in Arkham Asylum where his mother is paying him a visit. Dr. Destiny (or Dee) was a villain that attacked through dreams (uh-oh). He claims he did this with the help of his ruby that he has altered through science so he and only he could use it. After one of her visits Dee gets word that his mother has died and she sent him one last present. The present is some kind of medallion, eyeball necklace

Next Morpheus moves onto the ruby. It starts with Mister Miracles dream about his time on Apokolips, he dreams about falling before Morpheus pulls him out of his dream (literally), they have a talk and all is explained that Morpheus needs his ruby, so they talk to the Martian Manhunter. When he sees Morpheus he sees him as a huge, terrifying flaming skull.

One thing that happens with The Sandman, is that everyone sees him differently. Some see him mostly the same, only with variations on his size, shape and features. While others again see him completely different. This is a great aspect to the character because it means that all the different images that exist in the world of what the personification of what dream looks like could all be true and be one entity.

Dr. Destiny is able to break free from Arkham, but on his way out he comes across a very peculiar sight, its Jonathan Crane (The Scarecrow) he's hung himself as a study of the shock that appears on peoples faces. 

The reason it is the Scarecrow is actually because of editorial demands. Originally it was meant to be The Joker who had hung himself for an April fools prank but Gaiman got a call from his editor saying that it couldn't be Joker because in Batman continuity he was presumed dead in a river. This is something that doesn't hold up in the grant scheme of things, its obvious that The Joker will return and having to have this constraint on the writing deteriorates the experience. I hold out hope that one day the issue will be re-drawn so that it will be The Joker, but that will probably never happen.

Morpheus reaches the warehouse first but as soon as he touches the ruby it drains his power, because of the tampering by Dee. Dee then gets to the warehouse, ignores Morpheus and picks up the ruby in glee and noticing that is seems to be more powerful than when he last had it.

The first five issues were drawn by Sam Keith. Keith is a good artist having a very stylized, slightly cartoony look to his characters. Sadly he simply didn't fit with the book, he described it as "Being Jimi Hendrix in the Beatles" he simply didn't belong  and apparently had a miserable time drawing those first five issues, so as soon as possible he was replaced by his inker Mike Dringenberg and the inking duties went to Malcolm Jones III.

Mike Dringenberg draws the best Morpheus, in my opinion. I'm not sure what makes the best Morpheus, but I think its the way he draws his cheekbones and the straw-like hair he has. Dringenberg's Morpheus is the Morpheus that comes to mind whenever I think of him.

Issue 6, 24 Hours, is one of the darkest issues of Sandman. It is so simple and yet it could only ever be pulled off by a great writer, luckily this is Neil Gaiman. It opens in a small town diner where there are many people simply having pie and drinking coffee. There is a mysterious dark figure that lurks in the corner. The people dont seem to notice the time, they just keep drinking their coffee and having whats on the menu. At one stage they are blissfully happy, then they worship Doctor D. after that for a moment they realize whats going on, then they descend into savagery. By the end they are all dead, with Doctor D. admiring his handy-work. Then a man enters and Dee greets him, its The Sandman.

The battle comes to a conclusion in the next issue "Sound and Fury" where Morpheus and Dr. D. meet together in the diner and agree to settle the matter in a battle of dreams. Morpheus has his helm and his sack, but the ruby still took some of his strength and Dee has the ruby. Morpheus flees into The Dreaming immediately and Dee follows, at first Dee is distracted by all the illusions that are cast but Dee breaks through them and starts attacking The Dreaming itself. Then Dee gets the idea of destroying the ruby, he does in a flash of red light...then nothing. All that is left is Dee alone in nothing, until he hears Morpheus voice behind him. With  the destruction of the ruby Morpheus has gained all of its power, Morpheus is now more powerful than he has been in years and there he stand, the seize of a building in a full splash page.

The battle comes to an end and Morpheus walks Dr. Dee back to his cell, on their way there The Scarecrow jumps out and yells "BOO!". Then he apologizes and walks with them both, he also says that he cant go back to his cell because there's a rat there and hes "frightened of rats". Morpheus and Dee are about to part ways before Dee says that he "doesn't sleep" and Morpheus say that "perhaps tonight you will". And he leaves and declares that tonight "humanity will sleep" and all of Arkham sleeps, does not dream, but sleeps quietly and peacefully.

