Marval Movie

It was officially announced on the 12th of July that Neil Gaiman would write a prequel to The Sandman series to honor its 25th anniversary!  

This is easily one of the biggest comics news this year, that may even beat Before Watchmen. It certainly makes me more exited because unlike Before Watchmen, which is being handled by different creators. This new comics will be written by the man who created, who made it great and who took comics that one step up into being a respectable medium.  

Sandman is one of my favorite comics of all time (I've been planing a review for it, for a long time). I had always heard great things about it and whatever I would see of it I was drawn in with great artwork. To my surprise for my 19th birthday I got Sandman Absolute vol 1, It was a great gift I loved every glorious issue. The following Christmas I got the second volume, which was also great and that's where my reading has stopped (at issue 39), but I do plan to complete my collection. 

The story will tell the tale of Dream, before he gets captured in the first issue. I had never given it any thought but after it being highlighted to me I am curious why he was captured so easily. The only details that Gaiman has released is that this prequel story will tell the tale of the battle he had to face way out in space. So far there is no announced title for the story or how many issues it will be.

Personally my hopes are that its more than one issue so the story can be properly flushed out, if not then at least a graphic novel or something with more pages than the average comic book. Dave McKean must do the cover art, its a staple, if this is a real Sandman then McKean has to do the cover. I will not except another.  My akibat hope is that this will temp Gaiman to come back and write more comics, I don't mean self contained story lines like Eternal's or 1602, I mean a real ongoing comic that he's created, maybe I'm just being selfish but tell me that you don't want the same thing.  

J.H. Williams III has also been announced as the artist, one of the great things about Sandman is that its easy for other artists to come in and deliver their own twist. Williams is a great artist, from what I've seen of his Batwoman art he's a top notch talent and a brilliant choice for Sandman. Karen Berger also is back as Editor, great, shes responsible for some of the best comics so knowing that shes editing this one as well makes me even more happy.

Sandman 25th Anniversary will be released November 2013, to coincide with the 25th Anniversary (naturally). Only one piece of artwork has been released so far and its very interesting, I'm shacking to the marrow with anticipation. I have a year to finish reading the rest of Neil Gaiman's Sandman...try and stop me!

*J.H. Williams art for Sandman

As a critic, my job is to analyze and overall tell the audience whether the product that I'm reviewing is worth their time or not. Typically for all my prattling my thoughts get summed up to how many stars I give it out of four.

This is the way that most critics and reviewers have worked for a long time and will use for a lot longer. It is also the method which I will keep using for the end of my reviews. But still I am aware that the system of the star rating and even all ratings are really a silly thing to do.

There are those (some of my friends included) that rate movies out of ten and even go deeper with rating like seven point three. They say that they take those ratings seriously and I believe them. But for me I just cant rate like that and even if I was forced to rate like that I wouldn't take it seriously. I use the four star rating and I like that rating system because I can both rate and read rating of that scale and know what each rating means. I know the difference between a three star movie and a three and a half star movie.

The way I approach the four star rating system goes like this. Three stars is a good movie, if its a comedy then I laughed the right amount and got a kick out of it its worth the price of the ticket and I enjoyed myself. Three and a half stars means that the movie was very good, say an action movie that was actually clever and with good action that I was invested in and it is probably one of the best movies out right now. Four stars means that I think the movie succeeds on every level and it will be a classic for all time. It is the two and a half star rating that's a little tricky, it means that I wouldn't send my best friend to see the movie and there are probably better movies out there, it means for every good thing I can name I can name a bad thing. It means that if there's nothing better available then its worth at least one watch, that rating is tricky for those little awkward movies that aren't bad but dont really have a lot of good things going for them.

My friends have pointed out that three stars out of four equals seventy-five percent. That's true but I honestly dont look at it like that, I see the four star rating system as a more abstract system for my favorable feeling for the product.

Other ratings, like say out of a hundred percent are just as hard for me to take seriously. However I excuse the websites that use that rating system because they either, have an entire staff to calculate and work out the overall rating or like IMDB or Rotten-tomatoes they average out there rating from a huge inbox of other ratings.

Ratings should be relative and not absolute. What I'm rating is important to take into the equation. For example, I gave the direct to DVD animated superhero movie Planet Hulk four stars out of four. Now that doesn't mean its on league with Casablanca or The Godfather, that means in the standard that I hold for direct to DVD animated superhero movies it succeeds on all the levels that I expect of it, as well of course that I had an amazing time watching it.

What I am rating is also essential, rating a movie is actually pretty easy. A movie is around ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes (give or take). The movie ticket is affordable as is the DVD, should you choose to take my advice and go for it. This also includes graphic novels. However TV shows, books and a comic book series are a total different ball game. Books are not as expensive as movies, they may be even cheaper, but an average book is around two hundred and twenty pages and it takes longer to read that than it does to watch a movie. TV shows could even be five seasons long with ten episodes to them, that could add up to two hundred hours that I am expecting my audience to sit through (assuming that I recommend it). Same for a long running comic book series, comic books in bulk are expensive and forty issues will take up a fair share of space across your shelf. So ratings must be relevant to your product.

Most critics prefer to have a rating number that's even, this is so that there is a clear line where the product becomes good or bad. Some of my friends question me when I tell them that I rate with the four star rating, I want to know where the five star rating came from. The four stars was the original method of rating and I have no idea where the extra star came from. Frankly I would prefer it if there was either a four star or a six star rating so that there would still be an even number rating system.

It was Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert that used the thumbs up thumbs down rating system for their show Siskel & Ebert. Now that rating system itself has itself been criticized for being too digital, or black and white. There's truth to that but in the end isn't that what all ratings are about, whether the product is worth your time or not, there are variables and you can be more accurate and say its mostly worth your time or its top notch.

