Gourt Home::Gourt :: Characters of The Sandman
This is a list of characters appearing in The Sandman. This page discusses not only events which occur in The Sandman, but also some occurring in spinoffs of The Sandman and in stories The Sandman was based on.
Dreams and nightmares
These inhabitants of the Dreaming are often former gods, myths, and even ordinary human beings who later became dreams.
Cain and Abel
Main article: Cain and Abel (comics)Cain and Abel are a pair of fictional characters in the DC Comics universe based on the Biblical Cain and Abel.
- Before The Sandman
In 1985, the characters were revived by writer Alan Moore, who introduced them into his Swamp Thing series in issue #33, retelling the Swamp Thing's original origin story from a 1971 issue of House of Secrets. Jamie Delano also occasionally used them in a cameo role in his title Hellblazer.
However, it was Neil Gaiman's series The Sandman that more fully developed the "reinvented" characters into more mature, post-Comics Code version of the themselves, and who helped fully drag them out of obscurity.
- In The Sandman
They live as neighbours in two houses near a graveyard, Cain in the broad House of Mystery and Abel in the tall House of Secrets. According to their appearance in Swamp Thing, the difference is that a mystery may be shared, but a secret must be forgotten if one tries to tell it.
Gaiman's Cain is an aggressive, overbearing character. He is a thin, long-limbed man with an angular, drawn face, glasses, a tufty beard, and hair drawn into two points above his ears. He has been described as sounding "just like Vincent Price."
Gaiman's Abel is a nervous, stammering, kind-hearted man. Abel is somewhat similar in appearance to Cain, with a tufty beard and hair that comes to points above his ears, though his hair is black rather than brown. He is shorter and fatter than Cain, with a more open face. It is eventually learned that the only time he does not stutter is when he is telling a story or when he is dead.
Cain frequently kills Abel in a kind of macabre form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, re-enacting the first murder. In the Dreaming, Abel's death is impermanent, and he seems to recover after a few hours. Cain seems unable to control his frequent murders of Abel, and occasionally expresses remorse over them; there is a genuine bond between the two, beneath the surface contempt. Abel remains dedicated to Cain, and frequently dreams of a more harmonious relationship between the two.
Cain and Abel own a large green draconic gargoyle named Gregory, who also made his debut in House of Mystery #175. In the first appearance of the characters in Sandman, issue #2, Cain gives Abel an egg that soon hatches into another gargoyle, a small golden one. Abel is delighted and names the gargoyle "Irving," but Cain forcefully insists that the names of gargoyles must always begin with a "G." When Abel resists, Cain murders him, and after Abel revives he renames the gargoyle "Goldie," after a friend of his who "went away."
The main function of Cain and Abel throughout The Sandman is as comic relief. However, the two play significant (though not key) roles at several points in the series; it is they who take Dream in until his strength is restored following his 72-year-long imprisonment. In the fourth story arc, Season of Mists, Cain is sent to Hell to give a message to Lucifer because the Mark of Cain protects him from all harm. Cain and Abel also aid The Corinthian with the child Daniel during The Kindly Ones, the penultimate story arc of the series. Abel is also one of the victims of the Furies in this series, and is brought back to life by the new Dream (Daniel).
Corinthian
The Corinthian is a fictional character in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman. His first appearance is in the second story arc, The Doll's House.
The Corinthian is a creation of Dream. His most notable physical feature is his lack of eyes; in their place, two rows of small jagged teeth line each eye socket. The Corinthian often wears sunglasses to cover this up. He is an ambitious, amoral nightmare who is fond of eating eyes with his two additional mouths, and can acquire some of the memories of the former possessors of eyes he eats. He is also able to talk out of any of his three mouths, causing a disconcerting effect.
The Corinthian departs from the dreamscape during Dream's period of captivity, and spends his time hiding out and gathering power in the real world. However, Dream eventually catches up to him shortly after saving Rose Walker from harm. Dream states that the Corinthian was his masterpiece,
- "A nightmare created to be the darkness, and the fear of darkness in every human heart. A black mirror, made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront."
Instead, Dream finds his creation has walked the earth for about 40 years, playing the role of a serial killer who eats the eyes of men and gathering the support of numerous other serial killers. Dream had created the Corinthian as a nightmare that would show humanity its own dark nature, but the Corinthian had done nothing more than commit gruesome murders in his forty years of freedom, doing little to inspire fear on a grander scale in the world. Dream therefore considers the Corinthian to be a failure, and "uncreates" him with no difficulty, saving only one of the Corinthian's skulls for later use. He remarks that the next time he creates the Corinthian, he "shall not be so flawed and petty."
Dream does eventually recreate the Corinthian in The Kindly Ones. The new Corinthian only shares some of his original self's memories, and seems to have a different personality. This new, seemingly gentler Corinthian helps rescue and protect Daniel just before Morpheus dies. In the process, he battles, defeats and eats the eyes of Loki, who, along with Puck, was holding the child hostage.
