Comic Book Spotlight: The Sandman

By J.P. Perumba de Puthenveetil

The Sandman is a series by Neil Gaiman about a godlike being named Morpheus who rules over the realm of dreams. The series focuses on different stories regarding dreams and usually have Morpheus at the center of them.

This is one of the most unique pieces of literature that I have ever read in my entire life. Throughout the series, a multitude of different themes and ideas are covered and every one of them is still so unique. Other than dreaming, one of the major themes of these comics is that of how gods see humans how our pain and suffering may not matter to a person who is eternal and can see everything on a greater scale. Morpheus is in many ways a good guy, but because he cannot die, and has seen the world from the beginning, he has a hard time finding a reason to help mortals with their own troubles.

There are many very different but interconnected stories in this series, from stories about cats to stories about serial killer conventions. There is no telling where these books will take you once you open a new one.

This series focuses on mortal life and how lives are affected and changed completely by the seemingly careless actions of the higher powers. Morpheus is just one of the many undying powers that these stories look into. The family he belongs too is called the Endless. The represent the different aspects of life itself and each one is its own character study on how these responsibilities take tolls on these godlike beings.

My favorite character, Death, is a prime example of this. She is responsible to appearing to any newly dead person and escorting them to the afterlife, just like the Grim Reaper. Because she has spent lifetimes doing this, she has become completely numb to the idea of dying. She almost ignores in entirely and attempts to make it a fun time!

These beings are far from perfect; they are probably more flawed than most living mortals. That is why The Sandman is interesting, with its main objective posed to a group of undying, all-powerful beings and the question it asks them: what if they had to deal with their own human nature?

This series is very strange; there are many things that will discomfort the reader and a lot of it will be really hard to look at, but if you think you can endure this magnificent trek into this unknown world and meet the Lord of the Dream World face to face, you will come out of it a changed person.

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