Neil Gaiman’s Sandman exists in a strange place in our culture. It’s often spoken of as a seminal work in the medium of comics, sometimes even by people who think that comics are nothing more than juvenile trash. I’m sure there are people who, it’s the only comic book they’ve read, and insist that it is not a comic book series but a “Graphic Novel”. It’s often cited as one of the titles from when “DC Comics grew up” alongside Watchmen (a story about how superheroes are worthless or power-crazed rapists) and Dark Knight Returns (Neo-Fascist Propaganda about how the strong-man should take power). But Sandman is much larger than these 2 works and is largely undiscussed; only ever mentioned as if it’s one story. But does it deserve its acclaim? The answer is “Yes”. There you go if that’s all you wanted, done, now go read Sandman. Why is it worth reading, a story to be worth reading has to be either a historical relic or have ideas or themes relevant to today. Otherwise it’s just escapist fluff, not worthy of any celebration or analysis.
As well as its strange place in culture, Sandman manages to be in the DC Universe and also separate, which helps it be an evergreen title. Before we delve into themes and analysis I need to lay out characters and plot. Sandman has a shifting protagonist, although Dream or Morpheus is in almost every issue he is often in a support role in the story (or occasionally antagonist). Dream is the lord of all stories, master of all things that never were and never-will-be. One of the Endless, gods above all other pantheons that exist forever. A mysterious and stoic figure who bares a striking resemblance to series author Neil Gaiman.
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Dream’s closest companion is Matthew the Raven, before the series he appeared in Swamp Thing and Doom Patrol. He used to be a man but now he’s a raven. He mostly serves as the reader's point of view character, because being a former human living in the dreaming his perspective is closest to the readers (this also allows Morpheus to remain mysterious and brooding) .
Lucien the librarian is Morpheus’ most loyal follower. He organises the library and that’s about it. The library has every book ever written and every book ever thought of and never finished.
Death is the older sister of Dream. She talks to every living thing when they are born and when they die. Her existence gives purpose to life and loves all living things. She is also the one person who Morpheus will definitely listen to.
Dr Destiny only makes the characters breakdown because he is the main antagonist of the first story-arc. He first appeared as a JLA villain in the silver age and as an attempt to copy Marvel’s Dr Doom. He’s radically altered into a more horrifying character, a mentally unhinged man playing with powers greater than he can understand.
Desire and Despair, the twins of the Endless. Unlike Dream and Death they see no value in human life. They’re a pair of sadists who love to toy with humans. As the Budha said, the cause of suffering is Desire. Despite being twins they couldn’t look more different. Desire is based on the art of Patrick Nagel (best known for Duran Duran Album covers and 1980’s salon decor). Whilst Despair is a saggy boobed short sumo wrestler. Despair also lives inside of her brother-sister (Desire was too greedy to pick just one gender).
Cain and Abel the original double act from the Bible, Murderer and Victim. They live inside the Dreaming not too far away from their mother Eve. Cain and Abel were also the hosts of the DC Horror Anthology series “House of Mystery”.
Rose Walker, seemingly a normal girl with narcolepsy. Like Matthew she serves as a point of view character except her parts of the story happen more in the waking world.
The Fiddler’s Green, a former location in the Dreaming, turned into a man. The Fiddler’s Green was a paradise, but during Morpheus' time in captivity he grew bored and decided to wander around the waking world.
The Corininthian a nightmare, with no eyes and 3 mouths. He loves to eat eyes.
Hippolyta Hall, former member of the JSA and wife of Hank Hall (a superhero called The Sandman). She for a time lived in the dreams of Jed Walker with her husband in recurring superhero adventures, pregnant but never giving birth.
Barbie, named after the popular doll. She had a boyfriend Ken, and seemed to just be a shallow representation of 1950’s Americana. However, in her dreams she had a whole fantasy life and was a guardian of a dreamworld. When she was cut off from her dreamworld she became dissatisfied with her outerlife rejecting the trappings Ken put her in and becoming a performance artist.
Lucifer the ruler of hell, recurring antagonist. Dream’s story mirrors his (more on that later).
Nuala, originally a gift from the faeries to Morpheus. She was literally objectified, but within the Dreaming she finds more agency and starts to be a person. She is “rescued” by her brother Cluracon, but her new found agency and desire to be herself is not welcome in Faerie.
