CATEGORIES

As I Go Along: The Sandman #8: Worlds’ End

Note: “As I Go Along” is a new feature in which I review and discuss the best graphic novels and series that I haven’t yet had a chance to read. These are the titles your comic-loving friends have been trying to push into your hands for years, only now I’ll be doing the pushing (or telling you not to bother). The post will include spoilers for those who have not yet read the work.

When a world ends, there’s always something left over. A story, perhaps, or a vision, or a hope. This inn is a refuge, after the lights go out. For a while.

After the action-packed collection “Brief Lives,” which revealed some oft-mentioned but (previously) never spoken history of the “lives” of The Endless, we took another step back in “Worlds’ End,” which was a collection of semi-related short stories set in the “Sandman” universe, much like “Dream Country” and “Fables and Reflections.” What sets “World’s End” apart from those collections however, is that it builds to a specific endpoint. From the beginning of the story, we know that something momentous is brewing, and that all the interesting stories we’re hearing are almost meant to distract us and prevent us from remembering that fact.

“Worlds’ End” begins with two travelers from the world we’re all familiar with, Brant Tucker and Charlene Mooney, getting into a car crash when it mysteriously begins snowing in the middle of summer. While still in a daze, a mysterious hedgehog directs Brant to an inn unlike any he (or we) are familiar with—the “Worlds’ End, a free house.”

It’s later discovered that the inn is one of four where those travelling between dimensions, can stowaway during “reality storms,” which come as the result of particularly significant events. What sets “World’s End” apart from the early short story collections is that it builds to a specific endpoint. From early on, we know that something momentous is brewing, and that all the interesting stories we’re hearing are almost meant to distract and prevent us from remembering that fact. That endpoint is the inn’s guests gathering at a window to watch an enormous funeral procession in the sky, which is led by Desire and includes most of The Endless, more than a few residents of The Dreaming, and a number of other characters Morpheus has interacted with over the course of the series. As such, the most prevalent guess as to who lies in the coffin is Morpheus himself. The procession ends with Death stopping and looking through the inn’s window as the crescent moon behind her is covered in what is likely blood.

The thing is, it’s never actually confirmed that it’s Dream’s funeral we’re seeing. At least not yet. Although that big ending is forever chugging towards us, “Worlds’ End” might just be all about Neil Gaiman reminding the reader that what’s important in a really good story is the distance, not the destination (the telling, not the ending or the stakes). Instead of telling us why people (beings is more accurate) from so many realms are caught in a reality storm (or why we should give a shit), the whole “the world is coming to an end” thing is really just a backdrop for the stories the travelers are telling.

In the end, we learn that Brant is actually recounting the stories he heard at the Worlds’ End to a regular bartender, and that Charlene has ceased to exist (as she chose to stay and work at the inn). So it turns out, what originally appeared to be the frame story, all the travelers gathering, was actually wrapped up in another frame story. Frameception.

Although the stories within “Worlds’ End” have little impact on the main arc, they’re still an incredibly diverse, fantastic read. Despite the distinctiveness that each story (and fictional storyteller) brings, these six separate issues ultimately feel like one complete volume. Somehow, the pieces of the puzzle all fit. My two favorites were indubitably the first, “A Tale of Two Cities,” which Gaiman has admitted is utterly Lovecraftian, and “Hob’s Leviathan,” just because I’ve been captivated by Hob Gadling since we first heard his life story in “The Doll’s House.”

“Worlds’ End” had its fantastic moments, but at the end of the day, the stories I most want to hear are those of The Endless. As such, I’m looking forward to “The Kindly Ones,” the longest “Sandman” collection, which fixes the spotlight back on Dream.

 

 

  

As I Go Along: The Sandman #3 ‘Dream Country’

Note: “As I Go Along” is a weekly feature in which I review and discuss the best graphic novels and series that I haven’t yet had a chance to read. These are the titles your comic-loving friends have been trying to push into your hands for years, only now I’ll be doing the pushing (or telling you not to bother). The post will include spoilers for those who have not yet read the work.

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”

In more ways than a few, “Dream Country” differs from the two collections that preceded it. The four issues it contains are not “chapters” in a story line in the way those of “Preludes and Nocturnes” or “The Doll’s House” were, as they are independent of the overarching “Sandman” tale. “Dream Country” would be more aptly compared to a collection of short stories than a novel, but those of us who have read Gaiman’s short fiction know that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

However, just because these stories are unrelated to the overarching plot doesn’t mean they’re not self-referential and chock full of Gaiman’s trademark intersection.

Much like in “The Doll’s House,” the theoretical protagonist, Dream, took a backseat in “Dream Country.” In fact, Dream doesn’t even appear in the final issue, “Facade,” but that’s more than made up for when Death, his spunky older sister, shows up.

The first story, “Calliope,” centers around Richard Madoc, a novelist suffering from writer’s block. Madoc trades a trichonobezoar, a hairball found in the intestine of someone with Rapunzel Syndrome, for Calliope, the muse of epic poetry in Greek mythology. At its outset, this appears to be another “be careful what you wish for” cautionary tale. But Gaiman being Gaiman, it’s turned into so much more.

