The best Sandman stories to read after watching the Netflix series

Neil Gaiman Sandman Many wonderful wonders. Part pulp horror, part urban fantasy comic filled with cameos from Shakespeare and mythology, the comic covers many areas with both mundane and otherworldly characters. What started out as a story about Morpheus and his quest for redemption slowly evolves into something much bigger. It is a story about the nature of the story itself and its essential relationship with humanity.

The original 75-issue series, along with various spin-off series and books, is a diverse anthology of beautifully drawn and masterfully told stories that range from spine-tingling to soul-stirring.

In commemoration of the long-awaited live-action TV adaptation, Sandmanwhich premiered this weekend on Netflix, we’ve put together a list of our favorite volumes and issues from the comics for those wanting to explore the original series’ universe in more detail.

24 hours (No. 6)

Sandman After starting life as a horror comic, it became more than that. “24 hours” is a horror version Sandman At the height of its power: spiteful, haunting, and skin-crawling, a one-act play in which diner patrons slowly go crazy together.

The story is largely a stand-alone one: John Dee, a D-list DC Comics villain, has obtained the Dreams Ruby, which contains many of his powers to make other people’s dreams come true. Recently released from imprisonment, Dee sneaks into a diner and makes the patrons his first victims— It uses Ruby’s power to manipulate their desires, distorting them into monsters or subjecting them to obedience and worship.

From the beginning, Sandman Dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin, revealing that one cannot exist without the other. “24 Hours” applies that rule to the types of dreams we have when we are awake. Secret ambitions, desires and fame. They are what build our lives, but they are also what we undo. The scariest thing about them is that John Dee’s cruel supernatural pushes don’t have to be consumed by them. — Joshua Rivera

The Sound of Her Wings (No. 8)

Image: Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg/DC Comics

no other problems Sandman It stands out as more definitive in my mind than issue 8, “The Sound of Her Wings.” This has little to do with the details of the story itself, and is registered as more or less minor except for the larger story of Dream coming to power after a century of imprisonment. Wings marks the point where then-fledgling fantasy comics finally found their own voice: the moment Neil Gaiman stopped writing stories for DC Comics and allowed himself instead. ,It is important. To write the full Neil Gaiman story. In Gaiman’s own words, recent interview“I still love it incredibly ‘“The Sound of Her Wings” was the first encounter with death. Because that’s the first time I felt like I sounded like myself.

The issue follows Dream, who becomes lethargic in the wake of his mission to reclaim the lost office symbol, following his sister, Death’s personified sister, to bring the recently deceased to the afterlife’s “solar”. I will fulfill my duty to guide you to “no land”. A medley of whimsical and melancholic, eerie and life-affirming, heartbreaking and biting tones. “Tsubasa no Hibiki” is a story about an immortal existence expanding its horizons by observing humans up close and reconfirming the value and meaning of life. When death. — Toussaint Egan

Lucky Men (Issue 13)

Image: Neil Gaiman, Michael Zuri/DC Comics

“Men of Good Fortune” has one of my favorite premises for short stories that are pretty basic in nature. He says that death is a “game of mags” and something people do because everyone else does it and they all suck it. He’s not a sucker. He’s just not going to die.

Unbeknownst to him, Dream of Death and her brother was also in the tavern, and they decided it would be amusing to see Hob stick to his word. and said that if Hobb wasn’t going to die, he’d have to tell Dream about it and see him in the same pub in 100 years. That’s what they’ve been doing for centuries.

Breathed to life by Michael Zulli, the rich pencil is recreated throughout. SandmanExecution, “Men of Good Fortune” do something Sandmanwas adept at taking the eternal scale of the Endless universe and using it to make the smaller stories more resonant. , even if it’s just walking into a bar and leaving with friends, it’s only compelling in the way it intersects with our story. —JR

Season of fog (Vol. 4)

Image: Neil Gaiman, Kelly Jones/DC Comics

Spoiler alert for upcoming seasons Sandman: Casting Gwendolyn Christie as Lucifer indicates that the creative team wants to do more with this character. And that means we’re entering the Stellar Fog Season storyline where Lucifer drives everyone out of Hell, driving out demons and hellish souls, locking it tight, and handing the key to Dreams. It’s a particularly sophisticated plan of revenge, aimed squarely at Dream’s unwavering sense of duty. He can’t escape the responsibility of owning hell, but after all, it’s a precious piece of non-real estate, and everyone from the deceased godly pantheon the Chaos forces covet it, and he want to obtain it by bribing, blackmailing, or killing

How Dream navigates situations fog season The collection tells us more about who he is and how he handles responsibilities and territories than we previously knew. Sandman cosmos — about the key players, how they work and what they want, and what the intrigue between heaven, hell, and the court of the fairies looks like.Tasha Robinson

Short Life (Vol. 7)

Image: Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson/DC Comics

There are very few duds in the 10 volumes that make up the complete version. Sandman, each subtly different. But none of them combine the best of all aspects of comics for the first volume. 7, short-livedThere are endless family dramas. Awakening world. Old gods in a modern setting. A delightful and disturbing interaction between mortals and immortals. A talking severed head and a sarcastic dog.

Above all, this is the story of a road trip of two estranged brothers looking for a third brother, who at the same time is an almost omnipotent being beyond human limits who knows how to drive a car. don’t know. — Susana Polo

Epilogue, Sunday Mourning (Issue 73)

Image: Neil Gaiman, Michael Zuri/DC Comics

The strongest character in Sandman Hob Gadling is an Englishman in the 1300s who vowed never to die and never did. But the final issue in which he appears has a special place in my heart. Born in the real Middle Ages, this man goes to a Renaissance fair and is moody and homesick for everything he sees. Of course, there’s an emotional core to Hobb’s story about his unwavering zest for life and his own grief at having outlived everyone he’s ever loved. Served cold, nothing covered in shit, no one walking around with an untreated facial tumor. —SP

Sandman: Overture (Limited Series)

Image: Neil Gaiman, JH Williams III/Vertigo

While serializing in No. 6 Sandman: Overture serves as a prologue just before the first issue of . SandmanIt is best read as an epilogue of all 10 volumes. overture In “Sleep of the Just,” which details the story of the “great battle” that undermined Dream, he travels far away to investigate the murder of one of his sides by the mad Rebel Star. It records a journey to a distant galaxy. It teleported to the “Dream Vortex” that threatens all existences.

It’s a sweeping odyssey across a vast universe full of primordial weirdness and strange allies, rendered through the impeccable visual storytelling of JH Williams III (batwoman, Promethea), its magnificent expansive panels and layouts evoke the sum of the original series’ artistic ambitions in breathtaking detail. Sandman: Overture is a beautiful oval bookend for a quarter-century of saga, a glorious culmination of Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece. —Te