Speaking of Siskel & Ebert here is a fascinating look on how they themselves view the art of film criticism. These are the masters, listen closely. 


Top lists are also a broken form of ratings. Whenever you number a list, from one to ten, then immediately almost everything else that didn't make the cut, or even the other names on the list are diminished because of the number one winner.  Another way to handle a top ten list is by simply having ten slots to fill and have the winners in alphabetical order.

In the ends ratings are silly because they can never speak for the entire readership that one reviewer might have or no mater now polarized one view might seem there will always be one person that hates it or another that loves it. I feel that there is something primal to the rating system, something in our brains that just makes us want to be told whether something is very good or bad.

Either way rating aren't going away anytime soon and I dont intend to stop using them myself. But even when I read a rating or when I myself use a rating, I'll still know deep down that there quit silly.
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"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.

"In a dream are all the characters really you?
Different aspects of you, do answers come in dreams?"
- Log Lady 

I do not believe that a few really good issues makes a series or a writers run great. I believe that any writer that can become a professional should be a able to deliver a solid six issue run, maybe even two years. But the great writers are able to reach a quality and are able to maintain it. The great writers are the ones that are able to keep the good stories and the creativity coming that shows whether they are the real deal or not. Sandman was twenty issues in, that's two and a half years. I had read the first volume and it was one of the most riveting, fresh reads that I had had in a long time. It was the second volumes job to keep me intrigued and reading it.

Alisa Kwitney writes a very sweet introduction on how it was to work as an assistant editor and how she inadvertently was responsible for Neil writing a story about Lady Constantine. Apparently she needed to know what the next issue of Sandman was going to be and Neil really didn't know, she pressured him so he just came up with Lady Constantine escaping from civil war France on the spot. She also makes a very cute comment about how there should be an eighth Endless named Deadline, that is hilarious.

The second volume starts off with the story arc Season of Mists. A huge arc in scale that will change one of the oldest status quo's of all time and bring together just about everyone. 

The cover to Issue 21 has an open book and a cross scratched across it. It gives the feel of an old pirate treasure map, X marks the spot. It opens with Destiny walking through his garden. His garden has many different paths, or maybe just one and the others are an illusion. He walks and walks when all of a sudden a shape appears before him, its the Hiketeia and they have a message for him. "A king will forsake his kingdom. Life and death will clash in a fray. The oldest battle begins once more." Destiny then looks through his book and sees that this is the start of something and it begins when he calls a family meeting.

Destiny is the only Endless that isn't an original character, all the other siblings are original creations, he first appeared in Weird Mystery Tales 1. This is where we get to meet the family. We've already met Death, Desire and Despair before but now all of them are in the same room at the same time (almost all of them). There is Death, who arrives first, she comes in jeans and a tank top but at her brothers request she changes into a very cool Gothic dress. Dream then emerges from a painting. Then Desire and Despair follow. They mention that there are two others left but Destiny says that only one other will be joining them, "he has made his wishes clear" and they all pass by something that has a curtain over it, there is another Endless that is missing. Then we meet Delirium, the sibling that was mentioned before but never seen. She takes the form of a fourteen year old girl with a buzz-cut hair style and one blue eye and one green eye. She also likes to make butterflies from nothing.

Todd Kelin again demonstrates why he's the best letterer in the business by giving a few of The Endless balloons and text distinctive. Delirium's are the most interesting with the text warping in size and the balloons looking like there's a rainbow shoved inside them.

They all sit down and boy is it awkward. Family get-together's can go one of two ways, fun or awkward.  This is a really awkward one. Desire makes Deliriums butterflies go into the fire were they now belong to Death and Desire continues to tease Dream. Desire brings up Dreams old girlfriend Nada and how he loved her and it ended in him imprisoning her in Hell, Dream takes big offense to this and storms off.

Death and Dream talk outside on the balcony. Dream admits that he regrets what he did to Nada but she did reject him, then Death calls him out on all his bullshit. She tells him what nonsense him banishing her was and how Desire was right. Dream takes a moment to acknowledge what shes said and then takes his leave, Death goes to the others and tells them to carry on without him but Destiny says that it will not be necessary "He is now going to Hell".

The next issue is Morpheus saying goodbye. He prepares to enter Hell and take Nada back but he knows the power that Lucifer wields and does not expect to come back alive. So he says his goodbyes to all he must. First he says goodbye to his staff and wishes them well. We then see Lyta, who is doing her best to take care of her baby but is finding it difficult without his father, she still hasn't given him a name, she sees her friend out only to find Morpheus standing over the crib when she comes back. He departs, but only after stating "His name is Daniel" and Lyta likes it. He visits Hob the immoral, and together they share a bottle of wine that hasn't existed for probably a hundred years. With all his goodbyes said and done Morpheus puts on his helmet and departs for Hell saying goodbye to Lucien, he says goodbye too.

And so comes the issue where the collision between the lord of dreams and the ruler of Hell comes to be. The cover is reminiscent of issue 4, where Morpheus first went to Hell, with Lucifer's face huge and imposing and the deep, dangerous red. Morpheus is flying in the in-between place and then gets to the gates of Hell and there is no sound to be heard. Hell is quite, Morpheus enters and there is not a soul to be seen (literally), he goes to where Nada would be imprisoned but she like all the others are gone. In his frustration Morpheus calls out for Lucifer and he appears, he then asks him what is happening and Lucifer simply replies "I've quit".

That's right Lucifer, the devil himself has quit Hell, he's done. Morpheus wants to know where Nada is but he has no idea where she is. So for the rest of the issue Lucifer and Morpheus walk through Hell and close it up. Lucifer has some rather deep things to say about Hell, Heaven, human nature and the divine plan. He talks about how the people create their own Hell, he has never led someone to do bad things and how he doesn't want souls (what would he do with them?). And when their all done Lucifer asks Morpheus to cut off his wings and he does, Morpheus then asks Lucifer what he will do now, he doesn't really know. Before he leaves Lucifer gives the key to Hell to Morpheus and wishes it brings him happiness, but he doubts it will.

