Superman was just over a year old - in fact, the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens, New York, was the first time anyone was ever hired to portray the Man of Steel in costume. The story of the story of The Sandman begins in 1939. With the first cinematic adaptation of this supposedly unfilmable magnum opus premiering on Netflix, it’s worth turning back the clock to examine all of the ingredients that went into the biggest cult hit in superhero comics, if only to answer the question: Why is Sandman… like that? The original Sandmans Image: Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg/DC Comics The one thing you can’t say about The Sandman is that it could have happened at any other time in history, either global or specific to comics. The Sandman is many things: pulp horror, mythopoetry, urban fantasy, a superhero reboot, a goth’s style handbook, Succession with anthropomorphic personifications, a flawed but earnest attempt to portray queer lives struggling for actualization and safety in the 1990s, a graphic novel, a collection of short stories, and a work that’s canonical with DC Universe. So does the Martian Manhunter, the mythological figure of Loki, Marco Polo, and Eve - like, from the Garden of Eden? If you want a third stab at a description, “ a horror comic that swiftly turns into a high-concept mythological fantasy comic” could fit the bill. “The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision.” It’s a funny little statement: poignant in its accuracy, mysterious in its vagueness.Īnother good way to describe The Sandman is: “a story about stories and their relationship to our humanity.” William Shakespeare appears in it. Neil Gaiman has famously summarized The Sandman with a single sentence.

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