#AND! and Lucifer is based off of neil's comics anyway

[janeway-lover]

okay so I know bennyboy what's-his-face was Satan in season 1 but I really think if we get Satan in season 3 that it should be Tom Ellis. please Neil? pretty please with a cherry on top?

[thenightling]

My opinion on some of the Netflix Sandman rumors

We fans don’t have much in the way of substantial news about The Sandman Netflix series.  All we have are rumors and gossip.   I have compiled some of the rumors here along with my opinions on those rumors.  Consider this a disclaimer.  I am only a fan.  I do not have any inside info.   All the rumors here are ones that can easily be found on various sites online.   Now to begin...

Rumor: Morpheus will be captured in 1916 but will not escape until present day.  

This rumor has been confirmed true by Neil Gaiman on his Tumblr account and other Social media websites.  In my opinion this was wise because it enables Morpheus’ capture to continue to overlap with the real-world sleeping sickness outbreak of Encephalitis Lethargica.  

Rumor:  Michael Sheen is playing Lucifer.

This rumor was debunked months ago by Neil Gaiman but I surmised that the one who started the rumor had found out he was playing Lucifer for The Sandman audio drama and had gotten confused.  I was right.   I DO however suspect Michael Sheen and possibly David Tennant will have roles in The Sandman Netflix series, just not the same role Michael Sheen had in the audio drama.

My Opinion: I’m all for Michael Sheen having a role in The Sandman Netflix series.  Him and David Tennant.  

Rumor: Doug Jones is going to be in The Sandman as a supporting character.

This rumor comes from two clues.  The first being that Neil Gaiman has spoken about his like of Doug Jones and Guillermo Del Toro almost did a Sandman adaptation with Doug as Morpheus.  Doug Jones even brought this up recently, which suggests that the subject might be on mind.   

My opinion:  Doug is an excellent character actor and I want this to be true.  He should be in Sandman.  I love Doug. And there are plenty of characters he could play.  Lucien, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Doctor Destiny, various nightmares.   

Rumor:  Liam Hemsworth or Dacre Montgomery will play The Corinthian.

Opinion: I like Liam Hemsworth.  He deserves a shot but Dacre is also good.

Rumor:  Tom Sturridge is playing Morpheus.

Opinion:  I am 90% sure this rumor is true. There are a number of sources claiming the same thing.  Also just google how the man looks.  I think he’ll do a fine job.  I thought Oliver Farnworth would have been excellent too but I’m sure Tom Sturridge would be fine. 

Rumor:  The Netflix Sandman series will see Dream take many forms including a female form.

Opinion:  This isn’t really new.  We saw Dream’s feminine side in Overture.  If it bothers you to see Morpheus might have a feminine side, you probably shouldn’t be watching something like Sandman anyway.

Rumor:  Death will be played by a black woman.

The source of this rumor comes from Neil Gaiman saying something about loving the actress chosen for Death but feeling some people will complain.

Opinion:   ...So?   She’s an Endless.  She can look any way she wants.  I would have liked to have seen Jamie Chung in the role though.  She voiced her for the Death short that accompanied the Wonder Woman: Bloodlines Blu Ray.

Rumor:  Morpheus’ extended capture will effect his reunion with Hob.

My opinion:  Uhhhh Duh.

Honestly though this makes me VERY curious as to how their reunion will play out. I hope it is just as sweet as the comic. 

Rumor:  The Corinthian will appear fairly early in the series and even advise Roderick Burgess how best to contain Morpheus.

Opinion: Well, according to the leaked Corinthian audition this is true.  I don’t mind it at all.  It makes sense. It fits.

Rumor:  Alexander Burgess’ story is now more sympathetic and he as well as his father will age slower because of Morpheus’ capture.

Opinion:  This seems likely based on certain leaks.  And I kind of hope this means Morpheus will be able to punish Roderick and not Alex.

Rumor:  Alex will now have an older brother who died during World War 1, a brother that Roderick preferred, and he takes out his grief on Alex in abusive ways. it also gives Roderick a new motivation for wanting to capture Death.

Opinion: This is likely true based on certain leaks from last February.  I have mixed feelings about this because sometimes parents are just assholes.  They don’t need a tragic loss to set off their abusive behavior.  It also made Roderick worse (in the comics) that he treated his only (known) son the way he did. It’s been recently established in the comics that John Dee was actually Alex’s half-brother.  I guess it all depends on how this is done. 

I also don’t think Roderick needs to be grief stricken in order to want to control Death.   This is a cliché, a cliché we saw in Disney’s Gargoyles and even in Hercules and Xena.  Someone loses someone they love and tries to capture Death in order to bring them back.  Roderick doesn’t need this trope.  He was an occultist who wanted to be a big shot in the world of early twentieth century magick users. In my opinion that should be enough but I’ll keep an open mind. 

Rumor:   They were supposed to start filming in May but it was delayed to late October because of Covid.  

This one is true.

Opinion:  Hurry up!

Rumor:   Roderick Burgess has no real magick in the show.

Opinion: Sadly this is likely true based on a character description leak from the casting call.  I shall miss seeing Sykes’ head explode...  Honestly I kind of hope this is wrong.  I’m tired of magick being diminished in comic book TV and film.   

Rumor:  The first season of Sandman will combine Preludes and Nocturnes with The Doll’s House.

Opinion:  This is likely true.  I’m fine with it.  It might flow better for TV this way.

Rumor:   The “A game of you” storyline will have trans people writing.

Opinion:  This makes sense  And this is pretty much already confirmed true.

Rumor:  The Netflix show will have the same cast as the audio drama.

Opinion: Though I would not mind this, I know it is not true. This is likely the result of an IMDB listing for the audio drama mistakenly calling it a show and some fans mistaking that IMDB page as being the one for the Netflix series.

Rumor: The Netflix Sandman series is canceled and the audio drama is all we’re getting.

This rumor is absolutely false!    It’s a stupid rumor made by those who had no idea the audio drama was happening before the pandemic even hit.   The audio drama is not compensation because there will not be a Netflix show.  Both will exist.

Opinion:  Shame on those leaping to this conclusion and spreading it as fact. 

Rumor: A character named “Ann” is being cast and she’ll be a major recurring character. 

Opinion:  I’ve seen this sort of thing before.  It’s how you hide what character they are trying to cast.  Clearly this is a major female character for the show and probably was a name used as a place holder for Death of The Endless or even Rose Walker.  I’m not too concerned about this.  Some fans are upset and already raging that they’re making up a new character just for the show, ala Chloe Decker in Lucifer.  I don’t think there’s anything to worry about here.

Rumor:   Tom Ellis will not be playing Lucifer.

Opinion:  Tom Ellis has wanted to move on from Lucifer for a while.  He wants season six of Lucifer to be its last.   Let him move on. Neil Gaiman also wants his Lucifer to be different from the Lucifer TV show version.  The Lucifer TV series deviated heavily from the comics and it might confuse people with the big differences in lore.  It is probably for the best that Tom Ellis not play Lucifer.

Rumor:  The Sandman is why Lucifer is being canceled.

Opinion: No.  Lucifer has been canceled three times now. In fact the first time it was canceled The Sandman TV series had not been picked up by Netflix yet.  Lucifer has had six seasons.  For a paranormal police procedural that’s a good, long, run.  Not everything can be Supernatural.   Forever Knight (and most shows of that type) only had three seasons.  Lucifer out lived the norm for its type of show and survived two cancelations.   Let it go.   Do not blame Sandman.  The Sandman is what gave us Lucifer, not took it away.  The Sandman is where the story of Lucifer quitting, opening Lux, and taking up piano came from. 

Rumor:  The Sandman is the most expensive show DC has ever made.

According to Variety this is true.

Opinion:  It probably has to be expensive.  Look at all the stuff they need to show us, the sets and special effects needed.

Rumor:  Lucien might be played by a woman.

Apparently this rumor started because some of the Morpheus auditioners let slip that they auditioned with a woman as Lucien.   

