Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part IV: The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four

Comic hardcover, 608 pages
Published 2008 (contents: 1993-96)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Marc Hempel, Michael Zulli, D'Israeli, Richard Case, Charles Vess, Teddy Kristiansen, John J Muth, Kevin Nowlan, Dean Ormston, Glyn Dillon
Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, John J Muth
Letterers: Todd Klein, Kevin Nowlan

With this volume, The Sandman storyline hurtles to its inevitable conclusion. I had this spoiled for me ages ago, but it still totally works, and besides, Volume Three has a sequence that gives the game away anyway. The story is slow to start, but it really comes together as it goes, and as we see people throughout the universe of the series react to what is about to happen to Dream-- or what Dream is about to do? The final storyline makes a lot of sense of Dream's inactivity throughout the series (though I don't know that it excuses it as good storytelling), and I was happy to see Lyta Hall, wife of the 1980s Sandman, make a return. As the series' longest storyline yet, The Kindly Ones really works: I was riveted as I read, wanting to know what was going to happen next even thought I knew. There were lots of great little moments, especially the last stand of Merv Pumpkinhead during the assault on the Dreaming, and Cain's grief at what has happened to Abel. Marc Hempel has a different pencilling style from most of the other artists on the series, which would have been fine-- except that it often made it difficult to recognize brief appearances by preestablished characters. Though not quite as good as Brief Lives in Volume Three, The Kindly Ones provides an excellent finale to the series.

I need to say a few words about Matthew the Raven. Though Merv makes me laugh the most, Matthew is my favorite of the characters to inhabit the Dreaming, a mortal man who died and was offered a chance to live on in dreams as Dream's raven. He's your "average guy" amongst the far-fetched characters of the Dreaming, a little baffled but often able to cut through the crap. He got some good material in Volume Three, and he shines here in Volume Four, providing a human anchor for the massive events unfolding. The climax of the The Kindly Ones wouldn't be nearly as powerful without him, and he's what makes the last storyline in the book, The Wake, work as well as it does, as he struggles to come to terms with what happened. A great supporting character.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman, Part I: The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

Now that I've finally finished up with Green Arrow, I've moved on to a new comics project: Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Long considered some of the most literate comics, I've never read them, and I've long felt that to be something of a deficiency. As a result, I'm forcing the ILL staff to get hold of the swanky Absolute Editions of the series, which takes some time, but lets me move through the series a bit quicker.

Comic hardcover, 612 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 1988-90)
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2010

The Absolute Sandman, Volume One

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artists: Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Charles Vess, Michael Zulli, Kelley Jones, Chris Bachalo, Malcolm Jones III, Danny Vozzo, Colleen Doran, Steve Parkhouse
Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, Steve Oliff
Letterers: Todd Klein, John Costanza

The protagonist of these stories is Dream of the Endless, a personification of the abstract concept of "dream"-- the other Endless, who are all siblings, also personify abstract concepts that begin with "D" in English (odd, that). He can enter into people's dreams, and acquire whatever he needs from them. Despite his enormous power, he's imprisoned by a human sorcerer, but the series begins with him finally making his escape after almost a century. Now, he must return to the world and re-establish his kingdom. All of my problems with this series can be traced to Dream himself, I think. How does he feel about being locked up and powerless for such a long period of time? No one knows, since Gaiman never gives us much insight into his interiority. Dream embarks on a series of quests upon his escape in an attempt to track down and recover artifacts stolen from him during his imprisonment, but it's hard to root for a protagonist whose powers are so all-encompassing and ill-defined. There's not really any circumstance where he won't triumph; even his journey into Hell is anti-climactic; he turns out to have a power that Lucifer's demons don't.

Where this volume succeeds much more is with its depiction of the small characters, human or otherwise, caught in the wake of Dream's machinations. The snippets of those affected by Dream's imprisonment in the opening issues are the first sign of this, but it gets better with those who are subject to the evil machinations of Doctor Destiny (who just happens to escape imprisonment and steal Dream's magic ruby at the exact moment Dream comes looking for it), and even Doctor Destiny himself. Even better, however, is the substory called The Doll's House where a "dream vortex" begins to form. No one, not even Dream or Neil Gaiman, seem to know what a dream vortex actually is, but the exploration of its effects on the tenants in a Florida house is well done, as we see the snippets of all these people's dreams, and thus the snippets of themselves. Rose Walker is a good character, well drawn as a teenager struggling to come to terms with all the enormous things suddenly happening in her life. I even liked the appearance of poor Hector Hall, one of the substitute Sandmen who filled in for Dream during his imprisonment. He's a buffoon, but a well-meaning, manipulated one. The ending of the story, with Rose Walker and the heroic Gilbert at a serial killer's convention, is great. Even if Gaiman continuously tops himself in the gross-out stakes with the serial killer stuff.

Perhaps the best part of the entire volume are the side stories that show other aspects of the Dreaming. "The Sound of Her Wings," Dream's first meeting with his sister Death after his imprisonment, and "Dream of a Thousand Cats," the story of the secret dream of cats, were both good, but my favorite was "Men of Good Fortune," which is about an ordinary English granted immortality that Dream meets with every century-- the closest thing Dream has to a friend, and a rare insight into Dream's character. Curiously, the award-winning "A Midsummer Night's Dream," where Dream hires Shakespeare to write the titular play for him, left me cold. Clever, but uninvolving.