Book: Sandman
Story: Sleep of the Just

Issue: #1

Neil Gaiman - writer
Sam Kieth - artist
Mike Dringenberg - artist
Todd Klein - letters
Robbie Busch - colours
Art Young - assistant editor
Karen Berger - editor

Story:

The year is 1912 and a secret society of dark magic, lead by the wealthy industrialist Rodderick Burgess is undertaking a most dangerous experiment. He is about to try and capture, literally shackle the entity Death. Only the Magus has it wrong, his dark summoning does in fact not retrieve Death, but his younger brother, Morpheus, the King of dreams, The Sandman. Bound in a magic cell, the Sandman stripped of his magical tools, is trapped in his prison for some 70 years. Meanwhile, the people of the world have started loosing sleep. A sickness of sleep crosses the globe, men and women fall into slumber and simply never awaken. With the Sandman gone the world is out of balance. The reigns of power in the Magus' cult has changed; first to Rodderick's son Alex, and then to Paul McGuire a friend to the elderly leader. And still no one has been able to get a word from their imprisoned god. Finally though, the year is 1988 and making a fatal error by breaking the magic of the cell, the time has come for the Sandman's escape; and revenge. The world has been without a king of dreams for a long time and the Sandman is ready to make up for lost time with a destructive ferocity.

- A good telling of a complex history.
- Sandman is cool, collected, and dangerous, a great character.
- I liked the people who's lives destroyed by the Sandman's imprisonment.
- The characters were explored well; even those that only had a few pages.
- Sandman's plotting was simply inspired.
- Sandman's revenge on Alex Burgess was very disturbing.

- The art is a little bit too cartoony, for something this dark I'd prefer more greusome realism.
- There's a bit much to take in, but then again it is a first issue.

This was a very cool comic. I was a little put off by the art at first, but pretty much by the end of the book I'd gotten used to it. Sandman is an excellent character. His history isn't really explained here, but that's ok. For now we're concerned with the more immediate. There's fantastic potential for this character, he kicks serious ass. I'm not too familiar with the DC universe, but as of yet that doesn't seem to be a problem. This was a very solid first issue that introduced us to a dark, and scary, but somehow noble character.

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