Opinion: I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I love the character of Lucien.  A a woman version might take a little getting used to. I don’t hate the idea, I just prefer how he appears in canon.   Further note, I kind of hope he has a full head of hair like he does in the recent comics.  There is a very high chance she was just reading his lines since at the time the role being cast was Morpheus, not Lucien.

Rumor:  The Sandman could air as early as Summer of 2021.

Opinion:  *Insert bitter laugh here.* I wish...

Rumor:   Alexander Burgess is gay.

Opinion: And in other news water is wet!

Rumor: Desire will be played by someone who identifies as Genderfluid or nonbinary.

Opinion: This is very likely true.

[ships-sailing-in-the-night]

Lucifer Interview w/Joe Henderson

In Part 2 of our exclusive interview about Season 3 of LUCIFER(Monday nights on Fox Network), executive producer/showrunner Joe Henderson talks series mythology, the addition of Tom Welling to the cast as a series regular, and more.

What will Tom Welling be doing as LAPD lieutenant Marcus Pierce?

This man is so talented. Here’s what I love about Pierce. We haven’t had an authority figure on our show. Our characters run around, they solve cases, but no one’s come around and said, “How are you guys doing this? What are you doing?” So when Lieutenant Marcus Pierce shows up, he’s like, “Wait, what exactly is going on?” Ella [the police coroner played by Aimee Garcia] and Dan [the police detective played by Kevin Alejandro] and Chloe [police detective and Lucifer’s true love, played by Lauren German] and Lucifer [played by Tom Ellis], they’re getting along now. There will always be fights, but there’s a rhythm. This is the character who comes in and blows it all up. 

This is the character who comes in and goes, “What are you guys doing?” And to have a character who can be – “antagonist” is the wrong word, because he’s just trying to figure out how this stuff works. He’s just trying to lead the precinct. But to have someone who’s coming in, going, “How do we run this well when you guys are doing this crazy stuff,” that’s a fun toy to play with. And Tom Welling is such a joy and such a nice dude. And he just immediately melded with the cast in a way that was a relief and a joy.

Pierce has got an eye on Chloe, or at least will eventually. So what’s fun is, you’ve got the super-handsome dude showing up, and then you’ve got the Devil showing up, and then you’ve got the thing of like, “Oh, hey, you’re the big guy coming in, swinging his everything.” And Chloe might be frustrated at first, but in Season 2, we pushed the will-they/won’t-they of Lucifer and Chloe. In Season 3, we really want to explore a love triangle. Pierce is a tough guy, but a good guy. Lucifer is a lech, but a good guy. We want to play, Pierce is much more Chloe’s rhythm. He’s a cop who believes in the rules implicitly. He can be very difficult in very different ways, but he much more follows Chloe’s moral path than Lucifer does. So who do you choose? And really exploring that duality is a lot of the fun of the season. We will definitely get into more mythological stuff as we go on, but right now, the idea was, really explore a love triangle in this police world.

How much is Season 3 going to be procedural, and how much is it going to be serialized?

We are going to try to replicate the formula of the last year, which is, every episode will have a serialized element, we will always have a case of the week, and honestly, I like the cases, because Lucifer makes every case about himself, so every case is an opportunity for Lucifer to explore whatever he’s going through. The fun of it is, is the case appropriate, or is it not, but does Lucifer make it about himself anyway? So that’s the fun to me.

Are we going to get any more mythology this season as far as how angels and demons work?

To me, our show always has to be balanced. And I love the mythology – I’m a mythology guy, always balance the mythological with the case. So there will always be a case of the week, but there will always be mythology. For example, I may have slowly snuck in one of my favorite characters from LUCIFER, who will be slowly seeded into the season. Will we see this character? Maybe, maybe not, but we are laying the breadcrumbs. There are mythological elements that will always be on the show. We have a demon from Hell. We are not going to run away from that. We have a character who can go to Hell at times. These are our toys, but we try to use them carefully, we try to use them when the characters demand it. That’s both the fun and the challenge of our show, but we will never walk away from the mythology. That is what makes the show sing.

Last season, Lucifer’s therapist Linda, played by Rachael Harris, ended up in trouble and it looked like she was going to lose her license. Is that storyline continuing into Season 3?

I love Rachael Harris, and I love what she’s done with the character. And the first two seasons, Linda was very much the bouncing board, like, let’s use her to dig into other characters. But very slowly, we tried to also dig into Linda and show the cracks. And her near-death experience will be our beginning to really show the cracks and really dig into the character of Linda. One of our big goals in Season 3 is to learn more about who Linda is, but also break her apart a little bit and put her back together, because Rachael Harris is such a good actress. Also, that character is so rich. So many times, you get the therapist who lets everyone bounce off them, but their story could be the most interesting one. You just don’t know [that], because they’re always listening. And it’s time for her to stop listening, and time for us to start listening to Dr. Linda. And that’s one of the things we want to do.

Any thoughts of bringing in Peter Bogdanovich as Linda’s shrink, the way he played the therapist for Lorraine Bracco’s psychiatric professional character on THE SOPRANOS?

Oh, my God. You have no idea how many times we have wanted and discussed bringing Peter Bogdanovich in. Peter, if you’re listening or reading, please call us. How great would it be to do something like that? We’re a phone call away.

And is Amenadiel, Lucifer’s angel brother played by D.B. Woodside, going to continue to pine for his ex-lover, the demon Maze, played by Lesley-Anne Brandt?

These are great questions. So Amenadiel’s arc in the last two seasons was very much a challenge of faith, and very much, he failed, because he didn’t believe his Father [God, had confidence in him], and then his Father proved that actually, Amenadiel was his favorite son. So Season 3 is all about Amenadiel going, “You know what? I got test after test – I failed it. I’m not failing again. Now I’m going to stand up, now I’m going to prove that I am actually deserving of this.” Season 2, we deconstructed Amenadiel. Season 3, it’s all about him proving why he should be the favorite son, but we’re going to make it really, really hard on him.

And is LUCIFER ever going to mention the son of God who was apparently here and left after thirty-three years?

[laughs] We are taking a page from the comic book [LUCIFER is based on a series of comics by Mike Dringenberg and Sam Kieth, which itself is a spinoff of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN [graphic novels], which is, do not open that can of worms. Mike Carey actually wrote a forward to one of the comics, where he very smartly said that if you bring up Jesus, it just unravels everything on your mythology, but if you don’t bring him up, you’re fine. So we’ve just come to the philosophy of, we’re just not going to deal with that right now. If we ever find a way to do it, we’re interested, but right now, we’re telling our Old Testament story. That’s not to say he didn’t exist – obviously, he did, [as illustrated by] Father Frank and other things, but it’s not a story we’re telling right now. The comic book was very smart about it, and we will follow their lead.

SUPERNATURAL has gone twelve seasons with God and Lucifer as sometimes onscreen characters and gotten around that issue, so …

Right? And by the way, we should all be so lucky and do it so well. We shouted out to SUPERNATURAL, who shouted out to us. I don’t know if you saw, but they have Mark Pellegrino, who plays Lucifer, a couple years ago, they did a shout-out to us 

SUPERNAURAL’s Lucifer had a line about, “What am I gonna do, go to L.A. and run a club?”

That was very nice of them, I really appreciated it.

