Thanks to Neil Gaiman, fans of the iconic comic series The Sandman will finally have their live-action dreams realised.
It’s easy to say you get the draw of comics (or graphic novels if you like) with the vast success Marvel and DC universes have seen in the past decade. Consuming frames on frames of action on paper might not work for everyone, but witnessing the odysseys of powerful and magical beings pan out across live-action film adaptations has successfully enticed a far wider audience and to a much greater effect.
So much so that Neil Gaiman, who had been holding out on turning his great work The Sandman into a film or TV series for 32 years, is finally saying yes. After seeing welcome reactions to his work on Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, he joined forces with Wonder Women’s screenwriter Allan Heinberg and David Goyer (who had worked on The Dark Knight trilogy with Christopher Nolan) to produce the eponymous 10-episode series that premiered (in whole) on Netflix last Friday.
This is news for those who only have time to watch the movies (and not sit down to read all 75 issues of the comics series) because The Sandman is a title you can name drop to impress those who do. Made in a time when DC Comics was venturing into more mature and outré themes of fantasy and horror under the now-ceased imprint Vertigo, it pioneered both Gaiman’s prolific literary career and a trail of bold storytellers that spoke to the teens without alienating the adults.
At the time of publishing, this was everything the standard all-ages superhero fare dared not to do and better. So don’t be surprised if you actually find yourself becoming a real fan of these gods’ dysfunctional family affairs.
In a nutshell, the story is about a god who undergoes trials and tribulations to discover what it means to be mortal. Sandman, or Morpheus, is part of the Endless, seven immortal siblings who embody the natural forces: Death, Desire, Destiny, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and–for Morpheus–Dream.
His main task was to maintain order over the world all lifeforms enter when they sleep, the Dreaming, before he fell captive to a cult for 100 years. He was then released in present day only to see this realm in a crumbling disarray, chaos seeping into the waking world. This is where both the Netflix series and the comic kick off; albeit with some key differences made to better fit the storytelling strengths of each medium.
With Gaiman onboard, the show has the luxury to not only explore new interpretations of the characters, but also fill in some ‘what if’ gaps without leading the story too far astray.
It also happens to be a great time for a show like The Sandman to be made, given it was and is still loved for its progressive views on gender, sexuality and diversity. The casting reflects that—British actor Tom Sturridge plays the title role, opposite Doctor Who’s Jenna Coleman, Gwendoline Christie from Game Of Thrones, Boyd Holbrook, David Thewlis, and Patton Oswalt as his trusty raven, Matthew.
Watch The Sandman on Netflix here. And then, click here to catch up with our latest August 2022 issue.
RELATED ARTICLES
Hot and Unbothered
Givenchy's Hard Carry Is the Voyou
