History ComicBook / TheSandman1989

** Lyta Hall. Briefly appears in "The Doll's House" as a prisoner of Brute and Glob. Then Dream vows to take away her child, and ... things get more complicated. After a few sporadic appearances in later issues, she becomes the protagonist of "The Kindly Ones".

** Death took part in a AIDS awareness campaign, and to help out she called in ''{{Hellblazer}}''[='=]s John Constantine for a demonstration of putting a condom on a banana. Constantine looked very uncomfortable.

* [[DecoyProtagonist Decoy Antagonist]]: Roderick Burgess. The first issue appears to set him up as the BigBad, or at least as a major antagonist. Then it turns out that the first issue spans ''70 freakin' years''. By the end of it, he's died of old age and his son Alex is a harmless, senile old man. After Dream escapes, he leaves Alex in a permanent nightmare and never sees him again. [[spoiler: He wakes up at the end of the Kindly Ones when Dream dies, as there was nothing keeping him in the nightmare. He evenn attends Dream's funeral.]]

* [[DecoyProtagonist Decoy Antagonist]]: Roderick Burgess. The first issue appears to set him up as the BigBad, or at least as a major antagonist. Then it turns out that the first issue spans ''70 freakin' years''. By the end of it, he's died of old age and his son Alex is a harmless, senile old man. After Dream escapes, he leaves Alex in a permanent nightmare and never sees him again.

* CloudCuckooLander: Delirium, although she will from time to time [[ObfuscatingStupidity start making sense.]]

* NonLinearCharacter: Though left vague, it's implied that the Endless can perceive time in a non-linear manner. In one issue set in Ancient Greece, Orpheus is understandably baffled when he goes to talk to Death and finds her dressed in 20th-century clothes. In another issue, Destruction seems unusually knowing when he encounters a set of ruins from the future.
** [[FridgeBrilliance This could have something to do with implied parallel worlds/planes or other planets though.]]

** Desire fills this role for Delirium in ''Brief Lives'', showing us a rare sympathetic moment from him/her/

** In ''A Dream of a Thousand Cats'' (a short story in the third book), the universe-as-we-know-it cannot possibly be older then a few years or decades - but the apocalypse wrote the old universe out of history, and created the new universe retroactively.

There is now rumoured to be a TV series in the works with Eric Kripke (former show runner of ''{{Supernatural}}'') potentially being slated to take part.

** Dream is often Bowie as well, but is mostly Neil Gaiman himself, and occasionally Freddie Mercury and Robert Smith of TheCure.

* ''{{Lucifer}}'': After quitting his job as lord of hell, Lucifer sees what the world has in store for him. Written by MikeCarey.

** Putting together evidence from ''Season of Mists'', "The Parliament of Rooks", ''Brief Lives'' and ''{{Lucifer}}'', it appears that in this Verse the fossil record is true, if incomplete, but the Garden of Eden plot and the war in Heaven happened - 10 billion years ago, before the Age of Dinosaurs.

* EnemyCivilWar: The various wars in hell, more apparent in ''{{Lucifer}}''.

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: Bast is getting older and weaker due to so few people believing in her anymore. This seems to be less of a problem for the Norse gods. From what was said of the Judeo-Christian God, it's implied that He doesn't require this. Considering that He ''exists far apart from the Universe,'' it's no stretch that He'd outlast the Endless themselves, though in ''{{Lucifer}}'' it's implied that He's neither the first nor the last Creator.

** Except when you think about it for a while, and take into account what certain characters say in ''The Wake'', it becomes pretty clear [[spoiler: that it was indeed Dream himself who organized the kidnapping in order to achieve his long-term plan: being replaced by a new incarnation.]]

* ''Death: At Death's Door'': A manga-style retelling of ''Seasons of Mists'' from Death's point of view, by Jill Thompson (''ScaryGodmother''). If you take the character of Death and/or the rest of the ''Sandman'' series seriously, you probably won't like it (for CuteKidsAndRobots reasons). If not, it's funny and cute. Death, Delirium and Despair as {{magical girl}}s has to be seen to be believed. It has its own spin-off, ''The Dead Boy Detectives'', based on two characters seen in ''Death's Door''.

''The Sandman'' is a ComicBook series (later collected in a series of graphic novels) by NeilGaiman, chronicling the story of the King of Dreams and his family of fantastic, {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of cosmic powers. Described as "A story about stories", ''The Sandman'' was a comic series that could tell any tale, in any time period, in any style or setting. Historical figures were common, as were allusions and homages to many classic works such as the Arabian Nights and the plays of Shakespeare.