An exact double of the Corinthian's skull appeared in the treasure chest of Daniel Hall during his brief 'JLA' appearance, suggesting that perhaps the Corinthian was dismantled again.
Keen-eyed viewers may spot a brief Corinthian reference in Alice Cooper's video clip for "Gimme".
Eve
Eve is a character in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman. She is based upon the biblical Eve, the mother of humanity and wife of Adam.Her story is a complex one, and is described in the graphic novel Fables and Reflections. She is one of the many representations in The Sandman of the triple nature of womankind (maiden, mother and crone), based on the three distinct "Eve"s in some versions of the Genesis story: the arrogant Lilith, an unnamed virgin, and Eve herself. As such, while she is an individual with her own personality, she is also one another representation of The Three, along with the Fates, Graces and Furies. This is comparable to the way the series' protagonist, Dream, is on one level a character in his own right, and on another level merely a symbol or representation of the larger concept of dreams.
Eve lives in a cave in the Dreaming, and is often accompanied by Dream's raven. The first Raven, Lucien, taught her how to bury Abel after Cain murdered him and she has been accompanied by a Raven ever since. She is kind and has a maternal nature. Most of the time she appears as a black-haired woman of indeterminate age. However, her appearance also mirrors her triple nature; she sometimes shifts between being a young, attractive maiden, a middle aged mother, and an elderly crone. These changes are directly related to the distance she is from the mouth of her cave.
Eve originally appeared in Secrets of the Sinister House #6 (August-September 1972), and later Swamp Thing, accompanied by a raven named 'Edgar Allen'. She also made a few appearances in Plop!, Weird Mystery Tales, Secrets of the Haunted House, House of Mystery and House of Secrets before the series ended. In her early appearances, she appeared only as a crone, was often referred to as a witch, and had a tendency to be snappy and mean. In her first appearance, she scared Cain and Abel, and shouted at them, "Get out of the kitchen when it gets too hot, you cowardly mortals! Old Eve doesn't care..."
Fiddler's Green
Fiddler's Green is a place in the Dreaming which all travellers (specifically sailors) apparently dream of someday finding. It sometimes likes to take human form and go wandering, using the alias Gilbert during one of these trips. His most common form is as a kind, portly man who strongly resembles G. K. Chesterton and vaguely resembles Everett True. Fiddler's Green was killed in the anthology The Kindly Ones. Dream attempted to resurrect him in The Wake, but the almost-alive Gilbert stated that "my death would have no meaning." Acquiescing, the new Dream stopped the process.Gregory
A large green gargoyle, the pet of Cain. Gregory possesses about the same brainpower as a chimp, and communicates in several sub-intelligible 'grunts' which everyone but the readers of The Sandman can understand. He is also a good friend of Goldie, and helps Goldie put Abel back together every time Cain kills him. First appearance: House of Mystery #175.Goldie
Goldie is Abel's pet gargoyle.- In The Sandman
Goldie also appears for a short scene in The Doll's House, in which he is sitting upon Abel's shoulder as Lucien asks Abel about the inhabitants of the house. He later appears throughout issue #40, " Fables and Reflections#The Parliament of Rooks", and briefly at the beginning of Brief Lives. He also accompanies Abel in The Kindly Ones, and is with him when he gets murdered by the Furies, crying when his owner is killed. He is later seen playing with Daniel.
- After The Sandman
Upon learning that Goldie is missing, Cain reveals how he found Goldie: during the years of Dream's absence, he bought a golden gargoyle egg from a door-to-door merchant. However, somehow the egg managed to get him to give it to Abel, and was "persuasive" with Cain. This is indeed admirable; the only way to force Cain to do something would be to threaten him, and most of all characters in Sandman have well avoided ever attempting so.
Cain and Abel go to Lucien to learn more, and Lucien informs them that only one person had been looking for Goldie before, a man with no arms or legs. However, in the book in his library on golden gargoyles, the page concerning what they guard had been torn out. Meanwhile, Goldie stops in at the Labyrinth Cafe, only to meet a man with no arms or legs named Tempto. Tempto recognizes Goldie's power and enlists her services.
Cain and Abel seeks the advice of Eve, who tells them that the limbless man, Tempto, was the serpent at the Garden of Eden who had tempted her into eating the forbidden fruit, thus causing her to be thrown out of Eden. In the continuing search for Goldie, Cain discovers new things about himself and his brother, such as that he had founded the first city and named it after his son, Enoch, and that when Abel dies, he becomes a completely different person, with no stutter or timid personality.
Goldie, in the company of Tempto, enters the Garden of Eden. Tempto then "corrects" the original passage from the Bible, bringing Adam back from the dead and annihilating everything except Eden. Eve, however, realizes what is happening and tries to eat the forbidden fruit by herself. Before she can do this, however, Goldie touches the trees, grows to an adult form, and returns everything to normal.