Even though you are shooting Season 3 in Los Angeles, you actually shot several episodes earlier this year in Vancouver that haven’t aired yet. John Billingsley was in one of them

Yes. First of all, John Billingsley was amazing. So what happened was, we thought we were doing eighteen episodes, and then we found out we were doing twenty-two. They [Fox] said, “Listen, we only want to make the eighteen-episode arc, but we want to order more episodes, and if we find room in our schedule, we’ll air them in the spring, but more likely, they’ll air in Season 3.” So those four episodes are airing in Season 3. so we have these four episodes, and we’ve laced them through the top of Season 3. Towards the end, we knew they were going to be in Season 3. So what we did is, we wrote the episodes early, and we made them standalone stories. For example, the third episode to air [in Season 3] is one of our stand alone, but I doubt you’ll be able to tell, because it’s a Maze-centric episode that really starts off her story for Season 3, because we knew this would be one of the things we’d be doing. John Billingsley is in Episode 2:21, which is airing early in Season 3. It might be one of the best episodes we have made. That is our weird, slightly bizarre TWILIGHT ZONE episode. And he’s fantastic.They have some L.A. shoot in them, because while we shot in Vancouver, we also shot L.A. splinter. So we have an episode which is a flashback episode, when Lucifer first came to L.A. And a very big amount of it is in L.A. That was part of our challenge for the first two seasons is, we always shot some in L.A., so you’d be like, “Wait, I thought this was Vancouver, but that’s definitely L.A.” That was the challenge and fun of the show was, we would try to get a scene or two per episode to make you feel like you were there. But now, this season, every shot, you are there.

Which studio are you shooting at?

We are on the Warner Brothers lot. We are in the largest soundstage on the Warner Brothers lot, and it is awesome. It is so exciting, there is a single soundstage which has the Warner Brothers logo – that’s ours. We are proud to bring production back to L.A. I’ve never shot on the L.A. lot before – I could not be more thrilled.

What else should we know about LUCIFER Season 3?

Here’s what I would tease. Lucifer got his angel wings back. He doesn’t like that. If Lucifer is told to go left, he goes right. If he has angel wings, he re-embraces his Devil side. So the fun of it is, Chloe’s been a good influence on Lucifer. And he’s getting nicer and nicer, and part of him wonders, is that part of the reason that Dad [God] gave me these wings back, assuming it’s Dad? Maybe it’s time I go in the other direction. So we’re going to see the Devil re-embrace a bit of who he used to be, and we’re going to play with the toys that we already have.

If it’s not Dad, is there somebody else it might be?

In Lucifer’s perspective, it’s always Dad. But someone knocked him over the back of the head. Someone on Earth did this. So in the premiere, the question is who. And that becomes the big string that we pull at the top of the season. So that’s the big examination – “I know it’s Dad, but was it Amenadiel? Was it someone else? Or, if it wasn’t Dad, was it something darker?” We [Henderson and fellow executive producer/showrunner Ildy Modrovich] are on Season 3 of a show that we love. We have almost the exact same writing staff that we had – even though we’re redoing our crew, we have the exact same cast that we had. We have hit our groove in a way that makes me so happy. So right now, all we’re focused on is getting this show done, and honestly, I love it so much.

This interview was conducted during Fox Network’s portion of the Summer 2017 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour. (x)

[thenightling]

All Volumes of The Sandman placed in order of least favorite to favorite

First here is the order in which The Sandman should be read :

1. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes 2. The Sandman: The Doll’s House 3. The Sandman: Dream Country 4. The Sandman: Season of Mists 5. The Sandman: A Game of You 6. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections 7. The Sandman: Brief Lives 8. The Sandman: The Worlds’ End 9. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones 10. The Sandman: The Wake The Sandman: Dream Hunters The Sandman: Endless Nights The Sandman: Overture (a very beautiful prequel)

____________________________  

And now the order of least favorite to favorite.

Warning: This post contains some spoilers.

14.  The Kindly Ones.

I won’t sugar coat it.  I’m not really a big fan of The Kindly Ones.  I don’t care for the stylized art or the plot that much.  Though I love The Sandman this is definitely not a volume I would consider a favorite.  Yes, The Kindly Ones has its fans.  It has a few good moments, I particularly liked how Matthew was portrayed in it.  All of The Sandman is good in its own way.  But The Kindly Ones is just not a favorite for me. 

 13.   The Wake. 

I have to look at this as someone who got into The Sandman late.  I do like The Wake but I think if I read a six month (or longer) story arc of characters grieving another character, teenage me (I was fourteen in 1996) would probably have gotten frustrated and depressed.  

I love the art style.  I believe I read somewhere that (at the time) The Sandman: The Wake was the only graphic novel drawn entirely in colored pencil.  The artwork is beautiful.  

I think I might have enjoyed The Kindly Ones more if it had been drawn in the style of The Wake.    

As with all of The Sandman there are a few shining moments. I do like the issue dealing with Hob’s Dream (issue 73).   And I liked seeing Nada’s reincarnated toddler self, and Orpheus, whole, and at peace in Ellysium (Greek Heaven).  

12.   Endless Nights.   

Endless Nights is a collection of seven stories, each focusing on a different member of The Endless family.  

 Endless Nights has a sad but well-written story about Morpheus and Killala of The Glow, one of the first to harness the green light that would later be the catalyst for The Green Lantern corp.  I wonder if things would have played out differently if Morpheus had just been more up front and honest with Killala from the start.     

11.    The World’s End.

The World’s End features a strange interdenominational inn that transcends time and space and serves as a refuge for the displaced during ... er... Let’s just call them what DC comics calls them. “Crisis.” 

This is a collection of short stories from characters who have all been touched by Dream and his world in some way.   My favorites include Cluracan’s story and Hob’s Leviathan.    

There’s also some heavy foreshadowing for The Kindly Ones.  

10.   The Dream Hunters (Graphic novel version). 

  The Dream Hunters is a stand alone story set in Ancient Japan and works as a bitter-sweet fable.

9.     The Dream Hunters (novella version.) 

 I like the novella version of The Dream Hunters better than the graphic novel version because the artwork is just so gorgeous.  

8.  Fables and reflections.

Here is another collection of short stories all tied into The Sandman. Most of them can be read on their own.

7.   Dream Country.   

Here’s another set of The Sandman short stories that can be treated as stand alone one-shot stories.   My favorites of these is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is a brilliant and off-beat Shakespere story in which Shakespeare is made to perform a Midsummer Nights Dream for the real Seelie Court.

I also liked Calliope because we get to see Morpheus as a sort of avenging angel type.  

I happened to be reading A Dream of Cats for the first time on the very day I adopted Loki and Vlad (two of my three cats).   This was not planned out, just a strange coincidence.   

6.  A Game of you.

This is probably the most misunderstood volume of The Sandman.  Though Neil Gaiman based it on the personal experiences of a real life trans friend of his, whom consulted with him through the writing of it, many modern readers (mostly thanks to a very misleading Mary Sue article) have called this volume transphobic.   

In actuality for 1992 this was an extremely progressive depiction of a transwoman and one of the first (if not first) trans women of DC comics.   

Some of the complaints are because Wanda dies (many characters in The Sandman die, including the main protagonist...) while others think that the story claims transwomen cannot use feminine magick.  This is not true.  That was a claim made by a very dark witch, Thessaly AKA Larissa, a character who later betrays the series’ over-all protagonist.   She probably should NOT be trusted.

The scene showing Wanda’s soul pretty much confirms how wrong Thessaly was. 

The story deals with Barbie on a Jim Henson’s Labyrinth-esque adventure in her own personal dream world, and her friends who come to her rescue.  

5.   Brief Lives.

Brief lives is the story that tells us what happened with Destruction of the Endless.  It is beautifully drawn.  And this is where Song of Orpheus finally comes to its bitter-sweet conclusion as Morpheus enables his poor son to find peace at last. 

4.  The Doll’s House.

The Doll’s House gives us the story of Rose Walker- a person who is also a “Dream Vortex” (A person whose mind has the potential to cause dreams and reality to collapse into each other and destroy both) and how dangerous that can be.   We are also introduced to The Corinthian, a Nightmare who could give Freddy Krueger a run for his money. 

3.  Season of Mists.

The Sandman: Season of Mists is a storyline that some Lucifer show fans might recongize.  The Devil decides to quit.   There’s a lot more to it than that but Lucifer quitting ruling Hell is the catalyst for most of it.   

After finally (after ten-thousand-years!) realizing he was wrong in leaving Nada in Hell, Morpheus resolves to rescue her, at risk to himself.  However once he gets there he finds Lucifer is shutting the place down.  In spite, Lucifer leaves Morpheus the key to Hell.   Suddenly The Dream Lord has to deal with all the entities that might want that “Prime psychic real estate.”  

