Modern culture owes a lot to comic books. Not just because of the predominance of caped superheroes and alien invaders at the box office (for which comic books are owed a short, sharp slap to the face), but thanks to their creation of the episodic format that now governs television. The Sandman, a Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed DC Comics graphic novel series, is both a testament to that relationship and a victim of it.
The Endless have been convened. Destiny (Adrian Lester) calls on his siblings – Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Death (Kirby), Delirium (Esme Creed-Miles), Despair (Donna Preston), and Dream (Tom Sturridge) – after he is delivered a cryptic message by the Fates. “A king will forsake his kingdom,” they tell him. “Life and death will clash and fray.” But who is the king, and who is the kingdom? Lucifer (Gwendoline Christie) seems keen to take an early retirement from guarding the gates of Hell, while Dream is grappling with a desire to pursue an old love through the afterlife and into the “waking world”. This is a universe in which mythologies – Greek, Christian, Norse and more – mingle and fight, as Dream embarks on a picaresque series of adventures through realms of – and beyond – his imagination.