Cain and Abel reappear along with everyone else, and Tempto makes a quick escape after they try to catch him. Goldie is led by Eve to a pile of golden gargoyle bones, and Eve explains that gold gargoyles are built not to protect buildings, but to protect Creation stories, such as Genesis and the story of Prometheus. To prevent Tempto from trying the same thing again, Goldie must build a nest out of the bones of her mother and ancestors, and give birth to and raise the next guardian. There is a tearful farewell between all of the characters, and Goldie is left behind at Eden.
At the end of the story, Cain and Abel sit at home. Cain, possibly for the first time in his life, wishes to cheer Abel up, and so he gives him a present: the gold and silver apples from the tree in Eden. However, this only depresses Abel further, and so Cain grows angry and asks Abel if he wishes to be put out of his misery. Abel replies, "Muh-Maybe".
Stunned, Cain rebukes him, saying that that's not how it works, that he kills Abel because he wants to. Abel says that Cain wanted him to be happy. Cain grimaces, and plunges a knife into his brother. When Abel awakes, he notices that he is not dead as usual. Instead, he's in the middle of the desert. He hears an "awk", and runs into the arms of a fully-grown Goldie.
Meanwhile, Cain looks over the temporarily dead Abel, and mutters: "Strange... I've never seen him look so happy and peaceful. I don't know why, but... I'm almost scared."
Lucien
Lucien is a fictional character in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman. He serves as the chief librarian in The Dreaming, and is a tall, thin, bookish man.Lucien is the effective keeper of the Dreaming in Dream's absence, and becomes one of Dream's most faithful and trusted servants after proving his loyalty by never abandoning his post during that period. His primary function is to protect the Library, wherein are contained all the books that have ever been dreamt of, including the ones that have never been written. We learn of the titles of some of these books, a more complete list of which can be found in the Invisible Library, a listing of fictional books.
Like Cain and Abel, Lucien, created by Paul Levitz and Nestor Redondo, was originally the host of a 1970s "weird tales" comic, specifically the three-issue Tales of Ghost Castle (May/June-October 1975). In that series, he was portrayed as the guardian of an abandoned castle, watching over its forgotten library. In his first appearance in Preludes and Nocturnes this was retroactively revealed to be Dream's castle, deteriorating in the Dream Lord's absence. In issue 68, it was revealed that Lucien's existence in the Dreaming began as serving the role of Dream's first raven. An allusion to "Mr. Raven", the ghostly librarian in George MacDonald's novel Lilith, may be intended. Being that Lucien was the first raven, it has also been theorized that he could be the first man (Adam).
Matthew
Matthew is a character in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic series. He is the raven companion of Dream of the Endless.
Matthew was originally Matthew Cable, a long-time supporting character in the Swamp Thing series, but because he died while asleep in the Dreaming, he was offered the chance to become a dream raven and serve Dream if he wished, and he accepted.
Matthew is not the first of Morpheus' ravens. Former ravens include Aristeas of Marmora, who returned to his life as a man for one year at one point, and Lucien, the first of the ravens. The purpose of the ravens is debatable. Morpheus seems to keep the ravens around out of some sort of unspoken need for companionship, though he also sends them on occasional missions.
Matthew's word balloons and font style are scratchy and uneven, probably to represent a hoarse, cawing voice, and perhaps as an indicator of his crude, smart-alec personality. Underneath his frequently irreverent manner, Matthew is actually very loyal to Dream, and he is one of the characters who takes it the hardest when Dream perishes, initially seeking release from his service, but eventually coming to terms with his loss and choosing to remain as Daniel's raven.
Mervyn Pumpkinhead
Mervyn Pumpkinhead is a character in Neil Gaiman's popular comic book series, The Sandman.Mervyn, or Merv, as he is better known throughout the series, is Dream's jaded, street-wise, cigar-smoking janitor. As his name implies, he has a pumpkin for a head, and his overall appearance is similar to that of a scarecrow combined with a jack-o'-lantern.
Mervyn apparently drove a bus in dreams for a time during Dream's extended absence, and is first seen in Preludes and Nocturnes when Dream hitches a ride with him and chats for a while. Merv seems to be in charge of the construction, maintenance and demolition work in the Dreaming, though he sometimes complains that his job is superfluous since Dream can change any of it at will. His true function in the Dreaming may be to serve as a representative of the working class. His janitorial duties would therefore be more a part of his character than a necessary part of the upkeep of the Dreaming.
Mervyn took up arms to fight the Furies in The Kindly Ones and was killed, but he was returned to life by the new Dream in The Wake.
In a past incarnation shown in The Wake, Mervyn was seen to have had a turnip for a head instead of a pumpkin, either as a result of Dream's alterations to his servants or, more likely, due to the changing cultural dreams and myths of societies over the centuries. It is William Shakespeare who sees Mervyn with a turnip for a head, and he would probably not have known of pumpkins, an American plant. Turnips, on the other hand, were well-known in England at the time and were carved as a part of the Celtic festival that inspired Halloween. It is possible that other creatures would see other appearances, and perhaps even personalities, associated with Mervyn, and with many other residents of the Dreaming. This has at least been confirmed in the case of Dream himself.