Ending the first story arc is issue 8, The Sound Of Her Wings. It opens with Dream casually sitting down and feeding the birds bread crumbs, when out of nowhere comes a pretty young girl, dressed all in black and sits next to him. This is his sister, this is Death.

The character of Death is probably mine, as well as most peoples, favorite part of Sandman. She is one of the most wonderful, coolest characters ever. I find myself struggling to describe her to other people, I always end up saying something very simple like "shes really nice" or "Death is lovely".

Originally Death was meant to look very different, Gaiman wanted her to "look like rock star Nico in 1968, with the perfect cheekbones and perfect face she has on the cover of her Chelsea Girl album". But it was Dringenberg who took influence from his goth friend who had a sort of "warped beauty". 

After he's done talking about how he feels he sulks his head, this doesn't last long because as soon as he does Death gives him a whack with a piece of bread, tells him to get over himself and see past his own problems and see things for what they are rather than get weighed down with his own self pity. I love this so much because I have a big sister and I can tell you that this is what big sisters do, tell you how it is and dont stand for any of your nonsense.

This shows that the comic is already operating at a different level from other comics. If this were a conventional comic they would probably have this status-quo and keep to it for as long as any writer could possibly write it for and then keep going. But Sandman avoids this and tells its stories at the right passe and at the right length. It never gets boring and it never outstays its welcome.

So the issue proceeds by Dream following Death around on a day of her doing her duties. They see an old musician that never accomplished anything, a comedian on stage that gets a lethal electric shock from faulty wiring in her microphone and a baby. Death cradles the baby and it asks her "is that all I get?" and she somberly replies "fraid so". By the end of the day Dream and Death part ways and Dream decides to move on to his duties.

Neil Gaiman knew the shape and form of the whole Sandman run but he really didn't think that it would get past its original eight issue run. There were a lot of new different comics coming out at this time and they barely lasted a year, so once Gaiman had finished the first story arc...Sandman was outselling Batman.

Issue 9, Tales in the Sand is one of the first of many self contained (or at least it seems self contained) issues of Sandman that just tells a great short story in twenty four pages. It stars with a father and his son walking into the center of a desert. The son has become a man and he is about to go through the initiation that all men of his village must go through. He and his father walk out into the desert, the son is sent to find something in the desert, he will know it when he finds it, he comes back with a glass heart. The father then tells the tale of how the desert was once a vast city where there was a beautiful princess named Nada who would turn down every suitor, until one day a stranger came to the city, a stranger with eyes like bright stars. She tried to find him and eventually did, but once the gods saw their love they burned the city to the ground. The princess then learned that their love could never be, but the stranger didn't want to let her go. In the end she turns down his offer to make her a god and he condemns her to Hell. Father and son get up and walk back to their village, the son will one day have to tell his son the same story.

Next story-arc is The Doll's House, a tale of dreams and reality. The story starts with a house like no other, a human body. This is our introduction to Desire, the middle child of the family of The Eternal's, Desire lives in a giant human body that is so huge you could walk it all your life and never go the same place twice, but Desire chooses to reside in the heart. Desire is also neither male or female, Desire is never bounded so. Desire then goes to his/her gallery and speaks with his/her twin sister Despair. Despair is fat and short and a creature of absolute misery, together they talk about their plans for Dream and how Desires plan will end with Dreams downfall.

We are then introduced to a girl named Rose Walker, a pretty young blonde girl with rainbow highlights in her hair. Shes on a plane on her way to England with her mother, a limo meets them an takes them to a house. Rose slowly slips into a dream and her dream takes her into The Dreaming.

Then we see Morpheus talking attendance of The Dreaming, Lucien says that there are four missing from The Dreaming. The first two are Brute and Glob, two members of the palace staff, the other is one known as The Corinthian a nightmare created by Morpheus. Finally the fourth is something named Fiddlers Green. Morpheus and Lucien continue to talk and Morpheus says that there is a new vortex that has come into existence and says that "the vortex is a she" and points right at the reader.

Instantly Rose wakes up and passes off what she saw as a dream and nothing more. They get escorted to an old English manor house in the countryside and then they meet an old woman. The old woman's name is Unity and she says that she is Rose's grandmother. It turns out that she got pregnant while she was stuck in a deep sleep, one of the effects of Morpheus imprisonment.

Unity explains everything to Rose's mother, in the meantime Rose walks around the old house. She comes across one room filled with darkness and three voices speak out to her. They say that they can give her three answers to three questions, she asks the wrong questions. The voices say that she wouldn't want to meet them as "The Kindly Ones". Rose switches on the light and there is nobody in the room. She goes back to her mother who has now accepted the fact that the old woman is who she says she is.