* ExiledFromContinuity: With the exception of Destiny, who predates the series, the Endless rarely appear in TheDCU proper. There's no actual rule against writers using the characters, who belong to DC, but try to find an appearance of an Endless where Gaiman isn't credited as a consultant at least.
** Though whenever a character has a sufficient level of cosmic knowledge their existence, at least, may come up as a ShoutOut. It fits with their stature in the universe: they're so far above even the Gods that very few people on Earth even know of their existence.

* To other DCU, Vertigo, and Gaiman characters
** One panel in "Worlds' End" shows a character wearing [[{{Watchmen}} a bloodstained smiley-face pin.]]
** In ''A Game of You'', Barbie notes a race of creatures carrying a walled room across the Land. They are once referred to as the [[DoomPatrol Room Patrol.]]
** If you look closely at a scene in the ''The Kindly Ones'', there's a copy of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' by the bed.
*** Also in ''The Kindly Ones'' is the last of the seven swans from the fairy tale of the same name.
* Several to ToriAmos.

* ShoutOut: ''To'' other DCU, Vertigo, and Gaiman characters;

** Several to ToriAmos.

** Except when you think about it for a while, and take into account what certain characters say in ''The Wake'', it becomes pretty clear [[spoiler: that it was indeed Dream himself who organized the kidnapping as part of achieving his long-term plan: his suicide.]]

At the center of the series is Dream, also known as Morpheus, the Sandman, and dozens of other titles. He rules over the dreaming world that mortals enter when they sleep, and he is also the patron of writers and storytellers, since a story and a dream are in many ways the same thing (he is described as "The lord of all that is not, and shall never be"). As old as the universe and more powerful than many gods, Dream is vain, proud, and stiff-necked. Throughout the series, tragedy and suffering teach him humility and compassion for others, but it's hard to change for the better when you're billions of years old and very set in your ways...

* AnachronicOrder: The series takes advantage of the Endless' immortal nature and spends a lot of time covering events prior to Dream's capture in the first issue, without any particular order. The focus could switch between ancient Greece or Rome, to WilliamShakespeare at the drop of a hat. At most, only half of the series anchors itself in the events between issue #1 and the events of "The Wake."

** Lyta Hall. Briefly appears in "The Doll's House" as a prisoner of Brute and Glob. Then Dream vows to take away her child, and...things get more complicated. After a few sporadic appearances in later issues, she becomes the protagonist of "The Kindly Ones".

* BerserkButton: You call them "The Kindly Ones" (even though they're nothing of the sort) because they ''do not'' like being called "Furies."

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Generally averted with the Endless...which is a problem for them. Their jobs don't have anything to do with what's right and wrong, they're about what needs to be done in order for life to properly function. However, that doesn't make it any easier for some of them to do unpleasant things, and Destruction eventually can't take it anymore.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: It was bad ''before'' the dead rose...

** Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, various Sandman heroes, Martian Manhunter, Fury, Scarecrow and Doctor Destiny all make appearances. In the beginning, the Sandman was supposed to be part of the DC proper, but Gaiman decided later that this was a mistake and downplayed it as the series went on. A few of these characters appears a Callbacks at the end though.

** Dream was never evil really, but his BlueAndOrangeMorality certainly can make him seem that way. He lightens up and becomes more human during the events of the series...which actually turns out to be a problem.

--> '''Skinner's ghost''': We sacrificed a boy. All three of us. To the devil. We did stuff from old books. We did stuff you wouldn't believe. But when we went to Hell... they didn't ''care''. They hadn't even ''known''. They--they ''laughed'' at us.

*** Arguably Delirium didn't do any of that, and her just saying that was her getting back at Mazikeen for not letting her in via existential {{mindscrew}}. Then again...

* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: ...even chocolate people.
* ExactWords: Lucifer swears that he won't harm Morpheus as long as they're within the bounds of Hell, and he keeps his word. Then they step outside...

* FantasyPantheon: The Endless

* FisherKing: The Endless ''are'' their domains, with the exception of the one who quit his job. Desire takes this to the extreme: its realm is a titanic replica of its body, called The Threshold. This is apparently a StealthPun, since 'Desire has always lived on the edge.'

** In the Sandman Companion, Neil Gaiman implied that the Judeo-Christian God, Lucifer et all do predate the Endless and Creation. Seems that the other gods here come from the people's dreams (probably why Lucifer forbade worship in his Universe).

