The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1

Sandman Omnibus Volume 1 is an collection of the first 37 issues of DC’s Sandman comic plus the one-shot Sandman Special by Neil Gaiman, which ran from 1989 to 1996. This volume features a range of artists including:

Sam Keith, Michael Dringenberg , Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli, Kelley Jones, Charles Vess, Colleen Doran, Steve Parkhouse, Shawn, McManus, Bryan Talbot, Matt Wagner, Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano, George Pratt, P.Craig Russell, Stan Woch, Dave McKean, Daniel Vozzo, Steve Olof, Todd Klein, and Jon Costanza.

Although Gaiman has created a unique mythology within Sandman’s world, the series also draws broadly from myths, legends, and religions from cultures all around the world. The stories explore real historical moments and characters as well as contemporary themes that are still relevant today. Sandman premiered as a TV series in 2022.

Plot Summary

The story opens at the manor of occultist Roderick Burgess, who is attempting to entrap Death. Instead, they end up with Death’s younger sibling (and the story’s central protagonist) Dream. Roderick and his son Alex keep Dream imprisoned for 72 years, causing sleep disorders worldwide. A crucial error decades later allows Dream to escape. He goes in search of his tools of office—a pouch of magic sand, his official helmet, and a ruby amulet—which were taken while he was imprisoned. These quests lead him to human occultist John Constantine, the psychotic villain Doctor Destiny, and into Hell.

Once he retrieves his lost tools, Dream feels listless and without direction. He meets his sister Death, who helps him feel rejuvenated. Elsewhere, a young woman named Rose Walker and her mother go to meet Rose’s grandmother for the first time. After their reunion, Rose goes in search of her lost brother Jed to share the news. A new friend, Gilbert, accompanies her. They stay at a hotel where a convention for serial killers is being held while Dream learns that two escaped nightmares are hiding inside Jed’s dreams. Dream visits them and frees Jed from their control, but another nightmare named the Corinthian has taken Jed hostage. When Rose is attacked by one of the serial killers, Dream rescues her and destroys the Corinthian. However, he later learns that Rose is a dream vortex capable of destroying the world, and it’s his responsibility to kill her. Rose’s grandmother arrives at the last moment and gives herself up in Rose’s place.

Dream’s older brother Destiny calls all of the siblings together: Dream, Death, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Tensions rise between Dream and Desire over Dream’s old love Nada, whom he sentenced to Hell after she rejected him millennia ago. Dream vows to return to Hell and set Nada free, but he is met with an empty landscape. Lucifer announces he has quit ruling Hell and gives its key to Dream. Dream has to decide who should rule Hell in Lucifer’s place, and gods and creatures from a range of different cultures meet with him in hopes of being given the land. Each attempts to offer him something, including the missing Nada. In the end, Dream gives the key to the angels of Heaven and is able to retrieve Nada on his own.

A young woman, Barbie, lives in New York with her roommate Wanda. Beings from Barbie’s dream world begin filtering into reality, and Barbie learns that her world is in danger from a being called the Cuckoo. An agent The Cuckoo has been sent to attack Barbie’s friends in their sleep, and Wanda and their neighbors experience vivid nightmares. One is a witch named Thessaly, who vows revenge on her attacker. She brings Wanda together with two others, Hazel and Foxglove, and they enter Barbie’s dream. Wanda, however, is left behind.

Barbie travels through the dream world with three companions but is taken captive by The Cuckoo, who reveals that she wants to destroy this dream world so she can find a new one. Dream arrives to unmake the dying world and sets the women free. However, they learn the ritual that allowed them to enter the dream world also instigated a vicious storm in the waking one. The storm pulls down their apartment building, and Wanda is killed. Barbie goes to Wanda’s funeral and meets her family before beginning a new life.

Throughout these larger stories, several standalone issues take Dream and his siblings through time and draw on a range of cultures, pantheons, historical periods, and beliefs. Dream befriends an immortal man and catches up with him once a century; a narcissistic writer imprisons a Greek muse for his own gain. Dream attends a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, becomes caught in the French Revolution, advises the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, and crosses paths with the Emperor of the United States. The Endless feature strongly in a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where the musician Orpheus descends into Hell to rescue his deceased love but is ultimately unsuccessful.