I said in the last review of Sandman that I'm not the biggest fan of Kelly Jones and the way he draws Morpheus, but he is so perfect for this story-arc. Jones, like Jack Kirby or Brian Hitch is best at drawing big panels with massive scale inside them, I may not like his Morpheus but it doesn't matter because he has so much else to draw anyway.
And so with the Sandman with the key to Hell comes everyone that wants it. The first is Odin, from Norse mythology he travels deep underground to where Loki is living out his eternal torment, Odin tells him about the key to Hell and he needs Loki in acquiring it. Then we see that the essence of order are considering the applications of having Hell and they decide that they need it. Immediately followed by the essence of chaos that want Hell because it means that can cause a true catastrophe. Then in Heaven itself they send down two angels as their envoy, Duma and Ramiel. Then we see that all the previous demons that inhabited Hell have gathered together in Limbo and now want it for themselves. They are led by a demon named Azazel, that looks like a tear in space with evil eyes and teeth peering through, he decides to negotiate with the Sandman, after all they have Nada.

All the guest stand outside Dream's castle but the gates do not open to them. The guardians say that if they are to hold them off they will need his assistance. The essence of order is represented as a monk holding a cardboard box, while the essence of chaos is personified as a small girl with a balloon (that...just makes a lot of sense). Dream goes to his gallery to ask for help from Death, but she has no time to give him advise "the dead are coming back". So the issue ends with the castle gates opening and Dream welcoming his guests.

Issue 25 is an issue that diverges from the main story arc but still ties into it. The cover is a series of photos of a child that are varied in all, it looks as if the picture is being burned or the darkness is impending on the face. It tells the story of Charles Rowland, a ten year old boy that is stuck in boarding school over the holidays. There really isn't much to do, he has dinner with the headmaster and the Matron. But soon Charles isn't alone, other students start arriving, students that have been dead for years. As Death said the dead are rising. Three of the former students give him a particularly bad time, they beat him and torment him and throw water on him in his bed. Charles then finds his way to the attic where there is a boy named Paine, he is in the attic because that's where his bones are buried. Charles continues to get tormented by the other boys and there is no food so he becomes more and more malnourished and in his dying days he and Paine become friends. Charles Rowland wakes up and is now dead.

Now that their both dead they decide to head out into the world and really live their lives, maybe become detectives. As soon as they step one foot out of the gate Death appears before Charles telling him that shes there to take him to the next world, but Charles says he's not leaving without Paine, she doesn't have time to argue so she leaves and promises that she'll be back for him later.

This story is very unique and special in the Sandman universe. It's well told, I've never read a story like this before, it is a derailment from Season of Mists but still fits into the story on a whole. This story and the characters would go on to be the star of their own ongoing series (currently being released). Upon reflecting on the story it is a little sick and unpleasant. There is nothing fun about a child's death and yet Gaiman is able to suck you in and hit you with an ending that if nearly any beat before or during was any different could have come off wrong.
 
With the next issue we pick up with Morpheus where we last left off. Other guest are arriving, these two are fairies named Cluracan and Nuala, they too are here because of the key to Hell. Morpheus welcomes them, Cluracan gets to the point and says to him that it would be best that Morpheus keep Hell closed, in exchange for this request the faeries offer him his sister Nuala, she is beautiful, with a shapely figure and long, golden hair.  All the guests are gathering in the Dream castle, they feast and converse but they are all there for the same thing, the key too Hell. When night comes each one joins Morpheus and makes their deal for the key. The first is Odin that tells him he knows a person that contains a fraction of his soul and if he gets the key he will tell him where he is. A fun touch is that this being is Wesely Dodds, the original Sandman in DC continuity. The essence of chaos is next as she tells him that she wants Hell and if she doesn't get it chaos will rain on his kingdom until the end of time, she leaves him a balloon to think about it. Following chaos is order and it offers Morpheus the dream stuff of the collected dead mortals, but he shows very little interest in this. Susano-O-No-Mikto is next and they ask for Hell to expand on their adapting belief, they offer whatever Morpheus would ask of him. Lady Bast, the cat god is the next and she offers information, she knows where his brother is. The last (at least the one we see) is Azazel, he wants Hell for the Demons and as we already know he has Nada.

Praise again goes to Kelly Jones that adapts and changes his style for every visitor that Morpheus receives. We see him as a Feudal Lord, to a Man-Cat, he even mixes up his line-work each time. 

Morpheus dwells on what to do. He wants to know where his brother is, a missing piece of his soul would be very beneficial, freeing Nada was the whole reason he started all of this, he could keep it but that would mean that others would try and take it. He spends all night thinking about it, even keeps the dawn from coming, but a decision must be made. But then a heavenly light shines above him and Duma and Remiel descend, they tell him that they have observed what has been happening and their lord cannot allow them to further escalate, they will take the key to Hell.

Remiel says that he has a message for Morpheus, it is that there must always be a Hell, then he suddenly stops and shouts "NO!". It seems that his creator wants Hell to be put in the charge of the Angels themselves.

The next morning Morpheus tells his guests that none of them will get the key to Hell because he no longer has it. They all take it in stride except for Azazel who decides to destroy Nada, Morpheus warns him that such an action would invoke his wrath but he says that he is under his protection as a guest, to which he is right except that by threatening Nada he has revoked his guest privileges and is free to take him down. Morpheus flies into Azazel and goes deep to find Nada, Azazel says that he has him now, but Morpheus corrects him because they are still in his domain, and he is master here. He gets Nada out and traps Azazel in a small glass jar and puts him in his chest. Nobody else has any objections.