* HurricaneOfEuphemisms: "Been there, Remiel. Done that, wore the tee-shirt, ate the burger, bought the original cast album, choreographed the legions of the damned and orchestrated the screaming."
* HyperlinkStory:

'''Lucifer''': Oh, he insulted me...said something he thought was clever. It hardly matters now.

** Also [[spoiler:Desire, the Cuckoo, Aristaeus, the Kindly Ones (though they're perhaps too cosmic of a force to be considered evil), and Lucifer (becoming a KarmaHoudini may even have been a motivation behind his abandonment of hell]].

* MamaBear: Lyta Hall

* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: "Where do you hide a book? In a library! Where do you hide a flower? In a garden? Where do you hide a severed head..."

* NonLinearCharacter: Though left vague, it's implied that the Endless can perceive time in a non-linear manner. In one issue set in Ancient Greece, Orpheus is understandably baffled when he goes to talk to Death and finds her dressed in 20th-century clothes. In another issue, Destruction seems unusually knowing when he encounters a set of ruins from the future. Destiny, of course, knows about everything before it happens.

** "...looking for rabbits, vicar?"

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Lord Ruthven is a minor dream figure named for a famous literary vampire, and his dress, voice, fangs, and demeanor all seem to imply that he is indeed a vampire here...and he has a rabbit's head. Yeah.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Morpheus ''could'' have taken the extra couple of seconds to explain to Nuala ''why'' it was a very bad idea for him to come to Faerie just then. Justified in that the disastrous consequences are what he secretly wanted all along.

* RecursiveReality: The "Worlds' End" arc is about a group of people trapped in a tavern by a storm, passing the time by telling stories. Some of the stories include stories-within-stories, and at least one includes a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, told by a man who mentions that he once heard ''of'', but never himself ''heard'', an oddly familiar-sounding story about a group of people trapped in a tavern by a storm, passing the time by telling stories...

---> [[spoiler:'''Nuala''': You...you ''want'' them to kill you, don't you? You ''want'' them to punish you for your son's death.]]

* SacredHospitality: Dream cannot harm his guests in any way. The demon Azazel [[WhatAnIdiot chooses to renounce his hospitality...]]

** Azazel, among many. Morpheus sealed him there. The evil forces sealed in the Dreaming end up breaking out during ''The Kindly Ones.''

* SlasherSmile: Loki and Puck are doing this pretty much all the time. And then there's Boss Smiley, who has a yellow happy face for a head. Look, we never said the tropes always make sense, okay?
* SoleSurvivor: Tiffany is the only one to make it out of the club in ''Brief Lives.'' Desire gives her a coat and the [[MobyDick "And I alone am escaped to tell thee..."]] line.
* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: A trademarks of the series is its habit of interrupting large storylines with brief, single-issue short stories with a radically different tone, like "Men of Good Fortune" in ''The Doll's House'' and "Charles Rowland Concludes His Education" in ''Season of Mists''.
** Additionally, ''World's End'' features "The Golden Boy", a story that is weird even by the standards of this series, A political allegory about the nature of democracy and its relationship with religion, it tells the story of Prez Rickard, TheChosenOne who becomes President of the United States while still a teenager, opposed by a shadowy political machine chief called Boss Smiley, who has a yellow happy face for a head. Yes.

** It is never explained why Delight turned into Delirium [[hottip:*:it's heavily implied that she wandered too far from the borders of Destiny's Garden, and saw...''something'' and was DrivenMadFromTheRevelation, but what that something was is never revealed]], or how the first Despair was killed. It's also implied Delirium's not done changing yet.

* UnusualEuphemism: The story-within-a-story (within another story...) about the hangman features a staggering assortment of euphemisms about hanging people and being hung, such as "A jump from the leafless tree," and "A hearty choke with caper sauce!" [[hottip:*:"Caper" refers to the victim's legs kicking and twitching. Lovely, innit?]]

* VillainProtagonist: Richard Madoc in "Calliope."

* WhenIsPurple: The TropeNamer

* [[{{Ptitledoyhdqmn}} I'll Kill You!]]: At the end of Morpheus' visit to Hell in ''Preludes and Nocturnes'', Lucifer vows to destroy him, and in ''Season of Mists'' he makes something of an attempt at it by gifting Morpheus with the key to hell and the ensuing troubles. By the end of the series, Lucifer's lost interest in seeing the threat through, especially with the Kindly Ones attacking Morpheus.

* [[UngratefulBastard Ungrateful Bitch]]: That woman in ''World's End''. Told stories of worlds far beyond human imagination, tales reaching back and forth through time, how does she respond? By whining that none of them were ''women's'' stories. Screw ''you'', you entitled brat!