Minor dreams
- Brute and Glob: A pair of troublemaking nightmares who try to gain power during Dream's absence. They originally appeared in Jack Kirby's 1974 Sandman series, as sidekicks to the title character.
- Cuckoo: A parasitic dream who lives in Barbie's dreamworld and eventually takes over there. She assumes the form of a childhood version of Barbie until she successfully escapes from Barbie's world, at which point she transforms into a beautiful black-feathered bird. (This character may or may not be a reference to the Cuckoos from fellow author Clive Barker's "Weaveworld").
- Fashion Thing: A minor character whose form changes based on popular fads. She is based on the "Mad Mod Witch", the host of Tales of The Unexpected, another DC horror title. At the time of her first appearance in Sandman, however, she is a "Mad Yuppie Witch".
- Ruthven: A minor character, a vampiric rabbit who is often seen in the background of the dreaming and occasionally talked to by the other characters, his speech is written in a demonic font as if his voice is very dark and powerful. He is killed by the Kindly Ones, but resurrected by Daniel in The Wake. He is named from Lord Ruthven, the Vampiric character based on Lord Byron and created by his secretary.
Gods, demigods, and major personifications
Basanos
The Basanos is a fictional character in the comic book Lucifer, a spinoff of Sandman,The Basanos is a living Tarot deck created by the seraph Meleos to duplicate the divining power of Destiny's book. They are incredibly powerful due to the fact that they control probability, making whatever outcome they desire not only likely, but inevitable.
After escaping from Meleos, the Basanos take possession of Jill Presto, a cabaret worker. Lucifer Morningstar seeks them out for a tarot reading, which they grant.
When Lucifer creates his new universe, the Basanos move to take control of it so that they can breed (something that is impossible in The Creator's cosmos). Though initially successful in their plan, forming an alliance with Lucifer's enemies, their ability to control random chance is severely limited by Lucifer's creation, and Lucifer is able to outmaneuver them. Lucifer finally gives them an ultimatum: destroy themselves or risk letting the egg they laid in Jill Presto die. The Basanos choose death and extinguish themselves.
Basanos is Greek for touchstone. Such a touchstone may be a piece of slate used to test gold, or it may be a metaphor for torture or torment to test truthfulness. Why Meleos chose this name for his creation is unknown.
Bast
Bast, the cat-headed goddess of cats, is a fictional character from Neil Gaiman's comic book series, The Sandman.Once a major goddess, the loss of her believers over time has significantly reduced her powers. She is quite flirtatious with Dream, and seems to have previously developed a mutual attraction with him which ultimately came to nothing. He sometimes goes to her for advice or companionship.
Bast is based on Bastet, on the Egyptian goddess of cats.
Bast has also appeared in issues of Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl.
Creator
The Creator is the Sandman universe's equivalent of a supreme monotheistic God figure, and he shares many characteristics with the standard Abrahamic God, such as almost never taking a physical form (the sole exception shown is in Murder Mysteries), being a creator-deity and having unmatched power.However, despite these indications that all the mythologies in the Sandman are ultimately subordinate to the Judeo-Christian God, Gaiman has on several occasions stated that he never intended the Creator to be any specific religion's god, just as he makes it clear in the first appearance of the abode of the angels, the Silver City, that the Silver City "is not Paradise. It is not Heaven. It is the Silver City, that is not part of the order of created things." However, the Silver City is very often referred to as "Heaven" in the Lucifer comic book series.
In that series, one of the critical turning points is the death of the Creator (or at least the Creator's abandonment of his Creation), which leads to a large number of problems, including struggles to claim the power that the Creator has abandoned, and the slow unraveling of the universe due to the disappearance of the Name of the Creator written on every atom of existence. This is an ongoing storyline in Lucifer.
Endless
The Endless are a family of seven anthropomorphic personifications of universal concepts who much of the series revolves around. They are:
- Death
- Delirium (formerly Delight)
- Desire
- Despair
- Destiny (created by Marv Wolfman and Berni Wrightson)
- Destruction ("The Prodigal")
- Dream (succeeded by Daniel)
Loki
Loki is a callous and deceptive trickster god who first appears in '' Season of Mists.Loki is based on the Norse god Loki.
Odin
Odin appears as an old man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and cloak and carrying a staff. He is usually depicted as a dark, mysterious figure, missing one eye and accompanied with his two ravens, Hugin and Munin ("thought" and "memory"), and two wolves, Geri and Freki.Odin is based on the Norse God Odin.
Three
The Three is an entity unique in the Sandman, something like a god and something like a dream and completely mutable in appearance, seeming to exist as a sentient concept or symbol in the form of any group of three women, particularly when they represent the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone, the three aspects of the Triple Goddess in many mythologies.- In The Sandman
The Three represent the female principle, prophecy, and mystery, and they are often a vaguely menacing and enigmatic presence in the series. As a three-in-one mystical being, they can be seen as contrasting with the commonly-used triple-male Trinity, a symbol based in Christianity rather than in superstition and witchcraft. Indeed, legend and mythology play a much larger role throughout the series than religion does, though some segments suggest a supreme monotheistic God at work behind the scenes.
