Now like many others I spent years and years waiting for a live action version of Sandman.
The graphic novel is something that's always been close to my heart and just after I finished Uni
I ended up getting a minimum wage job in a shop working about 30 hours a week.
This gave me about £800 a month and after bills and food came out I was left with a little bit to
spend on comics. Now at the time DC were slowly in the process of rolling out their gigantic Sandman
Omnibuses. These came in at about £80 each which was a lot of money for me at the time.
I saved and saved and saved up for them and eventually bought the first volume.
I burned through it in the space of a weekend and even though I'd had the work hyped up to
me quite a lot, I was still completely blown away by it. I then saved up and
bought the second volume and the book just seemed to get better and better.
Now sadly due to my money issues at the time I had to sell both books
but they've always held a close place next to my heart and everytime I hear about Sandman
I think back to those days of when I was living week to week enjoying the simple things in life.
Hearing that Netflix was adapting a live action version of Sandman really piqued my interest and
incase you don't know, bringing it to screen has been a massive endeavor for the creators. If you
listen to the podcast Best Movies Never Made then you'll know they did a big breakdown of all the
original scripts and it's clear there's been several people trying to get this off the ground.
Initially pitched as a movie it's now a ten episode tv show
that stays very faithful to the comics.
Nowhere is this seen more than in episode 6 which
adapts The Sound Of Her Wings and also Dolls house Part 4.
These are two of the best issues in the entire run
and the reason that Netflix put them together is because they both study life and death.
In the first part of the entry we watch as Dream joins his sister Death as she goes about
her daily routine of meeting people after they pass away. The second following Morpheus as he
meets a man who has been granted immortality on the same date every one hundred years.
Now the first of these always struck a chord with me when I was reading it.
Death is something that we all must face and it's still a subject that we know very very little
about. People spend their entire lives either living with faith or in the absence of it
and we all have our own thoughts and beliefs on what will be waiting for us.
Even with the idea of the afterlife it's rare that death is ever welcomed
and many of us hate to think about it because of the anxiety it brings.
However the comic and episode show us that it's just another part of life
that we all have to go through. Why Gaiman broke the mould is because he completely
reinventd the personification of death. Gone was the classic depiction of the
grim reaper and here we met a young trendy character that was based on Cinnamon Hadley.
She came across in an unassuming manner and barely made an entrance with her and Dream
simply sitting down together and talking. It's the perfect way to introduce the character and
it's brought across to the episode expertly when we catch the pair in a park together.
One section that always stuck out to me in the comics was when Death would tell people that
their time was up and they'd desperately beg for more. She then informed them that
they got the same as everyone else. They got a lifetime. It's a line that always stuck out to
me and whenever I've heard of people passing it's something I've remembered. Whether the
characters she comes across are young, old or in the prime of their lives, they all got a lifetime.
Though this line doesn't get brought up in the episode itself it's clearly brought across
thematically and we watch Death and Morpheus go on a beat for beat retread of the journey that they
did in the source material. First she catches a boys football who's not really looking too deeply
into his surroundings, then they go to an old man with a violin, before journeying to a baby.
As someone who has just had kids, this scene hits me even harder now
and I can't imagine how devastating it would be for something like this to happen to a parent.
It truly shows how tragic that death can be and how it effects those around us.
However, whilst that would normally be depressing,
what the episode is really telling us is how precious and short that life is.
You can be out with the person you love one day and then the next end up dying through
no real fault of your own. Really heartbreaking stuff but in the ends it's just a process in the
universe that we are all part of and though some of the deaths feel like they have no
purpose the true meaning behind everything is to find something that we loved living for. There's
a great shot after the violinist dies where dream stares at a photo of him and the others
that played the instrument who he worked with in his life. It's very bitter sweet
and almost like a final swan song for the character before he goes onto the next stage.
Watching characters beg to let their wife know one last thing is heart breaking
and yeah, it shows how devastating loss can be. Think I cried like...ten times...well
there was dust in the room to be fair but yeah every single one of the deaths felt impactful.
What the comic and episode do perfectly is that they make you contemplate your own life and death
and it makes you introspectively think about all the things that matter.
We all die one day and this is an excellent way to show things from
the perspective of a character who's been tasked with taking us to the great beyond.
Like Dream Death thought about leaving her post because she couldn't keep doing this
due to how devastating it was. However, much like the people who's lives we see snuffed out,
she found some form of purpose and enjoyment. Death decided to give them a kind word and a
friendly face and she saw the other side of her existence and how to make the most of it.
Seeing the pair go on their journey as they take the dead is beautiful
and it reminds us of what death is really about.
Now this is mirrored by the second part of the entry which follows Death and Dream as
they grant immortality to a stranger. Though this is part of the Doll House storyline it's
titled Men Of Good Fortune and it centres around Hob. He lives in the 1300, a century filled with
the black death where you were lucky to live past 35. He believes that no one needs to die
and that we do because we have it engrained into us that that is the way of the world.
Being a peccamist, Dream believes that he will beg for death but Hob defies all expectations and
through all the highs and lows he still wants to stay alive. This is a character that truly
goes on a roller coaster ride and he shows all the ups and downs of life. Hob is a complicated
character that becomes fixated on his fortune to the point when he loses it it leaves him broken.
What Hob truly represents to me though is how far humanity has come and all the ups and downs
that have been a part of it. He truly is a history lesson that gets invovled in the printing press,
sees William Shakespeare and a lot more. I love the way
that we see how the overall emotion of humanity repeats throughout the ages.
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There's always calls for revolution, people working on the dole and us just telling jokes.
Though we are the same at our very nature Hob also showcases the potential that we have.
We are a very complicated species with a past that's often sied away from
but in order to understand what it truly means to be human we have to shine light on
the darkness too. Hob also faces the same losses that we do too. Being an immortal
means that he loses his wife and child and he also faces ruin of his businesses.
However he still bounces back and he very much
represents Dreams need to find companionship with humanity.
Robert calls him lonely which is very much a characteristic that he struggles with throughout
the entire run. Like Hob hes an immortal who only ever really interacts with others when they
go into the dreamworld and having been betrayed by humanity in the past he struggles to trust others.
This has pushed him away and he believes that he's better off alone.
However Hob states that like us all, he needs a connection.
Though initially Dream protests against this and denies that he could ever be
friends with a mortal, he ends up returning at the end to continue their conversation.
Dream himself was trapped for so long that it made him truly re-examine what things meant to him
and he realised that he and Hob had a friendship that many would never understand.
We as people can often be like this where we push those away from us who often mean the most but
this shows that there is the possibility to repair friendships if one acts with openess and kindness.
I love Hob saying that people are always better than you think you are
and it shows that we have the potential within us for greatness.
Watching the pair meet for the final time also cements how far we have all come
and it makes you think of whats coming for the future.
Really makes me wish I could see their meeting 100 hundred years
from now and Hob truly makes us wonder what it would be like to live forever.
Coupled together these two parts are perfect summations of life and death with us seeing
through all the characters what it truly means to be human. It's definitely my favourite episode
in the series and it perfectly recaptures the comic that I fell in love with in my other life.
I hope you enjoyed us talking about why we enjoyed it so much
and I'd of course love to hear your comments below on what you think.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse
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If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect scene
in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the
entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video,
I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace