If film producer Jon Peters had had his way, the rethinking of The Sandman would have been drastically horrible. Luckily, the clever writer of said classic comic book knew how to be clever enough to sabotage it. Back when that sort of thing had a huge impact, Neil Gaiman leaked the script to an insanely popular website. The backlash was strong, and though it might not have been the main reason Peters’ plans fell apart, the leak certainly helped destroy those dreams.
Because Gaiman dreamed of an adaptation a little closer to his original vision, though a couple more close calls happened. If you want to hear the perfect adaptation, it’s in process from Audible. When it came time to turn The Sandman into a TV series, the author realized that his own vision had changed a bit. It’s hard to remember that Gaiman was a young relatively unknown writer who had never written a monthly series. Though eventually The Sandman grew in reputation, it was originally intended as a horror book set in the DC Universe. 30 or so years later it was free to be its own thing.
Thus many characters could be rethought — and some didn’t need to be. “Dream of a Thousand Cats” feels word for word from the comic book. The only change to Hob Gadling’s story was the ending, but only cosmetically. Calliope,” if anything, became deeper and more disturbing, though there is one change that gets to the heart of how Gaiman’s approach changed. Back to that in a bit.
The fallen asexual angel Lucifer Morningstar was originally designed to echo the androgynous David Bowie, not the admittedly devilish Tom Ellis of the Foxf/Netflix TV show. Why would Lucifer not now be a towering Gwendolyn Christie, somewhat larger than life and in real life most famous for breaking gender expectations in Game of Thrones and Star Wars? Likely unable to use John Constantine, indelibly either Matt Ryan or Keanu Reeves in the general public’s mind, it makes sense to cast Jenna Coleman in a dual role, as both the lesser-known Lady Johanna Constantine and a new descendant, Joanna? And Death — all that matters is that she be beautiful, exuding kindness and love, qualities that Kirby Howell-Baptiste exemplifies. Nobody complained that Donna Preston didn’t look like the comic book Despair. Instead, she embodies a version disturbingly more human.
Matthew the Raven (Patton Oswalt) is no longer the soul of Swamp Thing’s former confidante Matthew Cable. Though Cain and Abel still dress the same as they do in DC Comics, they are now Middle Eastern, appropriate for the first two sons of Adam and Eve. John Dee (David Thewlis) no longer battled the Justice League as Dr. Destiny, but though he became more human and almost worth our empathy, his time in “24/7” is no less horrific. Showrunner Allan Heinberg still connected the orphaned Jed Walker to the 1970’s Jack Kirby version of the Sandman, but now dreaming of being the character himself instead of his sidekick. Clearly, his dreams come straight out of old comic books, with a rogues gallery drawn by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.
But they couldn’t, or didn’t, use Brute and Glob, Kirby’s original “nightmares” who aided the Sandman. Instead, the new nightmare Gault (Ann Ogbomo) offers Jed the only respite from a hellish waking life. She wants to be something other than what she is, to be better, to be kinder. As she tells Morpheus, “even a nightmare can dream.” That idea echoes a recent return to the Dreaming from DC Comics, of course titled The Dreaming. That book doesn’t involve Morpheus, but it was a good concept that fits alongside this more evolved television version of Morpheus. Tom Sturridge’s Lord of Dreams learns his lessons a little bit faster than his literary version.
Netflix’s The Sandman brings to life Gaiman’s emphasis on humanity and hope earlier than in the comics, perhaps ironic when speaking of the Endless. That’s why Despair looks so utterly human, instead of monstrous. Why John Dee spares a woman who has been kind to him. For a moment, he understands why she lied. In the comic, he kills her. Why Gilbert (Stephen Fry) willingly gives up his humanity, to prove himself worthy of it.
There’s a key change to Lucienne’s (Vivienne Acheampong) library, too. In the comics, the library contains all the books never written. But for television, it holds all the books ever written. Now a world-renowned author instead of a writer hungry to make his name, his youthful cynicism — never strong in the first place — has worn down. He understands something about stories now that he only guessed at decades ago. They offer hope. You can still have a book in the library.
Deep down, he always knew it. There’s a reason that Morpheus wins against Lucifer, and it was in the comics all along. Against the darkness of the Morningstar, we can all still whisper, “I am Hope.”
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