Common incarnations of the Three include the Erinyes (Furies) in their vengeful aspect and the Moirae (Fates) or Weird Sisters in their divinatory aspect. They also sometimes subtly appear in the form of other characters (such as Eve) or groups of characters.
- After The Sandman
The Three eventually decide on a suitable punishment for the barbarian: that he would be reincarnated as each of the priestesses he had raped, in order, with the exception of Ursula. He would never know what was happening until the moment of death, at which point it would start all over again.
The Three are satisfied, and in the end tell Ursula that her grandchild will be beautiful, demonstrating a rare instance of apparent empathy.
Minor gods
- Ishtar: An exotic dancer who happens to be the goddess Ishtar. She is revealed to be a former lover of Destruction, and kills herself after speaking with Dream when the latter traveled with Delirium in search of his lost brother.
- Thor: The Norse god Thor, a ridiculously muscular and dim-witted drunkard who likes to brag about how big he can make his "hammer" grow (in a somewhat erotic fashion).
Angels, fallen angels, and devils
Duma
Duma is a fallen angel from the DC Vertigo series The Sandman.- Before The Sandman
The Zohar, a book of Jewish mysticism, describes his position in Hell as such that he had "tens of thousands of angels of destruction" under him, and that he was "chief of demons in Gehinnon with 12,000 myriads of attendants, all charged with the punishment of the souls of sinners."
Dumah is also the name given to the guardian of the 14th gate, through which the goddess Ishtar passed on her journey to the underworld in Babylonian mythology. Dumah may or may not be related to Duma.
- In The Sandman
In Season of Mists, we find that Lucifer has closed down Hell in frustration, handing off the key to the bemused Dream. Eventually, after much squabbling between various gods, Duma and Remiel receive a message saying that they are to watch over Hell. Remiel immediately rejects it, but Duma silently accepts the key, and the guilt-stricken Remiel joins him in ruling Hell. Remiel subsequently attempts to redesign Hell, transforming it from a place of punishment to a place of rehabilitation for lost souls, but Duma's interest in these changes is unknown, as is his true opinion on many things.
- After The Sandman
Azazel
Azazel is a former ruler of Hell, reigning for a time alongside Lucifer and Beelzebub. He appears as a twisting, torn mass of black flame, like a window into space, filled with numerous eyes and mouths.He was cast out after Lucifer abandoned Hell, and made the mistake of threatening and attacking Dream to try to gain ownership of it. Dream keeps him in a bottle in a chest of trinkets and mementos.
He is based on the demon Azazel.
Beelzebub
Along With Lucifer and Azazel, Beelzebub was the third King of Hell. He often appears as either a gigantic green fly, or a short green man with giant fly eyes instead of arms. His constant buzzing slurs his speech (for example, 'Bbbbut nooo. Itzzz a Triummmvirate.') He is based on the Demon Beelzebub.A character also named "Beelzebub" had a four-page appearance in Good Omens, a novel co-written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. He appeared as a ten-foot man wreathed in red flames.
Choronzon
Choronzon is a former duke of Hell who served under Beelzebub. He has pink skin and two mouths, one under the other.He had possession of Dream's helm, but lost it in a challenge. He later reappeared briefly as one of Azazel's tactics to gain ownership of Hell.
He is based on the demon Choronzon.
Lucifer
Lucifer is the Miltonian former ruler of Hell, a charming, intelligent, and utterly ruthless fallen angel.
He is one of the most powerful beings in existence, said at one point to be surpassed only by his Creator. However, with the events in the Lucifer series, it is possible that Lucifer is now the most powerful being of all, not counting the Creator who was seen outside of creation watching everything.
He is based on the fallen angel Lucifer.
Neil Gaiman also used the character Lucifer in his short story 'Murder Mysteries'. In this format, Lucifer was a captain of the Silver City, with Azazel as his protege.
From the book, "Hanging out with the Dream King" (a book consisting of interviews with Gaiman's collaborators), one of Gaiman's artists, Kelley Jones, states that Lucifer is based on David Bowie, image-wise. In the interview, Jones states the following:
"...Neil was adamant that the Devil was David Bowie. He just said, 'He is. You must draw David Bowie. Find David Bowie, or I'll send you David Bowie. Because if it isn't David Bowie, you're going to have to redo it until it is David Bowie.' So I said, 'Okay, it's David Bowie.'..."
Mazikeen
Mazikeen is a fictional character from Neil Gaiman's Sandman mythos. The name "Mazikeen" comes from that of a shapeshifting demon of Jewish mythology.- In The Sandman
When Lucifer resigned, Mazikeen left Hell and ended up following her master, becoming part of the staff at the "Lux" (Latin for light), an elite Los Angeles bar that Lucifer had opened and played piano at. To conceal her demonic nature, she covered the deformed half of her face with a white mask and rarely spoke.