Gaiman has often said that he "cant write superhero's for squash" the duduk perkara he had was the traditional superhero stories would win by being the strongest one in the room and that's were they lost Gaiman. Gaiman has clearly stated that he never believed in that, Gaiman believes in wits and cunning and it plays out through Sandman. Morpheus doesn't win because he's the most powerful, he wins because he is smart and able to outwit his enemies and play the situation to his advantage. At the same time he is the most powerful but often his hands are tied because of the rules that even he must obey by and his enemies know it, so he has to play the game and be clever so that he can be the one who wins.

Issue 28 concludes the Season of Mists story arc and boy does it get a lot done with all the loose ends, it also marks the last art that Mike Dringeberg would contribute to Sandman. The cover, even though there's a lot to show is actually more fore-shadowing than anything else, it is a hint on what to focus on in this issue. It has the silhouette of a man with the eye of a snake staring out from the figure. It is a striking, scary image that gives the feeling of what lies beneath of what you immediately see.

It opens in Hell where Doma and Remiel are now overlooking Hell. Remiel is clearly unhappy and Doma seems unaffected and all the demons are returning.

Nada waits for Morpheus in a dining room and he arrives. They sit and talk, it goes slow and awkward by then they get down to the nitty-gritty of how Nada spurred Morpheus and he overreacted (to say the least). But they still love each-other, Nada still doesn't want to be a god and Morpheus is still forbidden from loving a mortal and will not abandon his role. So he does the only thing he can. Then in a hospital a child is born, Morpheus cradles the baby and says she will be welcome in the Dreaming and "Farewell".

And so one by one the guest leave Morpheus's castle. The cat queen says no hard feelings and the essence of chaos says that she was just boasting. Meanwhile Susano-O-No-Mikto is slipping out the back way when Morpheus appears, he says that he wanted to be nonchalant but Morpheus sees that it is really Loki in disguise. Loki switched places with Susano-O-No-Mikto and wants to escape, Morpheus cannot allow this and must get Mikto out of Loki's imprisonment but Loki pleads with Morpheus to spare him. Morpheus thinks it over and decides that both Mikto and Loki are guests, so he will save Mikto from his torture while saving Loki by putting a copy in his place.

Meanwhile Cluracan and Nuala are waiting around to say goodbye to Morpheus and then he appears to wish them well. Nuala is saying goodbye when when Cluracan has something to tell her, she will not be going back and she is an official gift to Morpheus. She doesn't want to stay and Morpheus doesn't want her but it is an request from the fairy queen and turning her down would be considered an insult. So Morpheus begrudgingly accepts her into his staff and as soon as he does he wipes her fake form away to reveal her true form. Gone are her supermodel looks and blonde hair, now she is a small little woman with short brown hair and long ears. Cluracan remarks it's been a long time since he's seen her true form and bids her goodbye.

On a beach in Australia Lucifer sits and stares at a sunset when an elderly man is strolling by and starts a conversation with him. He tells him that in his life he's lost both of his sons and his wife and has a bad leg that stops him from moving around too much, but still he looks at the sunset and how beautiful they are and how every single day there's a different one, so God must be doing something right. The elderly man leaves and Lucifer looks on the sunset (very well drawn by Mike Dringeberg) and says "The sunsets are bloody marvelous, you old bastard. Satisfied?"

Finally we are back with Doma and Remiel in Hell and they look on the work they have cut out for them and so they decide that with Hell under the rule of the angels it will be different and so they descend upon one soul that is serving out his sentence and they say that the torture may be eternal but the crime will not be, he will go on being tortured but he is forgiven and as they ascend the soul screams "But that's worse!". So there it is, the angels are in control, the evil are still being punished and all still goes according to God's plan. So I suppose that means happily ever after, in Hell, at least that how it is written in Destiny's book.

Season of Mists is great. Not only is it a great story with its simple execution but it is one of the most important stories told in the last century. I really mean it, it takes one of the oldest stories of all time and expands it. In all of human history we know about Lucifer, we know about the war of Heaven and Hell and we know that that is where Lucifer is lord and master and where he stays. Well now he's sick of it and the story gets to expand and the characters get to go to different places and develop.

Issue 29 is essential for the overall story of Sandman. The cover is of a head, that's it, a head being held by a hand and a crescent moon over the eye. The image of the head says everything, or at least is the most prominent element in the story itself. It is also beautifully drawn by Dave McKean. It opens on a house, where Lady Constantine is speaking with the Sandman who has a task for her, it is a matter that he cannot get involved with himself, at least not directly. Cut to France where the revolution is in full swing and Lady Constantine is walking through the street disguised as a peasant. She is minding her own business when two guards demand to know what is in her bag and she produces a pale, severed head of a man. Later back in the safety of her room she puts the head on a table and apologies to him and the head talks back. They regret that the guards have seen him and they will come looking for him now so they have to think fast. His name is Orpheus. The next day soldiers raid the room but the head is nowhere to be found so Lady Constantine is taken prisoner. They interrogate her but she does not divulge the location of the head, so that night she dreams of the Sandman. Constantine asks if he can intervene, but he cannot, even for his son.

Yes that is correct, right in the middle of the issue it is revealed that the Sandman has a son. Just like that a whole new world of questions and stories are open to us. How, why, are there others? This was something that shakes the comic to its core. But now to the rest of the issue.  

The Sandman cannot get directly involved but he can still help. The next morning the captain says that he knows where the head is, it came to him in a dream, he says that the head is where all the other heads are kept. They go to the dungeons where all the heads are and indeed the head of Orpheus is there and Constantine says that this is indeed the head of Orpheus from the Greek myth, but the head starts to sing, Constantine covers her ears but the others cannot move. Lady Constantine quickly escapes and takes Orpheus to an island where he will be cared for and wishes him luck. Orpheus asks if she will ever see his father again, she thinks so, so he asks her to thank him for him because he never sees him to which Constantine asks even in his dreams and he says "Not even in my dreams".