2.   Overture 

The Sandman: Overture and The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes are both my favorite volumes of The Sandman.  I tend to alternate between which one is number 1 based on my mood.

In The Sandman: Overture Morpheus discovers that The Universe is ending and “It’s all his fault” for refusing to put out a star back when he was reeling at the destruction of a world because he had not wanted to kill a Dream Vortex (a person whose mind has the power to merge dreams and reality).    

Now he’s off on a quest with a cat (whom he believes is another incarnation of himself).  He adopts an orphaned child, and sets out to save the universe.   

This is probably the most gorgeously drawn of all of The Sandman. The print is a little difficult for me to read (Impossible for me to read in physical format) but I can make the digital version large and enjoy the story and all the lovely detail in the artwork.  

1.  Preludes and Nocturnes

This is the one that starts it all.   An order of early twentieth century occultists summon and trap The Lord of Dreams by accident when they meant to capture Death.  Though they realize their mistake relatively quickly they decide to keep him prisoner anyway.  After seventy-two-years of captivity Morpheus finally escapes and seeks out his lost property.   

This is the one that roped me and made me a fast-fan to The Sandman.

[thenightling]

Lucifer related: Cain and Abel

Recently I learned a version of Abel might make an appearance in Fox’s Lucifer TV series.  

For those who don’t know about the DC / Vertigo version of Cain and Abel they are loosely inspired by the biblical characters.   They may or may not actually be them. They could be Nightmare incarnations of the characters created by Morpheus.  It’s a bit ambiguous to if they are the original Cain and Abel or not. 

Their purpose in DC were as hosts for the horror anthology series House of Mystery and House of Secrets.   Cain was the caretaker of the House of Mystery and Abel was the caretaker of The House of Secrets.  The two often intersected, reading scary stories to an audience (comic book reader) much like The Crypt Keeper, Old Witch, and Vault Keeper of the old EC comics. 

When their comics were canceled in the late 1970s, Neil Gaiman scooped them up and made them Nightmare residents of The Dreaming (The realm of Dreams) in the Sandman comics of the late 1980s into the late 1990s.  It was a play on the punny idea that after the murder of Abel, Cain went to The land of Nod (which is another term for Dreamland).

Cain habitually kills Abel about once a night with ghoulish crypt keeper style puns.  Abel revives and heals within a day and the cycle begins a new as they are both more or less immortal beings.  

The best way to describe Cain is he’s like a cross between The Crypt Keeper, Vincent Price, and Alfred Hitchcock with Abel his recurring and only victim.  Cain is usually a gracious host to most other people.

Abel is more sweet and timid by nature.   A perpetual victim.    

In the Sandman comics they are loyal to Morpheus, AKA Dream of the Endless, AKA the Sandman.   Morpheus is the very entity that Lucifer left the key to Hell to and the one who helped Lucifer by cutting off his wings for him with Mazikeen’s blade when Lucifer quit Hell.

Cain has a pet black cat named Oskar and a pet large green Gargoyle that behaves rather dog-like.  The gargoyle is named Gregory.  If you’re familiar with Disney’s Gargoyles, Gregory is a bit like Bronx.

Abel has a little baby golden gargoyle named Goldie (Originally he wanted to name him Irving but Cain insisted Gargoyles have G names).  Cain gave Abel the egg that Goldie hatched from.

The name Goldie was ultimately chosen after Abel’s old “imaginary friend” who may or may not have been an actual ghost haunting The house of Secrets, also by the name of Goldie.

The house of secrets (Abel’s House) contains all the secrets one might learn in Dreams.   The house of Mystery (Cain’s House) contains every mystery one might dream up.  Cain is excessively melodramatic and loves a good story.

 Abel has a permanent stutter, probably from being murdered so often.  

When they first appear in Sandman, Morpheus (Dream / The Sandman) has returned to his realm but he collapses on his way to the castle, shortly after his escape from nearly a century of captivity at the hands of mortals.  It’s Cain and Abel who nurse him back to health after Cain’s dog-like gargoyle, Gregory, finds Morpheus barely conscious.

  Despite their dysfunction Cain actually does love Abel and even pleaded with Daniel (Dream’s newest incarnation) to bring him back when “The Kindly Ones” killed him (Abel only comes back from the dead when Cain kills him).  And yes, he does bring Abel back for Cain. 

 During the Sandman comic storyline Season of Mists, Morpheus sends Cain to Hell to announce he is coming to retrieve a soul.  Morpheus intends to rescue a woman he wrongfully left in Hell centuries before.  He figures Lucifer won’t hurt Cain but Lucifer terrifies the old Nightmare anyway without actually hurting him, and Cain returns trembling and mortified.  Morpheus calms him and rewards him with a pleasant sleep.  

To Morpheus’ surprise, when he arrives in Hell, that is when Lucifer is shutting everything down because he has quit.  (basis for the Fox TV series).

Cain appeared in the 2016 Halloween episode of the animated series, Justice League Action to narrate the story Trick or Threat.

  In the comics and 2016 animated movie The House of Mystery (of which Cain is the caretaker) becomes the base of operation for Justice League: Dark.   

The House of Mystery has also served as home to Constantine and later Zatana but usually it belongs to Cain as The House of Secrets belongs to Abel.   And both reside in The Dreaming as loyal subjects to Dream of The Endless / The Sandman. 

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Edit:  I wrote this under the assumption that everyone already knew the Biblical version so let me correct that now.

In The Bible Cain murdered his brother, Abel.   They were the children of Adam and Eve.   Eventually Eve had another son, Seth, but that came later.   Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy because it was implied that God liked his animal sacrifice better than Cain’s sacrifice of a good autumn harvest (I guess the Bible writers don’t appreciate the hard work of agriculture).

When God asks Cain where Abel is he answers “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  When it’s revealed that Abel was murdered by Cain (the very first murder) Cain is cursed with immortality and left to wander. A mark is put upon him by God to protect him so that no one will harm him for his crime lest they suffer seven (or in some versions three) times the harm done to Cain.  

In most versions Cain ends up in The Land of Nod, which Neil Gaiman took to mean the realm of Dreams (playing on the pun since Land of Nod is used to mean dream land in British childrens’ literature).  

It’s unclear if DC’s Cain is THE Cain of The Bible or a version of the character created by the Dream Lord (Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless).  But in any event he’s compelled to kill his brother about once a night.   And both men are now guardians of two houses in The Dreaming.  The House of Secrets (Abel) and The House of Mystery (Cain).   Both houses can and do appear in the human world as if on their own accord and are bigger on the inside.   They are usually together though sometimes The House of Mystery is seen alone.

[thenightling]

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

Explanation below.

Warning: Here there be Spoilers.

I fully admit that I, myself, am a late comer to the fandom of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics.  Back in the 1990s many friends had recommended the series to me and or insisted that I would love “Death.”   But no one gave me a proper explanation or summary of what I was to expect.  I figured it had to have been an over-rated trend.  I was too busy trying to get people to watch or listen to the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack (which hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomena it became in the early 2000s).

The comics I read in those days mostly consisted of the likes of Morbius: The Living Vampire, The Midnight Sons, Legion of Monsters, Tomb of Dracula and the occasional Tales from the Crypt reprint when I could find it.  I was lucky enough to have recurring access to a store called Dracula’s Comic Crypt on Long Island.   But as a woman into all things Gothic (and most especially art in the style of Bernie Wrightson) I was recommended Sandman over and over again.

Part of what discouraged me was that I have always had poor eyesight.  Today, of course, on a nice twenty inch computer monitor I can make the comic book images nice and big and keep physical copies mostly for collecting purposes. But mostly I just didn’t really know what Sandman was all about. 

Well, fast forward over twenty years later...  The TV show Lucifer has gained my attention and is both fascinating and fun for being different so I finally cave and decide to read the comics that he first came from... Sandman.  I was particularly interested in the storyline where Lucifer quits Hell (Season of Mists) but I wisely decided to start from the beginning.  I started at the beginning...  It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked this thing... I really, really liked this thing.  In fact I soon found I liked the protagonist, Morpheus, more than Lucifer.   