- After The Sandman
In Lucifer, Mazikeen's face was turned fully human when she was resuscitated by the Basanos following the destruction of the Lux in a fire. This was because the vessel of the Basanos, Jill Presto, did not realize that Mazikeen's face was naturally deformed, and assumed that it was burned in the fire.
When Lucifer refused to assist her in restoring her face to its former state, she defected to her family, the Lilim-in-Exile. As their war leader, she led their army against Lucifer's cosmos, allying herself briefly with the Basanos. However, this was a ruse; after a desperate gamble, she bought Lucifer enough time to destroy the Basanos and regain control of his creation. Lucifer then accepted her into his service once more and made the Lilim-in-Exile the standing army of his universe.
Remiel
Remiel is an angelic character in the comic book series The Sandman based on the angel Remiel. He first appears in Season of Mists.- In The Sandman
While reigning in Hell, Remiel attempts to organize the domain into a great soul-cleansing machine.
- After The Sandman
Minor angels and demons
- Merkin, Mother of Spiders
- Etrigan: The demon/superhero appears in a cameo in Preludes and Nocturnes (specifically in Sandman #4: "A Hope in Hell"), escorting Dream from the front gate of Hell to meet Lucifer. During their journey, Dream comments on Etrigan speaking in rhyme as a result of a promotion (see Etrigan - Character History).
Immortals, witches, and long-lived humans
Hob Gadling
Robert "Hob" Gadling is a human who was granted immortality and meets with Dream once every hundred years.
The manner in which he becomes immortal is complex and abstract. Hob's forever life began in a pub named the White Horse in 1389 when he simply declared that he "had decided never to die." Death agrees, at Dream's request, to forego her responsibilties in Gadling's case. Whether Death does this out of respect for her brother's whim or Gadling's conviction is a matter of unsettled contestation.
In The Wake, Death meets Gadling at a Renaissance Fair; out of respect for her late brother Dream she offers to end his six-hundred-year life, but Gadling refuses.
Orpheus
Orpheus is the son of Dream in The Sandman. He is based on the Orpheus of Greek mythologyAfter travelling through Hades, losing his beloved (twice), and being torn apart by the Bacchante (the beloved of Dionysos), as in the legend, Orpheus spent a long time travelling around the world as a disembodied head. Johanna Constantine helped him through France. He was eventually 'put out of misery' by his father, an event which fulfilled the prophecy of Desire, Dream's sibling, that he would spill family blood and trigger a sequence of events leading to his destruction.
Thessaly
Thessaly is a fictional character in the Sandman comic book series. Neil Gaiman named this character after the land of witches, Thessaly, in Greece. Later in the series, Thessaly changes her name to Larissa, which is the capital of Thessaly. Larissa was actually the local fountain nymph, after whom the town was named.Thessaly is the last of the millennia-old witches of Thessaly. She makes her first appearance in A Game of You, in which she is shown to be an amoral, cold-blooded, proud, and ruthless character, though not a malicious one. She proves extremely willing to mercilessly hunt down and kill anyone who threatens her, and she seems to be concerned primarily with her own advancement and survival.
When the Cuckoo of "The Land" of Barbie's dreams threatens to kill Barbie, Thessaly and Barbie's friends venture into Barbie's dreams to save her. However, Thessaly is driven more by her pride and her own self-preservation than by any desire to help Barbie. She ends up being tricked by the Cuckoo and is almost trapped forever in a desolate archipelago of the Dreaming along with Barbie's friends until Barbie wishes for their safe return to the waking world.
Thessaly returns in the later volumes, where she is Dream's lover for a time, but this relationship ends unhappily for both and is never actually shown in the series. When it is alluded to in Brief Lives Thessaly is never mentioned by name, so only in The Kindly Ones is this romance revealed. Also in The Kindly Ones, Thessaly provides Lyta Hall with protection and sanctuary from Dream, who is being targeted for death by the Furies, using Hall as a vessel.
Strangely, after Dream's death, Thessaly's attitude changes entirely, and when Lyta wakes up, Thessaly very calmly advises her to leave, suggesting that many people will be more than happy to murder Lyta for her part in Morpheus' destruction—including Thessaly herself. In The Wake, Thessaly expresses some remorse for her actions.
Thessaly also is the star of two spin-off comic series, The Thessaliad and Thessaly, Witch for Hire written by Bill Willingham. In the spin-offs, Thessaly (under that name) and her companion, a ghost named Fetch, first set out to tackle various gods of the underworld who want her dead. Later she is unwillingly pressured into a monster-killing contract.
Minor immortals
Mad Hettie: A London tramp born in 1741. At the time of Sandman #3, she was 247 years old. She appears frequently in other DC comics such as Hellblazer. She also had a large role in Death: The High Cost of Living.Later, Hettie worked in the series The Dreaming, in which it was discovered that she had dealings with Destiny, Johanna Constantine and President Thomas Jefferson.