This issue plants the seeds for things that will be put into play later on in the series as well as simply serving to add much to Morpheus as a person and serving character development. Its also interesting to reflect on what a pivotal issue this is seeing that Gaiman wrote this improvised, this wasnt an issue he was planning on, he needed an idea, he didn't have one, so he came up with something while on the phone to his editor. And it became a pivotal piece of the entire series, chance or is Gaiman just that good of a writer?

Issue 30, August, is a very special issue that sticks out to me in terms of all the Sandman issues. It takes place in ancient Rome where a dwarf actor named Lycius is visiting the Emperor of Rome, Augustus. When Lycius arrives the emperor asks if he brought what he asked him to, he did and they apply a disguise so that they look like they have leprosy (old actors trick). They sit and talk about the state of Rome, the people and the way of man itself. He tells him that he once had a dream that a man appeared before him and told him that he would have to make a choice.

Bryan Talbot illustrates this issue and he is one of the best artist that Sandman ever had. His art is on the same level as Brian Bolland, with his detailed background and his incredible ability to draw people. Its interesting seeing him do this because he is a renowned writer in his own right.

August is not one of the great visual issues and by that I mean nothing particular happens that's visually exciting. Just two people walking and then sitting talking. But it is in the obrolan that makes this issue so compelling, each of the characters has their on voice and is just about fully developed. And shows what dreams can do subtly.

Issue 31, is about the difference that one member of the Endless can have on a person and how different they really are. The cover shows a house and we can see inside one window with the more classic use of photographs that we've seen Dave McKean use. It is by combining these two techniques that he is able to give off the affect of looking in and seeing more, this issue will take us inside the home, to the real man. And indeed inside a house a man named Joshua Norton stands in his room with a razor in-hand and is about ready to kill himself, standing behind him is Despair, taking some enjoyment from the situation. But while he holds the razor she calls forth Dream. Dream is not impressed to be called and wants to know what she wants, she points out the man and how firmly he is in her grasp Dream still doesn't care but Despair makes the wager that Dream will be unable to save him from Despair and Dream accept the challenge. 

The next day Norton wakes with a revelation, last night he had a dream. The first thing he does is send a letter to the local newspaper, the letter states that he has declared himself the "Emperor of America" He lives out is life and never has to pay rent or buy a drink. He even becomes a huge tourist attraction able to sign for money and sell dolls. One day a corpse comes to him as says that he has an offer for him, beautiful woman to be his wives, when Norton asks what the catch is the corpse says there is no catch, Norton refuses, he says that he is the Emperor of America, what else could he want. Norton leaves the kafetaria and the corpse exists after, the corpse enters a carriage where Desire is waiting and is very upset, he/she demands to know how Dream did it, to which he replies "He has is dignity sister-brother. He is an emperor after all." Desire leaves, very angry, swearing that "One day I will make him spill family blood".

One day, while walking in the rain one day Norton dies. Despair stands over him and curses him, curses him for being a dreamer, for being a madman that died in the gutter, but not giving into despair. Dream then appears and gives her a Norton statue, possibly as a gift but as a lesson if nothing else to which Despair responds "What lesson". And now that their both done with him he is in Death's hands, she arrives and they both walk off together.

Fun fact is that this story is true. I can't say if the Endless were really a part of it or not but there was indeed a man named Joshua Norton and he was a self proclaimed emperor of America.

This issue also serves to show the audience how the Endless work off each-other not from just a personality point of view but in their duties. Destiny, Death and Dream are the golden children while the others are more the lower siblings, they have the blue collar work.

At this time you begin to learn the general rhythm of Sandman as a whole. It goes story arc then a series of one shots, then onto another story arc. Its a solid method of dealing with the series. You get into a story and just when that arc is wrapping-up you start to get an itch for the single issues again then when you have a few of them in a row you feel like having a story arc again and you get it.

Issue 32 starts off the next story-arc A Game Of You. It opens on a vast, snowy fantasy landscape, known as The Land, where a conversation is heard by voice-over, a group of characters are talking about a princess and something called the Cuckoo and one of the voice states that it will find the princess by whatever means necessary. Then its back to reality and a pretty blonde girl wakes up, this is Barbie, remember Barbie from The Doll's House, well this is where she ended up after her and Ken split.

She gathers her thoughts when there's a knocking on the door. On the other side of the door is Wanda, Barbie's best friend and a male transvestite. Wanda suggests they have some coffee, then go out to hit the town. Barbie has no milk so Wanda goes to borrow some from one of their neighbors, the first is Thesally a woman with straight brown hair and and big round glasses, all she has is soy-milk. Then Wanda knocks on another door, this time a woman named Hazel answers it, she says that she does have milk and lets Wanda in. While inside we also meet Foxglove, Wanda's girlfriend, she gets the milk in a cute frog mug and goes back to Barbie. On her way there she runs into another tenant named George, an old man that seems to have no time for Wanda and her unique humor.  Wanda comes back to find that Barbie has drawn a chess board on one side of her face, they have their coffee and head off to town.

Sandman is probably most iconic for bringing in a female audience. Comics were once nearly a one hundred percent male audience driven medium. They were about guys, being written by guys, drawn by guys and marketed towards the guys. So then came Neil Gaiman that liked woman, who half of his friends and social time would be women. So when it came to writing he would add female characters and give them personalities. A strangely foreign concept until Gaiman did it in the late eighties and early nineties, but still better late than never. Gaiman writes woman so well because he clearly likes them and knows them, they say write what you know, well Gaiman knows women.

