Netflix’s new series The Sandman is based around Neil Gaiman’s epic series of comic books which ran from 1989 to 1996, that follow the main character Morpheus, The Lord of Dreams, his anthropomorphised family of Death, Desire, Destruction, Delirium, Destiny and Despair.
At the start of the series, Dream, or Morpheus, has been imprisoned for 70 years and finds that things have changed while he’s been locked up after being caught in a ritual. The series stars Tom Sturridge as The Lord of Dreams, with a stellar line-up of Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie playing Lucifer, alongside Jenna Coleman who plays Johanna Constantine and Kirby Howell-Baptiste playing Dream’s older sister Death.
Given that the first 10 episodes in series one of The Sandman only deal with the first two books out of the 10 that make up Gaiman’s epic comic, there will be a lot that won’t be revealed for some time. However, we can give a brief outline below as to what to expect before you dive in.
Read more: The Sandman on Netflix: Release date and cast details
What is Netflix’s The Sandman about?
The Sandman covers more than 3,000 pages of text, with the new Netflix series only tackling around 400 of those – and expands massively in scope as the series progresses. Set in the DC Comics universe with writer Neil Gaiman borrowing and sometimes lifting directly from other characters and ideas in the universe, The Sandman paints a broad picture about how stories are created.
The main character, Morpheus, lives in Dreaming (his realm) but also visits other plains such as the waking world, Hell, Asgard and Faerie over the course of his adventures. The work borrows a lot from religion and mythology as it creates a universe in which its characters live, with Gaiman often playing with our ideas of what to expect from certain characters or stereotypes.
Given the scope of the series of graphic novels, The Sandman was notoriously difficult to develop and went through many failed screenplays before they eventually settled on the current TV series format. The series probably benefits from the rise in popularity of streaming and the increased budgets that TV shows can pull, with many earlier adaptations trying to make it into a more straight superhero feature film.
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