My response was along the lines of “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was so good?” to which several friends practically shouted “WE DID!”

So for anyone who was or is in a similar situation to me, I’ll explain Sandman as best I can for you right now since no one properly explained it to me back when it was first recommended to me a almost a quarter of a century ago.

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DC comics has had three characters named Sandman.  The first was a gas mask wearing Noir character named  Wesley Dodds.  The second was a golden age style superhero who later passed his mantel on to another, the replacement character called Hector Hall. 

And now for the third, the most important of DC’s Sandman / Sandmen.  The literal Sandman AKA Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as Morpheus. Ruler of The Dreaming realm.  Master of both Dreams and Nightmares.  First published by DC and later concluded by Vertigo (DC’s adult content label) Sandman was a very unique kind of story, set in the DC universe. 

  Morpheus (AKA Dream) sometimes changes his form but he’s fairly easy to recognize because he is always depicted with black talk bubbles with white text, originally intended to indicate a psychic form of communication more than actually vocal (but I think that idea was mostly dropped after the first issue and only hinted at again in the storyline called A Game of You). 

During the very first storyline of Sandman comics Morpheus was captured by humans.

Later it is revealed in a stand alone comic that the universe (in an effort to balance itself out) granted Wesley Dodds certain dream based abilities.  Dodds had something of a psychic link with Morpheus while Morpheus was in captivity. 

Later two nightmares escape from The Dreaming realm and these two (Brute and Glob) manipulate the super hero “Sandman” and his successor, Hector Hall. They do this to create a dream dimension of their own since the one Morpheus ruled had fallen into chaos without him. 

Morpheus / Dream is a member of The Endless and his full title (besides Sandman) is Dream of The Endless.

The Endless is a family of anthropamorphic personifications representing seven aspects or abstract concepts in relation to conscious life.    It’s not as complicated as it seems.

The Endless are:

Destiny:  Destiny is the eldest.  He is depicted as a shrouded blind man whose wrist is chained to a book containing the past, present and future.  Despite being apparently blind he can read his own book.  His sigil (the symbol that represents him) is a book.

Destruction.  Destruction grew weary of ...well, destruction when he saw humanity progressing toward increasing violence.  Determining that each Endless actually represents a concept and it’s counter-part he quit his vocation and wandered off to try to reinvent himself as a creative force instead of destructive.  His sigil is a sword.

Death.  Death is Death incarnate, much like Death of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld but instead of resembling the traditional Grim Reaper Death takes the form of a pale Goth girl with an eye of horas tattoo under her right eye.  You might think that she should be the most depressed or brooding of the group but no.  She’s friendly and optimistic.  She also loves films like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid (Disney version).  She wears an ankh pendant, which also is her sigil.

Now we have Dream AKA Morpheus. He is The Sandman of folklore.  Dream is the middle sibling and he is The Sandman.  He rules the realm of The Dreaming.  He has wild “Robert Smith style” hair, bone-white skin and black eyes with small star-like pupils.  Morpheus is also very tall and skinny.  Dream’s sigil is his “Helm” - a battle mask he made for himself using the bones of two Lovecraftian “Old Gods” that attacked The Dreaming a long time ago.  (He almost never gets to wear this helm in actual battle as Morpheus is not really a warrior character by nature).  The helm is made from a large skull and spine and so it resembles a bone version of Wesley Dodd’s gas mask. 

     Desire.  Now come the twins, the first of which is Desire.  Desire is a genderfluid being that can be male or female (or both or neither) at will.  Desire is very fickle and can also be extremely cruel but also (on occasion) can be helpful and once even saved the universe (even though Desire doesn’t remember doing it).  Desire is slender, androgynous and has golden eyes.  Desire’s sigil is a heart. 

Despair.  Despair is the twin of Desire though you might never know it.  They look nothing at all alike.  Despair is a short, very full-figured woman who has jagged tusk-like teeth, and almost never wears clothes.  Despair’s sigil is a ring with a sharp hook attached to it. 

Delirium.  Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and very child-like.  She used to be Delight but someone or something hurt or abused her a long time ago and she became Delirium as a way to cope.  It’s implied that someday she might return to being Delight but as it stands that might take a whole lot of therapy.   Delirium can be very sweet but if you are mean to her or try to touch her without permission she will punish you by driving you to madness.  Her sigil was once a flower.  Now it’s a rainbow blob or smearing of color.

And there you have it.  The Endless in a nutshell.  Now on to the basic plot of Sandman...

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Sandman was first published in late 1988 and ran until 1996.  It then had several spin-offs and one shots, a prequel novel set in Ancient Japan (Dream hunters), a collection of short story comics called Endless Nights (one for each Endless), and finally the gorgeous prequel comic Sandman: Overture (compiled as a graphic novel in 2016).

Since the first run of Sandman is over seventy five issues long I will only give a summary of the first story arc.  Preludes and Nocturnes...

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Preludes and Nocturnes:

A group of late Victorian / Edwardian era occultists known as The Order of Ancient Mysteries (Modeled loosely after the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn) is lead by their Lord Magus, Roderick Burgess.  They use a grimoire known as the Magdalene Grimoire (which will later get use in Green Arrow) to cast a ritual spell to summon Death incarnate but instead of summoning her they accidentally summon The Sandman.

They realize their mistake but decide to keep Dream as their prisoner anyway.

A “sickness” occurs where several people end up with severe sleeping disorders because of the way Morpheus was taken.  One woman ends up with “Sleeping beauty syndrome” where she would wake for brief periods of time but usually slept.  Another goes into a coma.  One young man in Africa dreamt of a cloud castle, as was his usual dream, but the castle crumbled and he became catatonic.  A soldier would suffer a form of “Shell shock” that made him severely insomniactic.  But in general most people continued to sleep and dream normally. 

However in The Dreaming realm Morpheus’ absence was noticed.  And over time things started to deteriorate.  The vast library in The Dreaming started to disappear.  Some dream entities vanished.  Some Nightmare creatures escaped into the human world.

And Morpheus’ castle began to fall into disrepair.  This all happened over the span of many years, mind you.

For over seventy-two-years Morpheus is kept prisoner inside a clear crystal-glass cage, surrounded by a magical binding circle in Roderick’s cellar.   They take his helm, his pouch of dream sand, and his ruby amulet as magical trophies. They also take his clothes and leave him naked and caged.  They don’t even bother to feed him and though he won’t die of starvation he does suffer hunger.  The binding circle holds back Morpheus’ magick and psychic powers while the glass cage holds his physical body. 

During Morpheus’ captivity Roderick grew old and died and his son took his place as Morpheus’ main captor.  And eventually old age started to creep up on the son, Alexander.  One night Alexander visit’s his prisoner (who has refused to speak the entire time of his captivity) and Alex’s assistant (and lover) Paul, accidentally brushes Alex’s wheelchair slightly over the rim of the binding circle, breaching it and it’s hold over Morpheus’ psychic abilities. But they do not notice this slight breach.  Morpheus, however, does notice the breach in the circle holding him prisoner.  Morpheus waits for his opportunity.  As one of his guards has a brief day dream about a vacation on a beach, Morpheus is able to psychically connect with this dream to steal a fistful of the sand there on the dream beach and use this sand as he would use his pouch of dream sand.

Morpheus pretends to collapse within his cage.  

Appearing to be dead, the guards call for their employer, and open the glass cell.  Morpheus uses the pilfered dream sand to make good his escape.  

The first thing Morpheus does is he enters someone’s dream about wearing a clown costume to a party and no one else is in costume.  Here Morpheus (still quite naked) raids the buffet, even eating frog legs from a fried chicken style bucket held by Colonel Sanders.  He’s too hungry to think about anything other than eating. 

Once that’s done he conjures clothes for himself and seeks revenge on his captor...