Meanwhile in the Dreaming Mathew and the Sandman are waiting for something to happen, then it does. A shift has happened, which means that something from the Dreaming has crossed over to the real world. The Sandman says that "One of the Skerries is dying" Mathew then asks what he's going to do about it, to which he replies nothing, he explains that Skerries are inconsequential, they come and then they die, he will do nothing.

Back in the real world Barbie and Wanda are on the subway and their talking when an old woman asks for some change when all of a sudden she freaks out saying "Keep it away, I don't like dogs!" and across the cart is a man holding a little puppy. She runs out of the subway, still saying "I don't like dogs" and while saying that she runs into Martin Tenbones, huge, furry and very dog-like.

While out on the town Barbie and Wanda talk about things. Over coffee Barbie tells Wanda that she doesn't have dreams, Wanda says she just doesn't remember her dreams, but Barbie says that she always remembers her dreams, when she had them. She doesn't remember the details but she knows that bad stuff happened, her and Ken split up and then she stopped having dreams. Wanda then tells her about her childhood and how out of place Wanda felt growing up in Texas and she felt like the "WEIRDZOS" from the old Hyperman comics.

At this point you can see that Gaiman had given up in trying to write in continuity and just went for parallels that served for the characters he wanted to use and talk about. The WEIRDZOS and Hyperman are clear parallels of Superman and the Bizzaros. But of course the Bizzaros didn't exist anymore in continuity so he just came up with a not very clever and rather obvious alternate version of them.

At the same time Martin Tenbones is roaming the streets and the local police as you probably expect, react with great force. The cops are quickly on the scene and of course Tenbones is scared by it, but then he see's Barbie and she recognizes him. He gallops to her and the cops take him down in a bloody fray. Barbie goes to her imaginary friend and cradles his bloody dying head in her lap. It is a positively traumatizing scene.

Meanwhile in The Land, we get to see who was speaking at the start of the story arc. There is Wilkinson a large rat that wears a trench coat and hat, Prinado a monkey dressed like an elevator boy and Luz a green Parrot with a bow-tie. Then back in the real world Wanda takes Barbies back to her place, She leaves her alone and Barbie is holding a pink gem inside a necklace-pendant that she knows is called "the Porpentine". At the same time, inside George's room, George devours a whole crow.

Later Hazel knocks on Barbies door and wants to talk. Barbie lets her in and Hazel clearly has something on her mind. Hazel then asks "what do you do when you think your pregnant?". Hazel explains that she met this guy one night while at a party and they just hooked up, she thought she wouldn't get pregnant because they "did it standing up". Barbie reassures her and tells her she'll help her and Hazel goes back home, Barbies last words being "stupid girl".

Barbie tries to to go to sleep while watching some TV but as she does the TV stats to criticize her life and how Ken left her, Nuala quickly appears on-top of her TV where she tells her to be careful. The other messages continue and Barbie thinks about going for a walk when all of a sudden gray curtains are before her and she moves through them and on the other side of them is Wilkinson casually standing there to greet her. Barbie is now in The Land.

At the same time George takes a box cutter, slices his chest open and unleashes a murder of crows from his rib cage. A crow flies into everyone's room and perches itself over them. Then everyone has a bad nightmare. Hazel has the worst one in my experience, it involves one baby eating another. But when a crow flies into Thesally's room, she is awake. And she quickly grabs it, bashes its head against the wall, and while she holds its dead body it burst into flames. 

Neil Gaiman has said that he used to get very bad dreams and so when he started writing Sandman he began to write them down. And ever since he did, he stopped having the bad dreams. His theory is that the people that were sending him the bad dreams stopped when they realized they were not making him miserable but getting a kick out of them.

The issue ends with Thessaly knocking on George's door and asking if she can come in, while holding a knife behind her back. While in The Land Barbie tells everyone that Martin Tenbones is dead but they still have the Porpentine so its not over yet and "We'd better get going".

The next issue opens with Foxglove and Hazel crying into one anothers arms about their nightmares. They get up to have a drink and relax when there's a knocking on the door, its Thessaly asking if their OK, which they say "Yes" but Thessaly asks "No bad Dreams?". They have clearly had bad dreams and she's going to check on Wanda and asks them to come with her, they agree. 

They all go to Wanda's room first, she is in a terrible state after her nightmare. But as soon and Thessaly mentions that Barbie is in trouble she snaps out of it and goes straight to her door. She knocks and knocks furiously, to no response, so Thessaly had Hazel get a key. They go inside and find Barbie in an un-wakeable sleep with the Porpentine glowing.

Thessaly tells Wanda to carry Barbie to George's room "The door will be open".  Wanda picks Barbie up and while she does Hazel, only know, realizes that Wanda's a man. They get to George's room and Wanda puts barbie down on the sofa, they ask Thessaly where George is and she says "He's in the bath". They think he's taking a bath but Thessaly clears it up by telling them that he's dead in the bath and sure enough when they go to look there he is, dead and everything. Everyone freaks out but Thessaly tells them to be clam and she will be getting answers from George soon.

So Thessaly goes into the bathroom and walks out with George's face, sliced from the head. She then goes to the wall and nails the face to it, then she goes back to the bathroom and takes out his eyes, afters that she bites out his tongue. So now the face, the eyes and the tongue are all horrifically nailed to the wall. Thessaly now has some questions for George, so George answers. George's severed face is now speaking to her.

After a quick word, Thessaly now knows about the Cuckoo so she decides that she will handle it, she puts a tray in the center of the room and asks Foxglove to stand over it and pour her menstruate into it so the spell will work. When I first read this I winced and screamed "WHAT!?" but after some thought this does sound like something that would be an ingredient in "women magic". Foxglove asks why her to which Thessaly responds "Because you're menstruating. No one else here is. Hazels pregnant, Wanda's a man...and I haven't menstruated for a long time."

