The Sandman Volume 2: The Doll's House, 30th Anniversary Edition
The Sandman series, Issues 9 - 16
Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Mike Dringenberg and Malcom Jones III
Vertigo
Fiction, Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Horror
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Dream of the Endless, sometimes known as Morpheus, has escaped his long decades of captivity at the hands of mortals and begun rebuilding his realm, but four dreams and nightmares have eluded capture. Meanwhile, the young woman Rose Walker meets the grandmother she never knew she had and seeks her kid brother, lost in the foster system after her parents divorced and her father died. When a dream vortex - a powerful, disruptive force that weakens the barriers between the Dreaming and waking Earth - develops, their quests may cross paths... as will the paths of the missing denizens of Morpheus's realm, with potentially dire consequences.
REVIEW: I read, and was less impressed than I'd hoped to be by, the first Sandman volume some time ago. Not only do I find sprawling megaverses like DC's offputting and unwieldy, but there was something about Dream's stories, one in particular, that struck a very sour and repelling note with me. So I guess I can credit Netflix with luring me back; I watched and (mostly) enjoyed the recent streaming adaptation, which tweaked the elements I found most unappealing and updated the story enough to intrigue me into coming back to the graphic novels for one more try. (The fact that the graphic novels are free via hoopla and my local library was also an influence, I'll admit.)
This, unfortunately, is one of those somewhat uncommon instances where the adaptation exceeds the source material.
In the show's version of the Doll's House arc, which I saw before reading this and thus I cannot seem to avoid the comparison, Rose Walker is a decently developed character with some manner of agency over her actions; she may not understand what she is and the risk she poses at first, but she's active in her search for her brother and able to stand up to even Dream, fully capable of defending herself. The denizens of the Florida home where she stays during her search are also decently realized for side characters, as are their dream lives and hidden selves (which Rose inadvertently visits as her vortex abilities grow). Meanwhile, the King of Dreams is undergoing his own unwilling realization that even the Endless grow and change, and the abandonment of some of his fugitive creations is due at least in part to his own inability to see that... in the streaming show, that is.
The graphic novel version of the story, unfortunately, is not that. Here, Rose is powerless over everything, a victim start to finish, who must be rescued by male figures and never has anything approaching agency. She can't even defend herself when she's physically attacked. The whole of her arc boils down to her not being able to control what power she has, so a man has to take it all away - even the memory of it (not the first time the series has invoked this idea). Her brother is also rather a victim, for all that there's a certain retro charm in the dream world he finds himself in nightly, with deliberate nods to the classic comic strip Little Nemo. There's also another woman who exists only to be a prop to a clueless man, another powerless female whose connection to anything felt rather vague; she seems to exist just to be helpless and chained to someone else's whims and desires. Meanwhile, the nightmarish Corinthian also feels rather thin compared to the development he got in the adaptation, where he took on a stronger, more malevolent role, actively working to undermine Dream and promote his own dire work inspiring serial killers in their calling. Here, he's just another bad man in a convention of bad men, easily dealt with once the King of Dreams gets around to it. Indeed, "Dream finally turns up and stops the bad thing" is pretty much how a lot of problems get resolved here. Underneath the story are some intriguing concepts and mythic roots and speculations on who controls whom, mortals or Endless (or others), in the many-layered dollhouse of reality, and hints of future conflicts for Dream, particularly regarding his bitter sibling Desire.
The more successful stories, or at least the ones that worked better for me, are the side vignettes, one about Dream's first (and possibly last) mortal love and the tragedy that ensued and another about a man granted immortality by Dream's sister Death after he is overheard vowing that he will never die. The longer story arcs feel drawn out, and too often - as noted - reduce people to helpless pawns in games so great even the Endless move by rules and restrictions they cannot adequately explain. For all that parts of The Sandman remain interesting and like something I should enjoy, and I can still respect the mythic roots Gaiman weaves in (and the artwork), once more I find that the appeal of this iconic graphic novel series is lost on me.
I'm really not sure if I want to bother pushing onward to see if it hooks me, but I'm leaning towards not; the women-as-victims things, particularly the women-must-be-stripped-of-any-power-or-ability-to-help-themselves thing, really started irritating me. (As did how absolutely, glaringly white the whole graphic novel was, even background characters, with only rare exceptions. I suppose, thirty-odd years ago, it was just a thing, but you really start seeing it, especially after the adaptation added a more human color palette to the cast.) I'll probably just wait to see if Netflix (or somebody) gives the show a second season, instead; it's not an obsession-level favorite, but it is interesting enough to watch - and they absolutely nailed the look.
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