The next issue starts with Rose back in America and she is moving into a bed and breakfast in Florida so she can look for her brother Jed. She first meets the landlord  named Hal, then she meets the couple living there named Ken and Barbie and yes they both look and act like dolls. Then while being shown to her room Rose meets two women dressed in old bride gowns, with veils down, these are Chantal and Zelda. After she meets them Hal shows Rose her room and says that's about everyone except for Gilbert, who lives on the top floor. Rose instantly lays on her bed and Hal asks why she's here and Rose tells him she's here to find her brother.

Instantly we see Jed in a wonderful, magical dream world bouncing off the clouds and he beats up monsters, with the help of his pal The Sandman and his wife. This Sandman however is not the one that we have come to know over the course of the book, this Sandman wears read and yellow and is clearly a man in a costume. Then he wakes up and he is trapped in a leaky basement.

Yes this is the Jack Kirby Sandman. An interesting move for Gaiman to choose to include the Kirby creation within his own. Its also interesting because the panels layouts are like the old Nemo in Slumberland comics from the twenties. Its a nice nod to older classics as well as a great offset for the horror that occurs within the story.

Meanwhile Rose is writing a letter to her mother, giving her an update on the search for Jed (not much progress), she also gets news that Unity has fallen gravely ill. At the same time a raven fly's and looks at Rose through her window. Rose knows that Jed used to live with his grandfather until he died and now lives with his uncle and aunt. Meanwhile the raven fly's off into The Dreaming and to Morpheus. This raven is named Matthew and he is Morpheus aide.

Later Rose goes for a walk in a near by town and runs into some trouble in a alleyway, it looks like going to go bad before the muggers are clobbered by a huge man with a cane and fine vocabulary. This is Gilbert and after coming to Rose's aide, very gentlemanly, escorts her home for the night.

The next day Rose decides to head off  to Jed's aunt and uncles to see if she'll be able to find him. She takes a few steps out the door before Gilbert proclaims that he will escort Rose on her journey. At the same time Morpheus has found Jed as well, because it is Brute and Glob that have been letting The Sandman exist within Jed's mind. So Morpheus arms for battle with his helm and makes his move.

Next issue starts with Jed being abused by his uncle and aunt, they say that he has to put on a good show for the inspector coming and they cant loose him because he gets them welfare. Also Morpheus is trying to get into Jed's head to Brute and Glob, so they send their Sandman to stop him telling him that he's some big stupid monster. At the same time Lyta (short for Hippolyta), The Sandman's wife wonders through her home and thinks that shes been pregnant for a long time but still she hasn't had the baby yet. At the the same time again Rose and Gilbert check into a motel where there is a "Cereal Convention" going on and Rose wonders what kind of geeks go to a breakfast cereal convention, this however is not about breakfast cereal but about cereal killers. This might possibly be the worst place to be, ever.

Then comes the big collision of Sandman vs Sandman. Morpheus charges and The Sandman meets him but Morpheus is very uninterested in him, simply calling him "little ghost", while at the the same time The Sandman thinks he can handle Morpheus easily but he of course has no idea who he's dealing with. After the battle goes on beyond Morpheus patience he ends it. Jed's aunt and uncle hear a noise coming from the basement, Jed's uncle goes to beat him and as soon as he turns the door knob the room explodes. 

Brute, Glob, Sandman, Lyta and Morpheus are all standing around the basement. Morpheus punishes Brute and Glob for their betrayal, it was their intention to create a new Dreaming, starting from Jed's mind.   Sandman apologizes to Morpheus but Morpheus says that it is wrong for the dead to walk amongst the living and The Sandman fades into nothingness. Lyta blames Morpheus for killing him, but he shrugs it off and also says that when the time is right he will come for her child. He himself fades away saying he has a "prior engagement".

The issue ends with Jed walking out onto the road and a car almost runs him over the man in the car offer's to give him a ride, Jed gets in the car and sees that the man driving is wearing sunglasses at night. This man  is the Corinthian.

I cant help but ponder on the confrontation between Kirby's Sandman and Gaiman's Sandman. The obvious victor and superior power is Gaiman's, but even beyond that it feels like he's really putting Kirby's Sandman down. I know Gaiman wouldn't do that because he loves Kirby but that's just what it feels like to me.