When I first read this I was shocked and winced. But then after re-reading it I thought about how clever and gutsy it was. It serves to push the plot forward of Hazel's pregnancy and plants the seed for what happens later.

The next issue opens with Barbie in The Land and she is with the characters of her dreams, carefully scaling a snowy mountain cliff. The dark soldiers that work for the Cuckoo are looking for them but they are able to hide and evade them.

We quickly cut the The Dreaming where Nuala builds up her courage and tells the Sandman that she meddled and warned Barbie that she was in danger. The Sandman acknowledges her then walks away, then walks back and tells her "You did the right thing", this makes her smile.

While on their journey Wilkinson and the others talk about what the Land was like before she came. Barbie is confused because she thought that she created this world. Prinando corrects her by saying that the Land is just somewhere she comes to dream". 

Barbie and the others finds their way into a forest where all they need to do is stay on the path and they will be safe. Prinando is the one that leads them safely through the forest by scouting ahead of them, when one day he doesn't come back, the group continue on foot and come across his body, hung by the neck on a branch. They eventually find the path again and eventually, they reach the end of the forest and are now on a cliff by the sea.

Luz says that she will go and find friends to help, Wilkinson will stay with Barbie. When Luz gets back Wilkinson asks if she found any friends and Luz says "Yes, many friends" and the dark soldiers are standing right behind her. Luz points Barbie out to them but Wilkinson stands between them and tells Barbie to run, but he is no match for them and gets his throat sliced deep.

The soldiers and Luz take Barbie to the Cuckoo and Luz points to quaint little pink house and says the Cuckoo resides inside, Barbie looks on it and says "This is where I grew up".

Issue 36 is the penultimate issue to the story-arc, the cover consists of the title and a series of women flying into a dark figures robe. To me it brings to mind the dance of death from Seventh Seal. The next issue starts with Barbie looking through the house of her childhood, there are memories everywhere, and then she hears a voice behind her, its a young blonde girl. The girl says exactly what she is thinking, because she knows her so well, this girl is the Cuckoo. She explains to Barbie that she created this land and its people because she was a bored little girl with not much to do so she created her own fantasy land where she was the princess, Tenbones and Wilkinson were her toys. While the conversation unfolds Barbies seems to be getting more and more bewildered and the Cuckoo asks if she can destroy her completely, Barbie says sure, the Cuckoo then orders her soldiers to take Barbie to The Isle of Thorns.

Thessaly and the rest are now in The Land, Foxglove is clearly mad at Hazel and Hazel is trying to explain to her, but as has previously established she's not good with words. But in the end Foxglove taker her hand and says "Do you have any idea how much a baby will cost". Later they come across Wilkinson's dead body, so Thessaly looks into his blood and asks a question, his reflection appears in the blood. He tells them to bugger off and leave him alone, but Thessaly is insistent. So he tells them about the Cuckoo, Barbie and how he failed her. 

The storm builds in the real world, Wanda sees outside the window that the old woman from the subway is trapped under some big trash cans. She rushes downstairs and helps her inside. It is because of Thessaly's magic tampering with the moon that a storm is building up.

The Cuckoo, Luz and Barbie are now at "The Isle of Thorns" a small island with a rock in the center with Kanji on it. Thessaly and the others see the island and start gaining on it, the Cuckoo tells Luz to take her place and she goes running to Thessaly crying saying that the bird is the Cuckoo and is going to do bad things. Thessaly wastes no time in going straight up to Luz, asks if shes the Cuckoo, to which Luz replies "yes" and Thessaly swiftly breaks her neck. Thessaly then relaxes saying its fine now, they only need a few seconds to get control of you, and after the Cuckoo goes "Ow really" its already too late and they all obey her.

Barbie breaks the broach on the rock and a mighty explosion follows, the jewel breaks in the real world too. Then the stars start to move, one star moves closer and closer to them, until it becomes the center of an eye, the Sandman's eye. The Cuckoo asks who he is, to which he tells her that he is this lands creator. He wipes away the Cuckoo's control over Barbie and the others then asks for silence for what he must do next.

The Sandman walks to the edge of the island and extends his arms and every creature from the Land comes marching, even Luz gets up and joins the march, they all enter into the Sandman's robe until there is only one other left to enter. It is a beautiful, sad looking woman with a scar across her right cheek and as she approaches the Sandman he says "I am here Alianora", she asks how long it has been and he tells her "A long time, old love". Then he reaches out and picks up the Land, like an entire beach in in his hand and then it crumbles away.

When he's done he goes to talk with everyone, he looks at Thessaly and says that he remembers her, she also remembers him. They clearly have a history and there is some pretty obvious tension and he makes no bones about him being displeased, Hazel asks what he's talking about to which Thessaly explains that they are in trouble.

Back with Wanda, George is talking to her about the storm and the building. He is saying that the storm is strong and raging while the building is old and crumbling, Wanda starts to put it together when on the last page of the issue one great blow of the storm breaks down the wall and the whole place comes tumbling down.

Issue 37 is the selesai issue of the story arc and it starts with a panel of Barbie in a bathroom, in a black dress and applying make-up. She says that someone is coming, she's not looking forward to it and she must try not to remember.

The scene then cuts to a flashback to The Dreaming where we last left off with Barbie, the Cuckoo and the others on the island. The Sandman tells Barbie that she can ask one boon of him, she asks if he can kill the Cuckoo, he can, but decides to go with "The Dorothy option" and have everyone go back home. And so the Cuckoo is able to fly away and lay its eggs in some other dreamland.

The Sandman tells them that the Cuckoo was unable to fly away because it was bound to her dream because of Rose Walker. Both Barbie and Foxglove remark that they know Rose, to which they both say that its a hell of a coincidence.