Morpheus enters the dream of Alexander Burgess where he confronts him on holding him prisoner and how he treated him.  Morpheus used to be a very cruel and petty being and his cruelty lingers long enough for him to punish Alexander severely.  He condemns him to a dream of eternal waking, an eternal nightmare which entails waking up from a nightmare only to find he’s in yet another nightmare, just to wake up again and be in yet another nightmare and on and on forever while his body remains comatose and or may actually, one day, die while his soul could be stuck in that nightmare within The Dreaming for eternity. (Dream does eventually release Alexander Burgess though and forgives him).

Exhausted by this act of vengeance, Morpheus tries to make his way to his castle at The Heart of The Dreaming but faints in “The shifting lands” where he’s found by Gregory The Gargoyle.  Gregory is the pet of Cain. 

Cain and Abel are old horror host comic book characters from the 1960 and 1970s in the style of the Crypt Keeper, with Cain compulsively murdering Abel roughly once a night (Abel recovers each time as he’s immortal).  And yet Cain and Abel weirdly love each other. 

These characters originally came from the comic book series The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets.

The House of Secrets are the comics that first introduced DC’s Swamp Thing. 

At The House of Mystery (Cain’s home) Cain is presenting Abel with a new baby gargoyle egg (this gargoyle eventually gets named Goldie.  Originally Abel called the baby gargoyle Irving but Cain insisted that gargoyles need G names) that’s when Gregory (the large green Gargoyle) carries the barely conscious Morpheus to Cain.  This is one of the only times in the comics where you out right see Morpheus ask for help.  He’s a very proud character.

Cain and Abel set about nursing their king back to health.

Morpheus gradually recovers in Cain’s House of Mystery (Abel’s home is The House of Secrets) before making his way to his castle (now in ruins) in the heart of The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loyal librarian, Lucien, had been trying to keep things running in Morpheus’ absence.

Lucien AKA Mr. Raven (not to be confused with Morpheus’ spy raven, Matthew, who comes later) is another horror host from older DC comics and the castle he resided in (known as the “Ghost Castle”) turns out to be Morpheus’ own castle, which has appeared in both The Waking World and The Dreaming, much like Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Meanwhile Morpheus’ usual groundskeeper, Mervyn (A Jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow) had taken to driving a bus in The Dreaming and had to be brought back to The Castle to return to his original duties. 

Morpheus realizes he needs to get his property back- The pouch of dream sand, his helm, and his ruby dreamstone amulet (which is a conduit and amplifier for his powers) that had been taken at the start of his captivity and had drifted to different owners over time.  The Hecateae (The triple goddess AKA The Furies AKA The Fates AKA The Kindly Ones) tell Morpheus that John Constantine had his pouch of Dream Sand.  And so Morpheus goes to meet Constantine.  

John Constantine (who is a practicing occultist and private investigator) figures out that a former lover of his his own has the pouch of self-replenishing dream sand (he, himself, was unable to pull the draw strings of the pouch). The exlover has tragically been using the sand to get high and several Dream entities have been feeding on her imagination when she does this.  Her body is shutting down.  By the time Morpheus and Constantine find her there is little that can be done but Constantine demands Morpheus do something for her and so Morpheus gives her a pleasant final dream before she passes away.  Morpheus repays Constantine’s assistance by helping him with his chronic nightmares.

Next Morpheus has to retrieve his helm, which was taken by a demon.  Morpheus is forced to visit Hell to reclaim it.  Here he is guided by Etrigan The Demon (a demon that exists Dr. Jekyll and Hyde style with a human immortal host, Jason Blood).  Etrigan deliberately takes Morpheus past an imprisoned former lover of Morpheus’ own, Nada. She pleads for Morpheus to rescue her but he tells her that though he loves her he has not yet forgiven her.  (later we learn Morpheus left her in Hell because she rejected him back when he was a much crueler character).

Morpheus has started to change since his captivity.  He’s becoming softer, less cruel.  And though he does not rescue her here, he will eventually go back for her after his older sister, Death makes him realize that he had wronged Nada.

The demon who has taken Morpheus’ helm challenges him to a contest where each one has to out do the creativity of the other, inventing personas that would best the previous one conceived by the opponent.  Eventually Morpheus wins with the simple phrase “I am Hope.”  

This is later (much later) very bitterly sweetly elaborated on in the prequel comic Sandman: Overture, where Hope is revealed to have been a little girl whose ghost helps Morpheus but all he can remember of her is her name.

Side note: Lucifer (the main ruler of this Hell) becomes bitter and slowly makes up his mind to quit ruling there.  He does not get around to doing this until the storyline called Season of Mists, in which Lucifer leaves the key to Hell to Morpheus when Morpheus came back, looking to rescue Nada.  Lucifer also asks Morpheus to help him by cutting off Lucifer’s large bat-like wings for him. (Lucifer gets those wings back in his own solo comics, back to their original white, feathery Angelic state).

Eventually Morpheus gives The Key to Hell to two Angels who turn Hell into a place of redemption, and Lucifer retires to Earth where he opens a piano bar in LA called Lux but that’s a whole other story.

Morpheus’ ruby dreamstone amulet had been taken by the villain Doctor Destiny AKA John (or Johnny) Dee. (Not to be confused with Morpheus’ elder brother, Destiny personified).  Doctor Destiny AKA John Dee was being kept at Arkham Asylum.  Doctor Destiny happens to escape around this time as Morpheus is trying to reclaim his lost amulet.  The amulet was in a Justice League of America storage warehouse.  The amulet had been so corrupted by Doctor Destiny that merely touching it saps Morpheus of a great deal of his strength and he collapses, fainting in the warehouse, where it was being stored. 

By the time Morpheus regains consciousness, he finds that Doctor Destiny has taken the amulet and Doctor Destiny had used the ruby’s power on a diner full of people (whom he has toyed with, driven to madness, and then ultimately killed or made them kill each other and themselves in very gruesome ways).  Doctor Destiny and Morpheus have a confrontation where Doctor Destiny says he will kill Morpheus. 

Morpheus tricks Doctor Destiny into following him into The Dreaming where Doctor Destiny destroys the ruby, believing it will kill Morpheus if The Dreamstone is destoryed.  Instead of killing Morpheus, the power that was in the ruby dreamstone reverts to him, making Morpheus more powerful than he had been in centuries.  The ruby had contained a small fragment of Morpheus’ very soul.  Morpheus (who has started to change, becoming a bit kinder) shows pity on Doctor Destiny and instead of cruelly punishing him, he escorts him back to Arkham Asylum where he gives all the inmates a night of deep sleep and pleasant dreams.    

Once Morpheus has gotten back his lost artifacts he restores his castle and library. 

Now Morpheus feels restless and uncertain as to what to do with himself.  He’s lonely and feels like he’s lost his purpose.  So he goes to a park to feed the pigeons in order to try to cheer himself up.

(He loves birds and feeding birds is a comfort for him).  Here he meets up with his sister, Death, who makes pop culture references that fly right over his head (Since he’s been out of touch for nearly a century and wasn’t very good at slang to begin with). 

Morpheus loves and respects his sister and doesn’t understand why so many people fear her. 

He considers himself far more terrible than she could ever be.  She manages to cheer him up by simply being there.  She has him accompany her as she makes her rounds through the city, escorting souls to where they are meant to go. 

There are several adventures for Morpheus after this but this is the first story of the Sandman comics.  Most of his adventures deal with Morpheus righting the wrongs of his own dark past and coming to terms with very human things such as loneliness, friendship, guilt and grief.

Marvel fans might notice that Morpheus AKA Dream has certain similarities to Marvels’ Nightmare character.  And there are definite similarities.  The biggest difference is Dream is essentially what would happen if Nightmare went on a redemption arc.

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Other adventures of note:

At one point Morpheus is summoned to help Calliope, the muse.  Calliope and Morpheus had been married thousands of years earlier.  She has recently been held prisoner by cruel mortals who use her for inspiration and have physically abused her as well.  Morpheus tries to ask for her release and when that doesn’t work he’s forced to torment her captor with maddening, intensely creative dreams until he releases her.