Issue 13, Men of Good Fortune, is an issue that takes a slight divergence from the main plot but is crucial in
the main scheme of the Sandman in the whole. It is also one of my favorite issues. The cover has a broken watch on it, with pieces of the face scattered around the cover, the watch is of course symbolic of time and because it is broken and scattered it means that the dispersion of time plays into the story. Also the skeletons are of course symbolic of death. So within our story we are given two themes, time and death.

The story starts in an old, medieval tavern where the locals are drinking and making jokes, then enters Dream and Death. Death is saying that Dream should get more involved with the people. Meanwhile there's one man named Robert Gadling, that says to all the other men that dying is a fools game and its not for him. Dream and Death exchange looks then Dream approaches the man and says if its true that dying is a fools game then lets meet here in the same place in a hundred years. One hundred years pass and they meet again in the same tavern. Gadling has become immortal, over the centuries they meet again and again and catch up on what hes been doing with his immortality. One time they notice a struggling up and coming writer named Will Shakespeare, Dream quickly gets up and offers to make him a deal. Another time they get ambushed by a woman by the name of Lady Constantine. In the end they meet in present time in the same place as it was all those centuries ago, the setting and clothes have changed but nothing really has. And two old being's meet up again like they have for the past handful of centuries.

One of the things that makes Sandman so great (and one of the main driving forces that inspired Gaiman to write it) is that it has one of the best story engines ever (on par with Doctor Who). A Sandman story can literally take place any time, any where with no restrictions (except for the time when he was imprisoned). As long as there is a possibility to dream a Sandman story can be.

Issue 14 "Collectors" is a really dark one. The cover has a face placed within darkness and the eyes are not eyes but a pair of teeth  and scattered across the cover are pieces of an old torn map. The face is the face of the Corinthian and the shatters of map gives a scenes of loss of direction, with the Corinthian at the center of everything.

Rose and Gilbert are killing time in their motel room, they dont know where Jed is but the police has contacted them and they've been told to stay put. Later the Corinthian arrives to the convention as well. What is so spine tingly creepy about the way the convention is handled is that the killers behave just like regular people, only they are talking about whether they skin or decapitate their victims.

There's a moment in the issue where there is one man who claims to be a killer named "The Boogeyman". The Corinthian says that The Boogeyman died in the swamps in Louisiana. Again another Swamp Thing reference.

The issue comes to a big conclusion when the Corinthian makes a huge speech for the cereal convention, saying that they are "gladiators" and "soldiers of fortune" when he suddenly sees Morpheus sitting in the audience. Morpheus then gets up and approaches him telling him that he was huge disappointment. The Corinthian declares battle on him, removing his sunglasses to reveal not eyes but a pair of teeth, but Morpheus says no and simply dissolves him.

Rose runs out and finds Gilbert holding Jed in his arms and together they drive off to safety. And all the killers at the convention walk off into the darkness where that is all they will ever meet.

Issue 15 "Into The Night" allows the reader a look behind the veil and into the characters dreams. It starts with Rose settling down for the night with a much deserved sleep. Along with her dreams we see Ken dream of being a successful businessman, Barbie dreams of a magical land where she is a princess and she has a magical creature named Martin Tenbones that protects her. Then all the dreams start to merge together and one twisted dream is introduced to another and all the characters psyches are mixed together before Morpheus swoops in and takes Rose to a secluded part of The Dreaming. While at the hospital Gilbert meets Mathew and he asks for Mathew to take him to Morpheus, because he knows in order for Morpheus to protect The Dreaming he will have to kill Rose.

Morpheus now has Rose in The Dreaming and he very calmly explains to her that every kala a vortex is born and they become the center of The Dreaming and he must kill her to save the world from the collapse of The Dreaming. He says that it happened once, aeons ago a world was lost and he will not let that happen again.

Gilbert then burst in on them, Rose hugs him and Morpheus says "Fiddlers Green?". Gilbert sadly can do nothing to help Rose so he kisses her had and takes his leave, and the whole desolate area becomes a luscious meadow. Fiddlers Green was a place in The Dreaming.  

Meanwhile back in England Rose's mother and Unity are together and Unity slips into a dream. Then as soon as she does she is in Fiddlers Green, also she looks as old as Rose, she confronts Morpheus and says that he's not going to kill Rose, he's going to kill her. At first everyone is confused but Unity explains that she was meant to be the vortex but it was passed to Rose because Morpheus was imprisoned. Rose is able to pass the powers of the vortex to Unity and Morpheus kills her. Now everything is fine, The Dreaming is safe, Morpheus can go about his business and Rose can live her life.