At this point I realized how well Sandman tied itself together with its other stories. Sure in real life this wouldn't happen, but a story is something that is constructed and put together and as a reader its just fun and rewarding to have characters reappear or be mentioned again.

Cutting back to present, we see that Barbie is in Texas and a diner. She is here to attend Wanda's funeral and has drawn a veil over her face. She meets a woman that is Wanda's aunt, aunt Dora. They sit and talk about Wanda and the events leading up to her death, during the conversation aunt Dora makes an effort in calling Wanda Alvin and insists that Barbie do the same. Dora tells Barbie that this boy will go like a proper Christian and is now in a suit and has gotten a good haircut, to which Barbie say "But...Wanda was always so proud of her hair...".

The funeral plays out, barbie is invited by Dora to come back to the house, she says no. When its all over Barbie goes up and takes lipstick, crosses out Alvin and writes Wanda on-top of it. She says that she really wishes that she was with her now and has a present for her, its a Hyperman comic, she drops it in the grave. While riding along Barbie has a dream that Wanda was waving to her, but Wanda was a girl, a real girl and with her was another beautiful girl, pale and dressed in black, the two walked off together. While Barbie and aunt Dora are in the car she asks what she's going to do and she says that when she was young she would wander around, play and dream, so that's what she'll do now, and that's all.

A Game of You is a unique story arc. I love it, its one of my favorites. I never though we would meet Barbie again, but I'm glad we did. It has a great balance between the crazy world of the dreams and the even crazier world of real life. It brings forward the fascinating idea that there are dreams that we do not create but dreamland's that we go to, people do have reoccurring dreams as well as many different people share the same or similar dreams. Most people have had the showing up the school in the underwear dream, is that another dream landscape that most people go to? Also the art duties are split between Shawn McManus and Coleen Doran and they are brilliant.

Issue 38 is another Sandman story about stories. The cover is reminiscent of a tarot card. It brings to mind fables, there's a wolf, candles, a robed figure and indeed the issue tells a fable. It starts in a living room where a grandfather is trying to tell a story to his granddaughter but she isn't that interested, so he get a little moody so in the end she decides to let him tell his story.

The story is about a young man that lived in the forest with his people and one day comes across an old gypsy woman that has a sack of things to sell. She says she is hungry, so he kills a rabbit for her, she tries to repay him but his father says they do not accept things from outsiders. The boy sees the gypsy again the next day and she shows him a necklace with a picture of a beautiful woman inside it. The next day the boy finds the gypsy woman dead with her sack lying next to her. The boy takes the bag and decides to seek out the woman in the necklace.

While on his journey the boy comes across a tall thin man than inquires about the object in the sack and that he is interested in purchasing a book in it. The thin man asks his price and the boy raises the necklace and says "her". The man cannot do this so the boy moves on. While traveling the boy comes across the same man again, he puts a huge bag of gold in-front of him for the book, but the boy has no need for gold so he moves on. He then finds himself in an unknown forest and begins to hunt a dear and right when he is about to pounce another takes it, a girl from another tribe. The boy eventually gets to the castle where the girl on the necklace lives and the steward escorts him through the castle, but its a trick and he throws him in the dungeon. While in the dungeon the thin man appears before the boy and once again makes deal for the book, he will grant his freedom if he will part with the book, but the boy continues to refuse, so the thin man says that he will have to come with him, next they are walking through the Dream Castle.

Then they come across the Sandman who is very surprised to have a guest. The thin man then explains everything to the Sandman and he agrees, the boy gives the man the book (written by Christopher Marlowe) and they are transported to the woman's bedroom. When the boy is finally standing in-front of the princess he gives her the necklace and walks away and returns to the forest where he and the hunting girl turn into wolves and hunt dear.

Gaiman excels in telling stories that are about stories. He understands what stories are for and how they guide us through our lives.

Issue 39 is an issue that plays with both time and the landscape of dreams. It is 1273 and we see a lost young man wandering through the desert, he calls out but nobody can hear him, until he meets a man who like him is lost so he took to shouting out "Marko Polo" to which the young man replies "That's my name". While they walk they come across another man that is sitting by a smouldering fire and invites them to join him, he tells them that they are in a "soft place" a place beyond the edge of the map, then one by one the men disappear and Marko is alone.

Then the Sandman appears, Marko asks for help but he tells Marko that he is in no position to help him being that he has only just freed himself from captivity, so Marko gives him some water and the Sandman thanks him. Marko wants to leave the soft place and because of his kindness the Sandman grants his wish. Marko then wakes up in the sand and his father is right next to him to help, Marko has something to tell his father but he forgets what he was going to say so moves on, after all it was just a dream.

This issue is an interesting look at how dreams can meld into one and even transcend time. Akira Kurosawa said that as a young man he had a dream that he met Vincent van Gogh, was this while they were is soft places?

For the voices of the characters in these stories I heard Tracy Grandstaff doing her Daria voice as Thesally, Kevin Michael Richardson for Azazel and Hugh Laurie as Wilkinson. 

The special features in volume two are again very generous. This time we get a lot of special art by various artists. My favorites are Death by Moebius, Dream by Brian Bolland and Dream by Jeff Smith. There's also a special Winter tale about, of all the Endless Desire, illustrated by John Bolton. It is the story of a faun and his dwindling good looks and power, so he preys to Desire to give him one last moment of being wanted and he/she grants the wish. Its a simple, kind of sweet story where we get to see a different side of Desire. As in the last Absolute Edition there is a breakdown of an issue with original pencils and script. This time its issue 23 where Sandman goes to Hell, probably the best choice out of the issues that were available in this edition.

Absolute Sandman Volume II is another solid package of stories. The stories go deeper into Morpheus past and his character and the other stories show us other things within the world of dreams and the Endless as well as other stories told from a different perspectives. The special features are more than generous and the large, high quality paper makes the line and color work so easy to appreciate.