More than anything else, “Calliope” is a story about human nature, and as a result, greed. In mythology, the best way to get a muse to grant an artist inspiration was to woo her; to be humble and gracious, thankful for any and everything she grants. Erasmus Fry, from whom Madoc gets Calliope, had no time for such things. “They say one ought to woo her kind, but I must say I found force most efficacious.” Like Fry, Madoc rapes his muse, justifying his actions because his second novel is nine months overdue. Neither writer had time for courtship. In effect they said, “give me inspiration, or else.”

Of course, as was the case with Fry, a second successful novel was not enough for Madoc. Nor was a third, or a poetry collection, play, or a deal to write and direct the film adaptation of one of his books. The film gets nominated for three Oscars, by the way. For Madoc, as with any human being given absolute power, inspiration, or anything else, it will never be enough.

Enter Dream, who puts an end to all that. He floods Madoc with so many story ideas that it drive the writer insane, compelling him to release Calliope. Similarly, Fry is found dead, supposedly poisoned, despite the fact that bezoars are meant to protect against any poison.

Dream’s actions display the way he changed and matured during his imprisonment, which occurred largely at the same time as Calliope’s. We learn that Dream and the muse once had a relationship which resulted in a son, the mythological figure Orpheus. Now, we know Dream can hold a real good grudge. After all, Nada, is still in hell. Both Calliope and Dream note his maturation, the former says, “You have changed Oneiros. In the old days, you would have left me to rot forever, without turning a hair,” before asking, “Do you still hate me? For what I did?” Dream responds, “No, I no longer hate you Calliope. I have learned much in recent times and… No matter. I do not hate you, child.”

It’s pretty incredible that there’s so much room for growth in the saga of one of the seven immortal beings in the universe. Remember, in this diegesis, even gods can die when the living stop believing in them. As Chuck Palahniuk put it in “Fight Club,” “On a long enough timeline, everyone’s survival rate drops to zero.” In “Facade,” Death explains this is true even of the seven Endless, saying “When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”

It seems Dream’s development will continue in the next collection. The synopsis for “Seasons of Mist” indicates that Dream travels to Hell to free Nada after millennia of incarceration and torment. We’ll just have to wait and see whether or not that means he’s forgiven her. I know I’m excited.

 


  

As I Go Along: The Sandman #2 ‘The Doll’s House’

“Was he really there at all? When you try to remember him he fades and shimmers until he seems little more than the echo of a dream.” – Rose Walker, “Into the Night”

The tremendous amount of continuously intersecting story lines within “The Sandman” was on full display in the first issue in the “Doll’s House” collection, “Tales in the Sand,” which serves as prelude to the “Doll’s House” narrative proper. The frame story shows an old man in an African culture taking a younger man into the desert to tell him a story as part of a manhood ritual. The tale the old man tells is of “a pair of star-cross’d lovers,” Nada and Dream (Gaiman gets his Shakespeare references in, so I figure I’ll get mine).

The woman fears the ramifications of engaging in a relationship with an immortal and spurns Dream. In his subsequent Anger, Dream sends Nada to Hell, where she remains to this day. How do we know this? We saw him walk by her cell in issue #4, “A Hope in Hell.” At the time, it seemed like a bit of a random exchange, but it turned out Gaiman had Tarantino’d us, showing the end of the story ten thousand years after it began. Although saying he Tarantino’d it isn’t really fair, as these issues came out years before “Reservoir Dogs” or “Pulp Fiction.”

Of course, the intersections and criss-crossing don’t end there. One of the things that sets “The Doll’s House” apart from the series’ first collection is that while Dream is still the focal point, he’s “off-camera” more often than not while the story focuses on another character, Rose Walker. Who is Rose Walker? Well, all the way back in the very first issue, a woman named Unity Kinkaid fell victim to the sleeping sickness that occurred while Dream was imprisoned. While she was asleep, Unity was raped and gave birth. The baby, named Miranda, was adopted, and when she grew up she gave birth to one Rose Walker.

As if that wasn’t enough explanation of the intersections, I’ll continue. While the previous two examples were callbacks to events and characters from the first collection, the entire “Doll’s House” plot line is actually three intersecting stories that come together at the end, as intersecting stories tend to do.

The first story line is that surrounding Unity, Miranda, and Rose. Having awoken, Unity uses her fortune to hire a private detective to bring her long-lost daughter and granddaughter to England. Meanwhile, Dream takes a census of his realm and discovers four of his creations are missing, so he embarks on a quest to find them. Two of those creatures, Brute and Glob make up the third story line. The two have escaped the Dreaming and taken residence in the mind of a boy named Jed. Jed who? Why, Jed Walker of course, who had been in the care of Rose’s deceased father. Upon their father’s death, Jed was sent to live with some abusive relatives, who lock him the basement and basically only want him around for the $800 government check they get each month. While Miranda stays in England to care for London, Rose returns to America to search for her brother.