Another storyline deals with Morpheus going back to Hell to rescue his abandoned lover, Nada, only to find that Lucifer has quit and Lucifer asks Morpheus to help him cut off his large bat wings (which he gets back as pretty feathery wings later in his own solo comics.)

Lucifer goes to Earth and decides to learn how to play Piano, among other things.  His lover, the demoness, Mazikeen, soon follows, while Morpheus’ older sister, Death, tries to sort out what to do with all the newly displaced wandering souls.

When Morpheus is left the key to Hell, various supernatural entities, beings of folklore, and religion come to The Dreaming to try to claim it from him.  One demon that arrives (made of many mouths) has Nada imprisoned inside of his very being.  Morpheus goes inside the demon and rescues Nada and while he’s there he also finds and rescues the very demon that had once had his helm and challenged him during the first Sandman storyline, Preludes and Nocturns.  Morpheus’ sense of compassion has grown.

In his pride Morpheus gives a flimsy apology to Nada for leaving her in Hell and she slaps him hard across the face.

He apologizes more sincerely after momentarily getting angry and tells her that she has a choice to make.  Nada chooses to be reincarnated.

When she’s reborn in Hong Kong, Morpheus sneaks into the nursery in the hospital maternity ward, where he cradles the baby, (The baby is male), telling the baby that he’ll never forget her and that she’ll always be welcome in The Dreaming.   

The key to Hell is ultimately passed to two Angels who choose to try to make it a place of reformation and redemption but somehow devise tortures equally as cruel (if not crueler) than what was there when Lucifer ran the place.  In Neil Gaiman’s lore souls only go to Hell if they believe that is what they deserve and then demons take advantage of that there in Hell.  In Lucifer’s stand alone comics it’s revealed that he was not given Hell as a punishment but as a place where he wouldn’t have to live in his Father’s shadow.  It became a place of darkness and misery because of Lucifer’s own dark mindset.  Lucifer now seems content on Earth and never returns to ruling Hell.

(Note: The current Devil / Satan of the DC universe is “First of the Fallen” (a different entity from Lucifer as Lucifer is “retired” and is not actually categorized as evil anymore.)   

In current DC / Vertigo lore, a different being, “First of The Fallen” has taken the title of Satan while Lucifer has happily become a neutral character, considered neither Good nor Evil (though leaning heavily toward Good in his TV show incarnation).  Lucifer is retired and categorized as Neutral in his moral alignment while First of the Fallen is categorized as Evil.  Lucifer may have been the first Angel to fall from grace but he was not the first entity to fall from grace (by that list Lucifer is actually the fourth to fall) and so Lucifer does not actually have the title First of the Fallen in the current comics. 

One sweet storyline in Sandman is how Morpheus met a man who ‘refused to die” (an immortal) and the man (known as Hob and later Robert) agreed to meet with Morpheus every century to tell him what it was like to go from being mortal to being immortal, how his life has been for the last century, and to tell him if he wanted to continue to live).  In the 1700s they run into John Constantine’s Great, great, grandmother, Johanna Constantine, who mistakes Morpheus and Robert (Hob) as “The Devil and the Wandering Jew” and tries to capture Hob / Robert and Morpheus. 

In the 1800s Hob confronts Morpheus on the fact that there are actually other formerly-human immortals around the world and Hob believes Morpheus only meets with him once a century because they are friends and not because he is curious to know how Hob handles his immortality.  Morpheus becomes indignant and prideful, insisting that he doesn’t need friends.

He storms off and Hob calls after him that if he shows up next century he’ll know it’s because they’re friends and no other reason.

A century later Morpheus arrives and Hob admits he had not thought he’d come and Morpheus tells him that he had been told that it is rude to keep one’s friends waiting.  It’s sweet.

In the lore of Sandman Morpheus is the father of the mythological Orpheus, the musician who went into the Greek underworld to retrieve his dead wife. Orpheus’ mother is the muse, Calliope.  Hades agreed to let Orpheus have his wife back if he did not look back at her until they left The Underworld, proving his trust in the Greek God of The Dead.  Orpheus made the mistake of looking back at her at the last second and so lost her just before they could exit The Underworld.  Orpheus was then later torn apart by zealots and since he was condemned to immortality he was stuck as a severed head.  Shortly before going to The Underworld Orpheus had denounced his father, Morpheus, for refusing to help get his wife back from The Land of The Dead.  Hurt and angry, Morpheus refused to help him other than to send some priests dreams about Orpheus so that they and their descendants would tend to him (as he’s just a severed head) for centuries to come.

In the early 1990s, when Morpheus’ youngest sister, Delirium wants to find their lost brother, Destruction, Morpheus is forced to go to Orpheus to find out where Destruction is.  Orpheus bitterly greets his estranged father and tells him that he will give him the information he needs but only if he does him the one mercy he has been pleading for, for centuries.  Morpheus does not want to do it but finally out of mercy he kills his own son, reuniting Orpheus with his wife in The Underworld.  But Morpheus is left with a deep remorse over how he treated his son and for Orpheus’ death.  Morpheus retreats to his private rooms in his castle where he weeps, alone.

Morpheus eventually gets mistaken as the kidnapper of baby Daniel ( a child who, while fetal, spent an unusually long time in The Dreaming realm.  Daniel is the son of Hector Hall, the second superhero Sandman who passed away).   Lyta, the baby’s Mother, is lead to believe her child is dead.  She calls upon the Kindly Ones (representatives of the crone aspect of The Triple Goddess) to seek revenge. They tell her that they cannot seek revenge for her son but an Endless is not allowed to kill someone of their own blood, nor is Morpheus allowed to kill at all except to protect The Dreaming.  As Morpheus has violated these ancient rules, they can seek revenge over the death of Orpheus.

The end of the Sandman comics has Morpheus “die” sacrificing himself to stop The Kindly Ones from Destroying The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loved ones grieve him but it’s a little ambiguous as to if he’s truly dead.  Morpheus had become weary of his role as ruler of The Dreaming but he knew that he could not just abandon it the way Destruction had abandoned his role.  And he could not quit the way Lucifer had, though he does quote Lucifer about being so very tired.

 The Kindly ones seek Morpheus’ death or the destruction of The Dreaming.  Morpheus gives up his life to save his realm, allowing his sister, Death, to take him.  As Morpheus “dies” all of his memories and power pass on into baby Daniel, who transforms and now wears an emerald with a small amount of Dream’s soul within it.  Everything that was mortal of Daniel is gone as he is transformed into the new incarnation of Dream.

When Lyta had mistakenly thought Morpheus had taken her baby, Daniel had actually been kidnapped by Puck and Loki but Daniel was ultimately rescued by a Nightmare being known as The Corinthian, and Morpheus’ Raven spy / messenger, Matthew (who had been a human soul who died in his sleep and was allowed to remain in The Dreaming after his death as Morpheus’ loyal servant.  Matthew (in his human form) had originally been a character of the Swamp Thing comics.

Daniel- now simply calling himself Dream- (which was Morpheus’ alternate name) took an adult form that looks much like Morpheus except with white hair instead of black.  This can be seen as similar to a Doctor Who style regeneration however there are other things that make Morpheus’ death fishy and or potentially a false ending.

Hob AKA Robert (Morpheus’ immortal friend) has a dream of Morpheus in which Morpheus is with a man he does not know (Destruction) and both walk off together. 

This can imply two things.  1.  Morpheus could have faked his death very elaborately and is telling Hob (as he has told Hob things via dreams before) or 2.  Morpheus did die and Daniel resurrected him as a Dream (which actually is one of his powers, to resurrect anyone who dies in The Dreaming realm as a Dream entity, maintaining free will, personality, and soul).  

And that’s about it.

Though there are serious and complex parts, some of Sandman is fun and light too, such as when Morpheus allows Delirium to drive... in the human world...

And there you go.  A crash course in what the Hell Neil Gaiman’s Sandman actually is.  Despite the spoilers of this post, I assure you that the actual comics are much more enjoyable to read.

