Death
Sandman
by Neil Gaiman



Death (Sandman) The woman you've just met isn't called Death just because of the tuff-sounding name complements her heavy eye makeup and black jeans. She really is Death, the reaper, the one who takes you away when you've had it. It turns out that cloak and the scythe and the skeleton are just bad press; there's nothing grim about her at all.

Discriminating readers have known this since 1989, when she first appeared in her younger brother Dream's monthly comic book, THE SANDMAN. The title had already been making waves as an intelligent, involving adult fantasy series when writer Neil Gaiman and artists Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III twisted reader expectations by casting dream-weaver Morpheus as the grim, pale, gaunt one and Death as his cheerful foil.

The two are members of the Endless, a loose-knit family of seven who embody their respective realms of Dream, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Destruction, and Death. Roughly as old as time, they are not merely gods or patron saints; they are the things themselves, personified. That initial story, "The Sound of Her Wings," first printed in SANDMAN #8, went something like this: feeding pigeons in the park, Dream broods after recovering his domain in the wake of a major setback. His problems had given him a sense of purpose; now that they're largely solved, that sense is gone. Death quotes Mary Poppins -Death quotes Mary Poppins! - and draws her brother's feelings out before angrily refusing to indulge his self-pity. Permitting him to tag along as she casually and graciously collects the dead, she cheers him up by sheer example: if she can find satisfaction in her everyday routine, so can he.

Generously displaying her Sunday school sweetness and her rock-club looks over what amounted to 24 pages of sibling interaction (an unusually quite theme for comics, to say the least), "The Sound of Her Wings" instantly made Death even more popular than the book's title character. Still one of the best- received Sandman stories to date, you can find it in not one but two paperback collections: SANDMAN: THE DOLL'S HOUSE and SANDMAN: PRELUDES & NOCTURNES.

Fans demanding to see Death again had to wait a mere four months for SANDMAN #12's "Men of Good Fortune," by Gaiman and artists Michael Zulli and Steve Parkhouse. Here we learned that Death doesn't always take her job completely seriously. Observing tavern life in the 14th-century London, she and Dream take special notice of Hob Gadling, a soldier who boasts that his stubborn refusal to die will keep him alive forever. Amused by his impertinence, Death grants him immortality. Over the ensuing centuries, Dream strikes ups a fond friendship with this mortal who can't die. Again, Death's light heart enriches what might otherwise be a bleak existence for her brother. "Men of Good Fortune" can be found in the collected SANDMAN: THE DOLL'S HOUSE.

Death next appeared in SANDMAN #20, in "Facade," the tragic story of a woman trapped by life, by Gaiman and artists Colleen Doran and Malcolm Jones III. Urania Blackwell wants to kill herself, but a magical artifact of the Egyptian god Ra transformed her into the super-hero Element Girl, and no one can kill Element Girl. When danger threatens, she transmutes into an appropriately defensive element... voluntarily or not. When Death claims her neighbor, Urania begs to be taken, but Death cannot oblige. She does, however, take pity on Element Girl, and helps Urania find her own solution. "Facade" is available in SANDMAN: DREAM COUNTRY.

By now, we've seen Death's devotion to her work, her refusal to take it too seriously, her flippant humor, and, again surprisingly, a hint of a social worker's bleeding heart. Her next appearances, collected in SANDMAN: SEASON OF MISTS, display her willingness to stand against her brother when he is wrong (#21, by Neil Gaiman and Dringenberg) and an unexpectedly flexible approach to her job when circumstances warrant. The latter is apparent in SANDMAN #25, as Gaiman and Jones are accompanied by penciller Matt Wagner. hell has given up its dead, and a harried, aerobics-outfitted Death has her hands full restoring the proper balance. We see her attempting to collect 13-year-old Charles Rowland and simply giving up when he refuses to come along, preferring to see what life has to offer with his fellow dead boy Edwin Paine.

In SANDMAN SPECIAL #1, by Gaiman and Bryan Talbot, Death exempts another: Dream's son, the Orpheus of myth, who wishes to enter the realm of the dead unscathed to rescue his beloved Eurydice. As an unintented result of her boon, Orpheus survives his own beheading by centuries. This and SANDMAN #31, in which Gaiman and artist Shawn McManus introduce us to Death's favorite king, can be found in SANDMAN: FABLES AND REFLECTIONS.

Nearly every SANDMAN collection contains an appearance by Death, and she continues to appear frequently in his ongoing monthly title (most recently #53). Her popularity has given her a life beyond Sandman stories, chiefly with the material on view here. The original publication of DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING helped launch DC's VERTIGO line of comics for mature readers with a remarkable critical and commerical response. "Death Talks About Life" ran as an insert in the several pre-VERTIGO titles and met with a tide of interest in its message, causing it to be rereleased as a public service pamphlet.

The point being: after you've read this book and you find yourself smiling when you think about Death, there's more about her out there.

 



Links
Official Info: DC Comics - Direct Currents
More Info: Death
Official Author Info: Neil Gaiman.Com
More Author Info: The Dreaming


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