Perhaps my favorite issue in the collection was one that wasn’t even related to the main story arc. In issue number 13, “Men of Good Fortune,” we see Dream grant a man named Hob Gadling immortality and subsequently meet him in an East London inn once every century.

In most immortality stories, the recipient soon recognizes the folly of his ways and starts begging for death’s embrace. This is not so for Hob Gadling. Through Dream’s eyes, we see Gadling rise and fall as the centuries pass by. He becomes wealthy, gets married and earns a knighthood. His wife dies, he picks the wrong side in a war, and becomes a penniless disgrace. He gets rich a second time when he enters the slave trade, but leaves it once Dream shows him its immorality.

As we watch Gadling and Dream interact throughout the centuries, we see that there’s an awful lot that never really changes. We see conversations in which the bar’s patrons argue whether or not AIDS (in 1989) or the bubonic plague (in 1389) are punishments from God, and discuss poll taxes instituted by both King Richard II and Margaret Thatcher. But we also see how things change. For example, Hob points out that although she was Queen consort of England, Catherine of Aragon was technically black. As such, Hob notes “if Catherine of Aragon had lived in Alabama in 1950, she would have been at the back of the bus.”

The thing that struck me most about this collection (besides all the wonderful intersections of course) is the way it humanizes Dream. While he may be a member of the Endless, who are the only immortal beings in the galaxy (that’s right, even gods dies when people stop believing in them), he feels emotions like love, remorse, loneliness, and betrayal, just like the rest of us. He meets Hob Gadling once a century for a chat, at first under the auspices that granting the man immortality will “amuse” him. But in 1889, Hob call Dream out, saying they only meet because Dream is lonely, because Hob is his only friend. Dream walks out in disgust, but a century later he returns to say, “I have always heard it was impolite to keep one’s friends waiting.”

 

  

As I Go Along: The Sandman #1 ‘Preludes and Nocturnes’

Morning announcements: “As I Go Along” is a new weekly feature in which I will review and discuss the best graphic novels and series that I haven’t yet had a chance to read. These are the titles your comic-reading friends have been trying to push into your hands for years, only now I’ll be doing the pushing (or telling you not to bother). Ill be starting with the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, entitled “Preludes and Nocturnes.” Since this is the first one, there will be only minor spoilers, future posts will assume familiarity with the previous collections.

“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.”

Neil Gaiman is about as famous as a writer can get these days, and he’s won a veritable plethora of awards to boot. The story goes that in the late 80s,  Karen Berger, who’s now the executive editor of Vertigo, read Gaiman’s work and offered him a job rebooting an old character, The Sandman. Gaiman’s version, who goes by many names, including Dream and Morpheus,  is closer to that of mythology and fairy tales than his superhero predecessors. The character rules over all dreams and stories, essentially anything that isn’t “reality.” But he’s less a God and more an ageless anthropomorphic personification, the embodiment of the concept of dreams.

Everyone (by which I mean the Internet) keeps telling me that “Preludes and Nocturnes” is far from the strongest title in the series, both Gaiman and the editor say as much in the foreword. I’m only halfway through the second collection so I can’t speak to the veracity of that notion, but I enjoyed the hell out of “Preludes and Nocturnes,” so if that’s the case I’m beyond excited to see what’s to come.

The story begins in 1916, an occult group led by Roderick Burgess is attempting to capture Death to gain immortality. Burgess is a magician akin to Aleister Crowley, in fact in the DC Universe, Burgess is Crowley’s rival. Burgess’ plan goes awry and he captures Dream, Death’s little brother, instead. After being imprisoned for centuries, Dream escapes, seeks vengeance, and begins hunting down the tools that make him powerful.

What follows will be familiar to gamers,  it’s basically a fetch quest which serves as an extended, but necessary, introduction to the expansive world(s) in which Dream operates. He needs to reclaim his pouch of sand, helm, and ruby, and his quest takes him everywhere from Arkham Asylum, Justice League Headquarters, Hell, and his own realm, called “the Dreaming” (what else?).

Highlights include the first issue, detailing Dream’s imprisonment, his trip to hell and participation in a certain “game,” and the last issue, which serves as a sort of epilogue and shows Dream following his older sister Death around for a day. You won’t believe what she’s like, but you’ll love it.

Most of the complaints, namely that Gaiman was trying too hard both to fit his tale into the horror genre and the more overarching DC Universe, are valid. Along the way we see characters like Martian Manhunter, the Scarecrow and John Constantine (the guy Keanu Reeves played). I didn’t mind that stuff, but I could see it getting tiresome. However I’m told such appearances become infrequent, so it will become less of an issue as the series goes on.

It seems the best is yet to come, but “Preludes and Nocturnes” is still a highly enjoyable read. It’s clear Gaiman had a vision from the start. From halfway through the second edition, “The Doll’s House,” it’s apparent that there is a nigh unbelievable amount of foreshadowing and intertwining story lines. As a result of this and Gaiman’s writing, which is chock full of references, you might find it helpful to keep this page bookmarked. It’s an annotation of each issue, explaining references, reminding you of characters you forgot were introduced, etc. But wait until you finish the issue before reading the annotations, as there are spoilers.

  

Related Posts