Fair folk
Inhabitants of Faerie.
Cluracan
The Cluracan is a supernatural being, of the faerie folk, in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic.A shapeshifter through glamour, the Cluracan is brother to Nuala, the Dream King's fairy servant. An amoral, gay rogue, Cluracan features in Season of Mists, Worlds' End, The Kindly Ones, and The Wake. He is strongly reminiscent of the "trickster" archetype also associated with Loki.
The Cluracan is based on a drunken leprechaun of Irish mythology, the Cluricaun.
Nuala
Nuala is a character in the comic book series The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman.Nuala is a faerie gift to Dream at the end of Season of Mists. She is beautiful initially, but Dream takes her faerie glamour away, leaving a small, brown-haired, plain-looking girl in place of the beautiful blonde faerie woman.
From this point on, Nuala takes on the housekeeping duties of the Dreaming, only stopping when her brother The Cluracan brings her back to Faerie in The Kindly Ones. When she leaves, Dream granted her with a boon as a reward for her years of servitude, allowing her to call on him if she needs to. Nuala had been nursing a crush on Dream for some time, so she finally calls him, asking him to love her. Dream is unable to do this, but he says that he can at least "send you a dream of my love," to which Nuala responds: "I already have that, my lord."
Superficially as a result of Nuala's summoning Dream when he and the Dreaming are at their most vulnerable, Dream is killed by the Furies, though it is suggested that Dream could still have escaped his fate if he'd truly wished to, and many factors certainly contributed to the situation ending as it did.
Oberon
Oberon is a character in the comic book series The Sandman and The Books of Magic. He is seen for the first time in Dream Country#A Midsummer Night's Dream as Auberon of Dom-Daniel, and again in several issues of The Books of Magic and in the Books of Faerie miniseries.The character is implied to be the inspiration for the Oberon of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Titania
Titania is a character in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman. She is also known as Mab.- In The Sandman
The character is implied to be the inspiration for Shakespeare's Titania in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- After The Sandman
In this series, it is revealed that she is not a fay, but a human girl who crossed over into the fay realm and was then adopted by the current queen of the fay. She appears to be a fay due to an enchanted circlet she stole when the last queen was transformed into a tree by her husband. She is also the most powerful human sorceress alive, which simply aids in her deception.
Puck
Puck is a brown-furred trickster and hobgoblin appearing several times in The Sandman. Puck aids the Norse God Loki in kidnapping Daniel, playing a small role in the death of the Sandman and Daniel's subsequent assuming of the title. Puck later appears in The Books of Magic.The character is shown to be the inspiration for the Puck of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mortals
Alex Burgess
Alex Burgess is a fictional character from Neil Gaiman's comic book series, The Sandman.He is the son of Roderick Burgess, mother unknown (but probably Ethel Cripps, and therefore half-brother of Doctor Destiny). He is taught by his father, and takes part in his rituals. Upon Roderick Burgess' death, Alex inherits his estate, including his magical order. He keeps Dream imprisoned, as his father did, trying to bargain for power and immortality in exchange for his release. The Order enjoys a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s, but by the 1970s it is in the decline again. Alex passes ownership of the Order on to his boyfriend, Paul McGuire (formerly a gardener at the estate), and becomes obsessed with his prisoner and with his father. Finally, in 1988, Dream's guards fall asleep, and Dream escapes. He puts Alex into a nightmare of "eternal waking;" in which he is forever dreaming he is waking up, and each waking degenerates into another horrible nightmare. This nightmare lasts for years, ending only with Dream's death in the ninth collection in the series, The Kindly Ones.
Alex is quite tall and near-sighted. He has brown hair which he wears in a variety of styles throughout his life, but by old age he is bald and has come to resemble his father very closely. His relationship with McGuire is deep and heartfelt, but his obsessions with his father and with Dream eventually come to rule his life. In The Wake, he appears again as the child that we see on his first appearance.
Alex is in many ways a tragic figure, perhaps the first statement of the theme that Desire explores in The Wake : "The bonds of family bind both ways." Had Alex not been born the son of his father, inheriting the imprisoned Dream, his life might have been much happier. However, he is finally able to find some measure of fulfillment in his old age, following Dream's death.
His name almost certainly derives from Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, the protagonist of which is named Alex, but could also be a nod to Aleister Crowley, whose original middle name was Alexander.
Roderick Burgess
Roderick Burgess is a fictional character from Neil Gaiman's comic book series, The Sandman.Roderick Burgess (1863-1947) was the Lord Magus of The Order of the Ancient Mysteries. Born Morris Burgess Brocklesby and known also as The Daemon King, his magical fraternity was based in "Fawney Rig" in Sussex, and was initially funded by his inherited industrial wealth. Burgess is a magician rather in the vein of the real Aleister Crowley, and within the DC world is Crowley's rival.