Months pass by and Rose, her mother and Jed all are living happily together in a big house that they can afford now because of their inheritance from Unity. She learns that Ken has sold the Bed and Breakfast, Ken and Barbie have split up and Barbie is now living with friends in New York. But still Rose remains shaken up for the experience, wondering if it was all real or not. But in the end she shrugs it all off just saying "Dreams are stupid" and she dyes her hair and cuts it and goes outside to play with her brother.

The issue, as well as the story arc, comes to an end with Dream paying Desire a little visit. He knows that he/she had a hand in recent events and knows that Rose is the grandchild of their missing brother and he cannot spill family blood. He sternly warns him/her that he will forgive this because they are family but next time he will show no mercy. But also that it is them, The Endless, that are humanities toys, him, Despair and "poor Delirium". He then leaves but Desire does not dwell on his words because Desire lives in the present.

Sandman The Doll's House is one of the greatest comics arcs that I have ever read. All the elements play into one another and even set up the dominoes to be put into play later down the line of the series as a whole. Is it my favorite? Hmm well that's tough, its up there certainly and it was definitely when the series began to find its own voice and stands as its own unique creation.

Sadly Mike Dringenberg, great artist that he is, couldn't keep up with the heavy deadlines and workload of a monthly comic book and he had to be fired. He simply didn't have the engine to keep him going and produce the work. This however lead to one of the linchpins of Sandman.

What made Sandman so different and unique in its grand scheme is that it had a regular cast of revolving artists. Unlike Transmetropolitan where it was Darrick Robertson as the artist throughout, Sandman would have different artists for different stories. After Sam Keith left and Mike Driengeberg had to leave, Gaiman recruited artist of different talents and and wrote to their strengths rather than just make them unhappy. He would ask the artist what they wanted to draw and he would then write an issue depending on what they said. If one didn't like drawing cars then he's write a medieval story, if there was one who liked to draw Greek architecture then he'd write an issue that took place in ancient Greece.

Issue 17 Calliope, is a twisted tale of writers and ideas. The cover has a woman but also Peacock feather across the side. A Peacock doesn't actually feature in the story so the feathers must be symbolic of attraction. Attraction is linked to the girl and is the core of the story.

It starts inside a house and inside that house is a writer. He in the state that all writers find themselves in at one point in their careers, staring at  a blank screen. He has a deadline approaching very soon and he has yet to write a single word, luckily an old writer contacts him and tells him that he can fix his problem. He goes to his house where the old man shows him a naked woman that he has locked up in his attic, he gives her to him and tells him if he has her he will be able to write. He takes her back to his place and rapes her, after a while nothing seems to happen when all of a sudden he cranks out an entire book in a blaze of writing. The book is a success and he keeps writing best seller after best seller. He learns that the girl is named Calliope and she even once had a son. When the writer is at his highest point The Sandman appears before him, he tells him to let the woman go but the writer refuses because he needs the ideas, this sickens Sandman so he gives him all the ideas he could ever want.

When the writer is all alone he begins to get some new ideas, then more  and more and more. He writes them down on paper with pen before he runs out of both paper and pen. So he resorts to writing it on the walls with blood from his own finger tips. The writers doctor friend tries to tend to him but he knows that he has to free the girl. The doctor does, even though to him he only opens a door to an empty room. The issue ends with Sandman and Calliope standing together and having a few words about their son.

Issue 18, A Dream of a Thousand Cats is a wonderful story about, what else, cats. I love cats, I'm a cat person so this story hits me in my soft spot. But as for the story itself it is about a gathering of cats that get together in a cemetery where there is one cat that has something important to tell all of the other cats. The white cat tells the tale of how it grew up in comfort, with owners that took care of her, one day a beautiful stray came to her, she bore his kittens. The owners were not pleased and they killed the kittens, the white cat sought vengeance, she travels for a long time before she has a dream where she enters  a deep dark cave and at the end of the cave is a huge black cat, with glowing eyes. They talk and the black cat tells the white cat once there was a time when cats ruled the Earth and it was the humans that were their prey, but one day many humans, maybe a thousand, maybe a million, maybe just a hundred dreamed a dream that humans ruled the world. And the next day the entire order of the Earth had changed into what it is now. The humans dreaming changed the Earth now and what it always was and so the white cat asks for all the cats to dream one thing together so that cats can reclaim the mantle that was once theirs.