[thenightling]

Dickery vs. Competence: Morpheus and Daniel sins: Comparison

Post made for the request of @zalemoonshadow  

Disclaimer.  Some of these might not be Sins per se but they are acts of questionable competence.   Also I am aware that Neil Gaiman is not accountable for the content of the spin-offs, One-shots, and “Sandman Presents” titles.  And I doubt Daniel’s screw up list would be so long if he was the one writing those...

Sins: Tally:

It’s hard to measure Morpheus’ sins vs. Daniels and a bit unfair.  Morpheus had eons to f--k up while Daniel has only had twenty one years.  If I was to measure Morpheus crimes between 1988 and 1996 and Daniel’s sins between 1996 until 2017 it would read like this...

Morpheus:

1.  Ignoring Nada’s pleas when he went to Hell for his helm.   He does eventually rescue her and apologize but yes he did leave her there for ten thousand years.  At least she got to slap him.   I fear when Sandman finally gets adapted as a film or TV series because this is probably Morpheus’ most “problematic” behavior, leaving his lover in Hell for rejecting him.  And then the fact that she forgives him would also be seen as “problematic” because today it’s very unfashionable to forgive “abusers” even if they truly are remorseful.    

2.  His excessive punishment of Alexander Burgess.  Yes, Alex carried on his Father’s act of holding Morpheus prisoner, and threatening Morpheus and mocking him, but Alex was afraid of what Morpheus might do to him if freed (and with good reason).  And poor Paul’s crime was apathy and for it he lost his lover for over six years. 

3.   Not doing more for Rachel (Constantine’s junkie lover) when he obviously could (Issue 3). 

4.  Almost killing Rose Walker.  (He didn’t want to and mercifully he didn’t have to).

5.   Killing his own son.  Even though, yes, it was out of Mercy he could have offered Orpheus a new life with a Dream-created body.   But I do understand that he probably wanted to be reunited with his long lost wife finally.   I don’t really consider this a crime but you know Morpheus did.  Though I think his real crime here is far older.  Abandoning Orpheus in his hour of need before and after his adventure in The Underworld.

Actually, that’s kind of it, isn’t it?

Note: I will not call Morpheus’ not wanting to kill the Dream Vortex(s) a sin.   That’s a virtue, the value of life.  

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Daniel:

1.   Ignoring the banishment of an apparently important entity by a Nightmare Judge (Once Cain was banished human beings became dangerously violent toward each other). 

2.   Allowing (Or somehow not noticing) Merv using sleeping Human souls as slave labor, resulting in a man mistaking Merv as a God, and in the waking world attempting suicide and causing permanent brain damage.   Seriously WTF?!  (This REALLY happened in The Dreaming Comics).  I don’t think Merv ever realized what he had done.  And this felt so very, very... off...

God, how I hated The Dreaming spin-off, specially the crap of Nuala going back under her Glamour and the writer trying to make that somehow “empowering” that she was again hiding her true self, when she learned not to do that to try to appease others in the original Sandman.    The idiot who did this really missed the point here. But sadly that’s just my anger, and not something I can blame Daniel for.

3. Leaving his semi-competent Dream beings to handle a civil war by themselves with the feeble excuse of “I didn’t want there to be any martyrs.”  Among Nightmares??!

4.   Altering Lucien’s memories about Matthew’s Death after giving Matthew the speech on why you shouldn’t change memories like that. 

5.  Transforming a psychotic dead human into a Dark Sue Nightmare and not doing a damn thing when things go horribly wrong.  WHO does that?!

6.  Making The Justice League do his job for him when Starros invade The Dreaming.  It was a cute story but seriously... why?!

7.   Apparently killing the Corinthian ...again.   This is based solely on panel art.  Observe.

Correct me if I am mistaken but I don’t think that skull should be there.  I could have sworn the original Corinthian skull was used in the creation of The Second Corinthian (if I’m not mistaken) so either the illustrator forgot the Corinthian was re-created OR Daniel killed him... again.   And if so... Why?  He was mostly reformed (Literally and figuratively).  Admittedly this is probably an illustration Easter Egg mistake. 

8.  Constantly bragging about how much better / nicer / kinder he is to Morpheus.   That egotism makes Morpheus look modest.   

9.  Allowing Matthew to die and not even trying to talk him into living and then replacing Matthew very quickly with an unlikable but color coordinated twat of a white raven.

10.   Not doing anything when The House of Mystery has been repeatedly stolen, misused, destroyed, and or even merged with The House of Secrets.   These are pretty big events.

11.   Banishing The Second Corinthian to Earth (What could possibly go wrong!) and replacing him with Echo, a notoriously unstable former human turned Nightmare, all as punishment for what happened when Corinthian tried to stop a serial killer he accidentally unleashed.   And all while Daniel was reminding them that if he was his “old self” he would have just uncreated him, ignoring that the original Corinthian was uncreated for being a murderous psychopath, not for trying to stop one. 

12.   In “Everything you wanted to know about Dreams” he let Nuala screw up several drams or somehow did not notice this happen...

13.  Also in “Everything you wanted to know about Dreams” (This probably shouldn’t count as canon and was done as a cute sort of joke but I’ll list it anyway.) Lucien and a bus is sent into The Waking World to retrieve several dreams and nightmares that enter as the result of someone waking up a sleep walker.   Does Daniel do anything for himself or his realm... at all? 

14.  Allowing a Nightmare to steal Dream Sand and relying on another dream to get it back, despite there being a huge conspiracy tied to the events or again, somehow not noticing the events until after the fact. (Merv Pumpkinhead one-shot)  

 15.  Leaving Abel (apparently) to track down wayward Nightmares.  Morpheus did that for himself!

16.  Allowing Japanese Death deities to “Poach” sleeping mortal souls to help power their realm.  (See Lucifer comics where Lucifer threatens to tell Dream what they are doing with sleeping mortal souls.  How did Dream not notice?!)

17.    Being “so helpful” in Dark Nights Metal so far.   I wasn’t going to list this one in case Daniel gets more useful in the December issue but so far his appearance has been little more than a page cameo to remind readers that he’s DC canon.

18.  And apparently allowing this to happen...

19.  Somehow there has been more damage to The Dreaming during Daniel’s reign than during the seventy two years Morpheus was trapped in a giant snow globe.

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Overall sins of Morpheus:

1.  Leaving Nada in Hell.  Sure, he rescued her later, but it was ten thousand years later and required Death telling him he was wrong.  

2.   Apparently destroying most of The Dreaming for centuries after Nada rejected him.

3. (Through Retroactive content in The Dreaming spin-off comics) Severely punishing Lucien by transforming his white raven form to black for some undisclosed sin.   Unless the theory that he IS Adam is correct and it’s for his mistreatment of Eve I’m not sure what the Hell Lucien could have done that was so bad.  Did he mistakenly put a non-fiction book in the fiction section?  Lucien is Dream’s most loyal servant, as repeatedly confirmed in the original Sandman comics, and praised by Morpheus for this reason.

4.   What Morpheus did to “Emperor Norton” and his mind for his petty competition with the younger siblings.

5.  Not doing more to help Rachel when Constantine implored him and almost doing nothing.

6.  How he treated Lyta and Hector Hall when he found them in Brute and Glob’s Dream Dimension.   Not even allowing Lyta a proper goodbye to her husband or even giving Hector the time and knowledge to process the truth of his situation.   

7.   Repeatedly behaving like Rumpelstiltskin in regard to Daniel, making it all too easy to frame Morpheus for Daniel’s abduction / murder.

8.  Not being there for his son in his darkest hour all because Morpheus was bitter / hurt over their falling out when Orpheus was grieving his wife.   And this ultimately leads to centuries of torment for Orpheus as a severed head looked after by priests before finally having to be put out of his misery by his own father.

All in all, despite his colorful history and many mistakes, Morpheus did set most of them right, and tried to atone.  Daniel is just... not that good at his job...

Perhaps there should be two Dream of The Endless ruling The Dreaming?