Hob Gadling, a man who made a deal with Dream and Death that he’d never die.
William Shakespeare, the historical writer, you know who he is.
Delirium, the youngest of the Endless. She was once Delight, she is now Delirium. She wanders the universe as a lost child saying gibberish. She was very close to her brother Destruction but he left.
Bast, an Egyptian god with the head of a Cat. She is in love with Dream.
Puck, a trickster faerie borrowed from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Aesir, Mostly Odin, Loki and Thor. Portrayed more like the Norse Mythology than the Marvel comics.
Orpheus, Son of Morpheus and Ophelia. The Mythical tragic hero from Orpheus and Eurydice, now he’s just a head.
Mervyn Pumpkinhead, the Janitor of the Dreaming. He’s a Jack Kirby type, working class grumbler who does all the manual labour. Some of his dialogue feels like a commentary on the relationship between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Dream being Stan Lee getting all the credit while Kirby did all the drawing).
DC generally has one plot and it’s.
Sandman however is more defined by its zagging to superhero comics zigging. Dream is not a Superhero, he starts off imprisoned (something that rarely happens to heroes) and is then seeking to reclaim his power. Superheroes are generally reactive characters, they have to wait for a villain to start the conflict. The first 8 issues retroactively called “preludes and nocturnes” are separate from the main story and also have a “this won’t last” reading like Neil Gaiman felt at any moment DC would cancel the book. The first arc also has more mainstream DC characters appear within it. The guest stars could be editorial mandates or Gaiman’s excitement that he gets to play in the DC sandbox. (For those wanting to know the guest stars are; John Constantine, Mr Miracle, The Scarecrow, Dr Destiny, Martian Manhunter, Mad Hettie, Etrigan the Demon and probably someone I’m forgetting).
After Preludes and Nocturnes it becomes a story about a god burdened by his responsibilities and whose actions turn into his downfall. Or was that what he wanted, Lucifer tricked him into letting him abdicate his throne in the story arc The Season of Mists. Did Morpheus see this and work his own way out, through all of his decisions? Would he really take the wrath of the Kindly Ones to leave his own throne.
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Now full disclosure, I am talking exclusively about the 75 issue comic series. I have not seen the TV adaptation, and don’t really intend to. Honestly I’m kind of sick of this idea that a comic being adapted into another medium is an improvement. I genuinely regard that kind of thinking as an insult against the artform that is comics. It’s completely appropriate that a reflection on stories took place within a comic book, because comics are our oldest documented form of storytelling. Don’t believe me, what’s a cave painting if not a comic, sure it would take many centuries before we got to Little Nemo or Superman but it’s the genesis of the art form. Using pictures to tell stories. I’ve probably now unfairly dismissed the audio book, which I’m more likely to check out later. But I don’t think putting a comic on the same platform as Love Island elevates the comic book. If anything I think more people should be reading comics and less people should be using webcomics as a stepping stone to achieve their real dream. I genuinely find it kind of sad that even whilst Sandman was being made as a monthly series, Warner Bros have been trying to adapt it. So many attempts have been made that I think Gaiman actually went “sod it, I’ll let the writer of Batman V Superman have the rights, it can’t end up worse than Blade Trinity”.
Somebody once told me that Sandman is all about (in their words) “Family is shite”. Even more baffling, somebody else in the same room thought that this was a deep take on the material. When this take is as myopic as its phrasing is vulgar. To make matters worse Jed Walker at Morpheus funerals says “Family Sucks and Family Rocks”.
Family is a theme within Sandman but only because family is a universal concept, all stories need some relatability so the audience can understand it. If I said my new story is about “Mutant Aardvarks that communicate entirely through smell and travel across the Horseshoe Nebula looking for Gormalthacks”. You’d have no idea what I was talking about, you’d have no relatability and it would only work as an avant-garde parody.
Sandman is about stories and that’s the closest to a catchy slogan summary as you can get for it. It’s a meditation on what stories are, why we have stories and more importantly whose stories get to be told.
Dream is an avatar for Neil Gaiman but he’s also a Cis white male. He embodies our stories because they’ve been dominant. I genuinely think his time in captivity serves 2 purposes, 1 it gives him a goal to strive for in the opening arc (regaining his realm). And 2 to critique the impact capitalism had on storytelling in the mid to late 20th century. Superheroes didn’t duplicate because of a romantic ideal that men in long underwear and capes were great. They came about because Superman became popular and every publisher wanted their own copy until they flooded the market (and then got bought up by DC).
