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HE GOES BY MANY NAMES: Morpheus, Dream,
the Lord of Dreamworld, the Prince of Stories. He is one of the
Endless, a group of six immortals who are above even the gods in
their power and duties. He is known to us as the Sandman, and if
it is in fact he who inspires humankind's stories, then he would
certainly be pleased with what Neil Gaiman has done.
DC has long had a character called the Sandman; back in the
1940s, he wore a green business suit and carried a sleeping-gas
gun. Neil Gaiman, one of the British comic writers who went to
the U.S. in the wake of Alan Moore's
success, was given the assignment of updating the character for
a new generation.
Gaiman's version would have absolutely nothing to do with the
1940s superhero. In fact, his stories are as far removed from
the standard heroics as you can get and still be considered a
comic book. The Sandman he envisioned was a gaunt, black-clad
immortal in charge of the dreamscape, that area of unreality
that humans can only visit in their dreams.
As the series begins, Dream has been captured by a occultist
crackpot who had meant to capture Death in order to achieve
eternal life. Dream is trapped for 70 years before he gains his
freedom and punishes those who trapped him. At first moody and
ruthless, Dream's character developed well over the series -- an
impressive feat, when you consider that the Endless are
essentially unchangeable beings, and the Sandman himself is
often no more than a passing figure in many of the stories
presented.
Gaiman's books defy every convention of comic-book
storytelling. His stories are rarely straight good-and-evil
battles, and only occasionally are we given hints that the
Sandman inhabits the same world as the DC superheroes. His
characters run the gamut from everyday people to utterly bizarre
creatures who exist only in dreams. The stories are just as
likely to be set in ancient Persia or 17th-century England as
they are in modern-day America. Just as there is no limit to
where the Sandman can go, there are no limitations to where his
stories will take us.
And then there is Death. Unlike the scythe-carrying hooded
ghoul that most people imagine, Death is pictured in the series
as a sunshiny yet practical, gothic-looking young woman, almost
the complete opposite of her brooding, dour brother. It was just
one of the strokes of genius that have made this series a
popular one among fans of fantasy literature, and typical of the
surprises that Gaiman had in store for an audience that almost
forgot how to be amazed by original storytelling.
Mini-series such as Watchmen
and Maus may have set the stage, but The Sandman
was the first continuing series to truly deserve the literary
praise it received. It showed the maturity that mainstream
comics were capable of achieving, won awards never before given
to comic books, and helped launch DC's Vertigo lineup of mature
titles, which have sought to duplicate the level of literacy
that became The Sandman's legacy to the comic business.
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