The Sandman, Vol. 8: Worlds’ End (1993)

A fairly Endless-light volume after the events of Brief Lives, but still a good one, offering up a variety of fanciful tales and some intriguing ideas. Even though it’s taking me a while to get through The Sandman – I find that I enjoy it best when I give it some space to breathe between volumes – it’s still a worthwhile journey featuring some really striking storytelling.

Brant and Charlene are driving overnight to Chicago when their car gets into an accident in the middle of a reality storm. The only refuge to be found is at the Worlds’ End inn, where an assortment of creatures from different worlds and realms tell stories as they wait for the storm to pass.

This is a good setup. I enjoy the concept of a reality storm, both just the basic idea of it and the notion that it’s caused when something so monumental happens at a cosmic level that the ends of reality start coming undone. I also like the idea of the inn as this insubstantial way station in the eye of the storm, a place to ride it out safely but a place that only really exists in these moments of crisis. And “a bunch of disparate individuals sit around and tell stories” is a frequent winner of a premise, and Neil Gaiman makes the most out of this one.

The stories are varied and largely unconnected, though there are a few brief glimpses of members of the Endless here and there, and one character identifies a common stylistic thread throughout the different tales toward the end of the volume. They’re full of Gaiman’s characteristic macabre, fantastical vision, plucked out of a no-place between anecdote, fairytale, and myth. I also enjoy the conceit of having each tale drawn by a different artist, while the connective tissue of the World’s End scenes all have a single style.

Some of the stories are more intriguing than others, but there’s something to enjoy in all of them. I particularly like “A Tale of Two Cities,” the story of a man who gets caught in the dream of the city where he lives, and “The Golden Boy,” about a young political idealist who’s offered the chance to make a deal with a devil in exchange for power. I also really enjoy the concept of the necropolis in the story “Cerements,” a society of ghouls whose livelihoods (in a manner of speaking) are derived from diverse ceremonies of the dead.

As interesting as this volume is, it is admittedly a bit of a letdown after Brief Lives. When I reviewed that volume, I mentioned that I hoped to see some continuation on the story presented there, even though I know that’s not really The Sandman’s way. And we do get a few hints, but it’s only enough to tantalize, not enough to really explore any of the revelations made in Brief Lives. Part of me hopes for more in the coming volumes, but it’s hard to say if there’s any likelihood of that happening at this point.

The Sandman, Vol. 7: Brief Lives (1992-1993)

Once again, it’s been a while since I read a volume of Sandman, but this one is great, maybe my favorite of the series so far! Very Endless-focused, which is totally my jam, and the interludes tie in nicely with the main story.

Delirium, the youngest of the Endless, is longing for a reunion with her brother Destruction, who left the family centuries earlier. She entreats her siblings to help, and finally, a lovelorn Dream agrees to accompany her on her search, if only in the hopes that it will distract him from a recent heartbreak. The journey takes them through the waking world, where they look for other inhabitants of Earth old enough to have seen Destruction before he disappeared, but forces seem to conspire against the quest.

Because it bears repeating: Sandman does a lot of neat things along a wide range of stories that fit loosely within its themes, but for my money, its best feature is the Endless, and the otherworldly family takes the center stage here. Our main characters in this volume are Dream and Delirium, a great odd-couple sibling pairing. Dream is so self-serious and goth, and Delirium is just an undulating bundle of chaos – in other words, the perfect combination for a supernatural road trip.

Obviously, the focus of their mission is to find Destruction, so we also learn more about him, both through the search itself and through flashbacks. But each of the Endless makes one or more prominent appearances, and along with it, we’re given interesting tidbits on the various characters and insights into the family’s history. There are some particularly intriguing hints on Delirium’s backstory and on the twins, Desire and Despair, that I hope get explored further in later volumes.

I also like the idea of other long-lived beings scattered about the earth, former or forgotten gods who’ve integrated themselves into modern society, living on. Not that this is a novel idea or anything (hello, vampire lit!), but the way it’s executed here reminds me a little of American Gods, which makes sense, since that’s also Neil Gaiman.

The thing about Sandman is that you never really know what you’re going to get from one volume to the next, which makes this volume a little frustrating precisely because I like it so much. The story pulls at a lot of interesting threads and I want to get more on them, but I had no idea if anything here will ever be mentioned again. Every so often, I flip through the earlier volumes just to go, “Oh yeah, remember _________? I almost forgot that was in here!” With this one, though, I’m crossing my fingers that the choicest threads won’t be dropped.

Warnings

Violence, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug use, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements.

Favorite Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens)

Today, I'm staying home for my aunts and uncles.
 
After I wrote about Crowley, it was only a matter of time until I came back around to Aziraphale. While this dynamic duo is absolutely a matching set, they’re both great individually as well. Crowley is maybe more the instant crowd-pleaser as the sometimes-“good” demon (who doesn’t love a fun sympathetic baddie?), but pulling off the character of Aziraphale takes a steady hand, one that I think the miniseries manages beautifully (premise spoilers.)

Crowley’s angelic counterpart, Aziraphale has also been on Earth since the literal beginning of humanity. Charged with carrying out God’s divine and/or ineffable plan by inspiring humans toward good actions, Aziraphale, like Crowley, has been at it so long that he’s let his duties slip a little and has gotten distracted by the pleasures of the world. No, not like that – Aziraphale’s vices, chiefly, are food and culture. He has a weak spot for fine dining, and he’s a great lover of old books and beautiful music. These are all things that we as humans think of as an overall good in the world, but for an angel, they’re meant to be extraneous, not worth bothering about. Aziraphale’s collection of little earthly pleasures is an indiscretion on his part.

But despite Aziraphale sometimes slacking on the heavenly job and being more interested in pastries and musical premieres than he’s strictly supposed to be, he is also very genuinely capital-G “Good.” “Good” characters can be hard to do well, or at least there’s a prevailing impression that they’re hard to do well. Drama requires conflict, and it’s tempting to think of “Good” characters as boring. People clamor for inner demons and moral ambiguity. But as shown by the likes of Steve Rogers, Chidi Anagonye, and Kara Danvers, “Good” can be engaging and watchable too, and in Aziraphale, Good Omens brings that across very well.

This is shown in little ways – right from the start, Aziraphale takes the flaming sword he’s supposed to use to guard the gates of Eden and gives it to Adam and Eve, worrying about their well-being when they’re cast out of the Garden, and when Crowley accidentally hits Anathema on her bike, Aziraphale not only uses some of his miracle mojo to repair it, he also upgrades with with speeds it didn’t have before. More than anything, though, I think this comes through in Michael Sheen’s performance. Aziraphale spends plenty of the story being kind of a fussbudget, but when he’s not so tightly wound, he’s capable of the most earnest, delighted smiles known to man, easily making you believe he cares about nothing so genuinely as the person and/or sunglasses-wearing demon he’s sharing the screen with at that moment.

One key to a successful “Good” character is to make sure they’re still flawed, and Aziraphale checks out there as well. Honestly, his worst quality is probably his most heaven-approved: he can be a stickler for rules and expectations. It’s what gives him pause when Crowley suggests they team up to avert the apocalypse (after all, who’s he to get in the way of God’s ineffable plan, even if it does mean the destruction of the Earth and all the people in it?), and it’s why he’s often the more reluctant of the two in his relationship with Crowley, knowing he’s not “supposed to” like a demon. For Aziraphale, then, his personal growth calls for him to worry less about what heaven will think and act because it’s right, not because it’s prescribed. And watching him come to grips with that is anything but boring.