If you ask comic fans to name recommended works for mature readers, “Sandman” will be one of the first names to come up. The series of comics written by Neil Gaiman starting in 1989 is a strange, frightening creation bursting with inventions and surprises, which completely changed the comics and graphic novel industry, and along the way turned Gaiman (“American Gods” and more) himself into a sought-after writer of comics, novels and later also movie scripts and to television. Now, after years of trying to bring the comic that started it all to the screen this week, it finally happened, in a 10-episode season from Netflix that Gaiman participated in creating.
“Sandman” follows Morpheus/Dream (Tom Sturridge), a rather gloomy guy with a boy-chin look, who is entrusted with manipulating people’s dreams. In the early 20th century he was imprisoned by a greedy human sorcerer and imprisoned in a glass ball for many decades. When he finally manages to break free, he embarks on a journey to restore his disintegrating kingdom, but also to collect parts of it that have leaked into the “waking world” and thus endanger humans. Quite a few changes were made on the way to Netflix – references to characters from the publisher DC (such as Batman villains) were omitted, physical or personality characterizations of characters were changed, the period of occurrence was brought up to date, stories were shortened or glued together into one episode. The most significant change is probably the genre. The first season of the series is based on the first two volumes of the series, “Preludes and Nocturnes” and “The Doll’s House”, horror stories with some really scaring moments. In the transition to television and the 21st century, many moments of extreme disgust disappeared, and with them also many references that were almost incidental in comics: self-harm, graphic violence, drugs, rape and other goods. All this does not mean that the series is not dark – it preserves the highlights and the narrative core without fear – but the doses and the tone of the presentation have changed.
Take for example the storyline starring the exorcist John Constantine, who in the new version has become Joanna (Jenna Coleman), perhaps to distance himself from previous (and failed) adaptations of the character, which came from the Hellblazer comic series (by Gaiman’s teacher and father, Alan Moore) played by Keanu Reeves and Matt Ryan. The story of Exorcist Constantine in the comics is very similar to the TV one, with an ex who becomes a drug addict of Morpheus’ enchanted sand. But while John found his former lover in a living room with walls covered in blood and flesh, surrounded by sickening demons, in the 2022 version the sand creates a dream bubble within reality that confronts Joanna with her past mistakes. It’s not necessarily better or worse, it’s just different. And this is true for the entire season, actually – it captures the spirit of the original but gives it a different interpretation, different enough to alienate some fans, but also to attract a new audience. She faithfully and sensitively recreates some of the iconic moments of the comic series, including spectacular frames that seem to have been copied to the screen, but it is more important for her to grasp the general idea than to create a one-to-one adaptation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ClbRPRDXU
If we leave the comparisons between the two versions and focus only on the series itself, we will discover a season with a slightly non-standard structure. The first half is episodic, even almost anthological in nature, with mini-stories about Morpheus, various fantastical creatures and their influence on our world. In the second half, the plot is more continuous and focuses on two threats to the kingdom of a dream – a runaway nightmare with mouths instead of eyes and a young woman with the ability to change and move between other people’s dreams. The tone also became a little lighter and humorous.
It is easy to fall under the spell of the rich world and the abundance of interesting characters that the series presents, but ironically one of its weak points is the protagonist. It’s not that he’s boring or bad, it’s just that Sturridge is a rather anemic player whose success depends on the abilities of the player opposite him. Fortunately, most of the other actors in the cast are great – including David Thullius (Remus Lupine from “Harry Potter”), Stephen Fry and Kirby Howell Baptiste, who does real magic in the role of Death. In the end we don’t watch or read “Sandman” for Morpheus the character but for the crazy stories it tells – and the people who inhabit them.
Want to really have fun? Go to the source. From “Sandman”
The series insists on giving a measure of humanity even to those who in the comics were the most monstrous monsters, bad and that’s about it. Each character has a very specific background and circumstances that brought her there, but this is not childish or naive humanitarianism without conditions but a reflection of humanity as it is – complicated, but fascinating. All of this connects well with the emotional process that the hero somehow goes through between stories throughout the season. The son of God, the bitter death, must learn to understand others, to love others, in order to recover from his trauma and live truly, not because he has to but because he can. The enormous richness of the world, the characters and the ideas make it a worthy work, which probably won’t reproduce the achievements of the original, but is still worth spending a few hours on.