These issues were drawn by Kelly Jones. Jones is a good artist and his work is good with real surreal faces. What I dont like is the way he draws Morpheus. He draws him with a heavy emphasis on his cloak, he has said that he thought that the cloak was the key to his emotion with it flaring up when he's angry and so forth. What rubs me the the wrong way is the way he draws his face, really, Really stylized, with a very long face and chin, with swirling eyes and a bobble head of hair. It just looks wrong to me. I love the issues as long as Morpheus isn't in them.

Issue 19, A Midsummer's Nights Dream, does that title sound familiar? Well it should because this issue is all about the classic Shakespeare play. The story is about the plays premier and how it was performed, on commission, from Morpheus. Morpheus and Shakespeare have an agreement, his work will be immortal if he writes two plays for Morpheus, this is the first. Charles Vess illustrates this issue and he is one of the Sandman's greatest artists, he has an amazing clean European style to his work.

The story itself really just follows Shakespeare and is grup band of actors meeting Morpheus on a hill in the countryside. Morpheus opens a portal to another world and a huge group of fairies, troll goblins and so forth come out. This is their audience.

I love the idea that A Midsummer Nights Dream was in fact based on true events (so to speak). Did you think that the play was a parody of the monarchs of the time? NO! It was very accurate to the actual fairies and goblins that really existed.

The issue was incredible and it was recognized as one by winning the World Fantasy Award for short fiction. But then as soon as it won the award the rules got re-written so that a comic book could never win the award again. This infuriates me so much, the fools that made that decision are literally blocking the progress of comic books to be held at a higher standard of literature. This rule needs to be revoked.

Issue 20, Facade, tells the story of one of the more obscure DC characters, The Elemental Girl. It tells the story of what it would be like to be a girl with these kinds of powers. Sure when there's a bad guy to take down its all fun times. But when there's not and real life has to settle in, it becomes a dark lonely place to be. She just sits in her apartment and waits for that one point a week when she can call her phone therapist, she cant leave the apartment because her appearance terrifies people. All she wants is to die, except she cant.

Then while she is at her lowest point crying and begging for death, Death appears. Yes Death just shows up and strikes up a conversation with her. She asks her whats wrong, they talk it out and she explains that in the end we all meet Death. Then Elemental Girl quietly dies.

Death is a great character but the duduk perkara of why she could never star in her own ongoing title is exactly the reason Neil Gaiman himself explained. He said that she was too smart of a character to get into stories, she can see a story coming a mile away and move out of the way in time, while Dream is not. Its a bit of a shame but it makes me aware what a great character she is. She would of course star in two miniseries so that's something.

Sandman was published in the late eighties and the early nineties and obviously because it was, it was printed on customary paper-stock for the average comic in the late eighties and early nineties. Over the years it would get reprinted again and again and every time it did the paper would get better and better but the color would remain the same so whenever it would get reprinted the comics would get brighter and brighter. This is bad. For the special release of these Absolute editions the entire Sandman issues were recolored to more properly fit the higher quality paper stock.

I have to say that whenever I read a comic, I read each character with a voice running through my head. For Morpheus I imagined a soft American kind of accent. For Death I imagined a Londoner. Desire is the funnest to read because I imagine her sex changing along with her mood. For Lucifer I imagined Ron Perlman, there could be no other.

The special features of the first Absolute edition are very generous and appreciated. The first is Neil Gaiman's actual pitch to DC comics for the first eight issues of Sandman, you can really see how the man had planned out this run with the right amount of detail and the proper room to add or take anything away should anything change, or comes up with a better idea or there need to be more or less issues. What follows through this is a series of concept pieces from Dave McKean, Neil Gaiman and others of how Morpheus will look. I really like the ones by Leigh Baulch that draws Morpheus like David Bowie (I don't think any of the other artists have even tried to draw Morpheus like David Bowie...shame). There is also a copy of Neil Gaiman's script for Issue 19 followed by Charles Vess original pencils for the issue.

There are times when I think that I've seen it all, whether they be movies or comics. But to my delight I always get proven wrong, there is always something else out there that will be doing something new and interesting that will invoke that great feeling in the audience. Sandman was a comic that changed everything when it started and one of its great declarations of greatness is that its still one of the greatest reads that anyone can have today.