Joseph Campbell came up with the idea of the monomyth, that all stories were just one story. This has rightly been getting more and more criticism, partially for Campbell’s own views. In particular his view that women can’t be heroes and his tendency to just cherry pick cultures disregarding whatever didn’t fit his Nazi apologist world view.
Patriarchy and Capitalism have influenced our stories in more ways than we can imagine. But what is a culture other than a collection of stories we tell each other. Even within Jung’s theories of the collective unconsciousness and interpretations of dreams, men get more archetypes than women.
Gaiman early on in the series falls into these ideas, Ophelia and Nada’s stories are both told from men’s perspectives. Ophelia the muse is thought of entirely as an object by both the men who own and abuse her to gain the boon of inspiration. Seeing their vile acts as purely a transactional arrangement. She is only saved when Morpheus intervenes, punishing her captor with too many ideas to handle (a classic monkey’s paw punishment). Nada’s story is also told from one man to another, and she is punished by Morpheus and condemned to hell for changing her mind. Something that is rightly pointed out as a crappy thing to do by his family.
This was an easy mistake to make, considering he was working within a company that had gotten high praise for the rampant misogyny within Watchmen and the Killing Joke. Gaiman does try to confront this (and Rose Walker was the series protagonist before both Ophelia’s story and Nada’s). Nuala the faerie is given to Morpheus as a gift (given like a literal object) and then treated as a person given total freedom of his realm. Even rejecting her saving and forced return to Faerie when she is rescued by her brother. Morpheus gets Gary Stu qualities because a lot of the women in the series are in love with him. The story arc a Game of You directly challenges gender norms in fiction. A Game of You features Barbie as a main character and as a chosen one hero for a dreamworld. It also has Wanda a trans woman as an actual character not an object and not as the band Chemtrails (fronted by a trans woman called Ivy Lust) said “a serial killer or a victim”.
The World’s End story arc is an homage to the Canterbury tales. Every story is told by a boy except one, and features very few girls. When they do have girls in the story it’s minor supporting roles or in the earlier exception that the narrator was a girl. This is even pointed out within the framing device at the end. Why is so much of modern storytelling so focused around straight white men, why are they the default? (oh yeah Patriarchy).
Morpheus’ displacement as one of the Endless is caused by a woman (Hippolyta Hall) and she isn't an angry former lover. The final issue, the Tempest reveals that Morpheus’ greatest wish was to be able to walk away from his responsibility. Is this Neil Gaiman’s guilt that Cis white men have dominated so much of culture and a desire to hand the reins to a more diverse group to be leaders of culture. I’d have to find him and ask him but I think the answer is yes.
Then again, who am I to say there is one reading of the text. Maybe somebody else would find greater importance in Destruction renouncing his title to be a bad painter and poet. I must give one answer because the only alternative would be to repost the 2000 plus pages of Sandman and that’s piracy. I have to editorialise a little to do some writing.
A bigger issue is that all these cultures are represented by one man’s view on them, however he’s more respectful and empathetic than others who have tried to do this like Joseph Campbell. Also The Sandman’s assistant editor was Rachel Pollack, a transwoman.
If anything, the biggest issue is that it’s known as “Neil Gaiman’s Sandman”. As if he was the only contributor, when Neil Gaiman could not have done a single issue without a team of artists. Sam Kieth, Mike Deirenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Brian Talbot (sorry all other artists, it’d take too long to name you all) probably all did more work on their issues than Gaiman who handed them a script. Sandman is not a work by one Auteur even if Gaiman’s voice in the series is the loudest. If anything it should be The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and an array of wonderful artists because every artist on the series had their own style, nobody felt like “default comic art style”. Each artist gave a unique feel to the issue they made and should be celebrated from Sam Kieth’s Dark and Grungey early issues to P Craig Russell’s storybook art on issue 50 to Marc Hempell’s Art deco illustrations on the Kindly Ones and Charles Vess’ classical art on the last issue.
If you want a quotation from me about the importance of Sandman it would have to be, “Watchmen and Dark Knight returns is when DC tried mature themes, Sandman is when DC grew up”.