The series begins with Burgess' attempt to capture and bind Death, which fails, capturing Dream instead. Burgess keeps Dream trapped in a glass globe for the rest of his (Burgess') life, attempting to bargain with Dream, but Dream remains silent. Burgess dies of old age still attempting to get a response out of Morpheus. His order passes on to his son, Alex.
Burgess is a bald-headed, slightly pot-bellied man with a large hook nose and something of the look of a gypsy about him. He is ultimately self-centred; his sole purpose for the Order is to bring money and power to himself, and he is consumed by his desire to achieve immortality. His relationship with his son is only briefly touched on, though it is implied that it is unhealthy, with Burgess pushing his son to spend his life pursuing his father's dreams.
Johanna Constantine
Lady Johanna Constantine is an 18th century supernatural adventuress. Dream encounters her several times, once to ask her to recover the head of his son, Orpheus. On an earlier occasion she disrupted what she believed to be a meeting between the Devil and the Wandering Jew, but was actually between Dream and Hob Gadling. Gadling mentioned knowing an Elizabethan sorcerer named Jack Constantine, presumably an earlier ancestor.- After The Sandman
This was stolen and hidden in the future by the wanderer, Mad Hettie. Hettie both blackmailed ('I knows about you and the little Corsican') and bribed Johanna for her silence, promising her that she would live to age 99.
This Johanna performed successfully, dying by getting out of her wheelchair, while listening to the singing of her old companion, Orpheus.
Johanna is presumably intended as an ancestor of John Constantine, although this has not been explicitly stated.
John Constantine
John Constantine is a con man and magician who accompanies Dream on a quest to find his pouch of sand.
John Constantine has his own series, John Constantine: Hellblazer, which occasionally has guest appearances by Cain and Abel. He is also prominently featured in another series, Swamp Thing, from which he originated.
Ethel Cripps
Also known as Ethel Dee, Ethel Cripps is the mother of John Dee. She was the mistress of Roderick Burgess until she fled with Ruthven Sykes.Her last joy was her son, John Dee, who she tracked down for ten years. She discovered that he had become a living corpse. Despairing, she killed herself by removing the one thing keeping her alive- an amulet in the shape of an eye which granted its user protection.
Once dead, this and the Sandman's Ruby was entrusted to her son after stealing it from Ruthven Sykes, who had stolen it from Roderick Burgess, who had stolen it from Dream.
Doctor Dee
John Dee, also known as Doctor Destiny, is a DC Comics villain whose powers were derived from his use of Dream's Ruby. His name is almost certainly a reference to the real-life John Dee. He was incarcerated in Arkham Asylum, with other Batman villains such as The Scarecrow and The Joker, until freed by the amulet given to him by his mother, Ethel Dee, former mistress to Roderick Burgess.
John originally named himself 'Doctor Destiny' to protect his mother's surname, but after her death changed it back. The Ruby had drained away his mental and physical state until he was no longer able to sleep or dream without it. This had the unpleasant effect of turning him into a browned, living corpse.
Being able to control dreams, he used the ruby to bring out the 'darkness' and 'bestiality' of many people across the world. He had no purpose in doing this. To quote: 'I think I'll dismember the world and then I'll dance in the wreckage.'
While doing this, over a period of 24 hours he focused the energy of the ruby on several people in a cafe, one of them a friend of Rose Walker. He used them as puppets, horribly having them murder and degrade each other as if toys, until all were dead.
Dee's last ever battle was in the realm of dreams, in which Dream, aka the Sandman, double-bluffed him into destroying the ruby, which Dee believed to be Dream's life. It was actually only the energies, and so Dream instead became even more powerful than before.
Dee's final end is in the cell next to a friend of his, Doctor Crane, the Scarecrow. He is now able to sleep.
At the latest reports, he has not yet woken up.
Wesley Dodds
Wesley Dodds, also known as Sandman, is the original costumed crimefighter who used the name. According to Gaiman, he was merely filling a hole in the universe in a similar way to a process of evolution, in which animals fill up a niche- for instance, what should fly.
Foxglove
Foxglove (Donna Cavanagh) is a fictional character from the Sandman series, a lesbian musician who first appears in A Game of You.- In The Sandman
In A Game of You, Foxglove is going out with Hazel McNamara, and the two help Thessaly rescue Barbie.
- After The Sandman
Daniel Hall
Daniel is the son of Lyta Hall, and the successor to the role of Dream of the Endless.
Lyta Hall
Hippolyta "Lyta" Hall is a major character in The Sandman, the mother of Daniel.
John Hathaway
John Hathaway is the senior curator of the Royal Museum. He steals the Magdalene Grimoire from the museum's collection to aid Roderick Burgess in his attempt to gain immortality after his son, Edmund, dies. He commits suicide in 1920 using a dagger from the museum after a stocktake reveals his theft. His suicide note, implicating Roderick Burgess in a multitude of crimes, is never found.Hazel McNamara
Hazel McNamara is Foxglove's lover. She appears in A Game of You, The High Cost of Living, and is a major character in The Time of Your Life.She has a son, Alvie, from her one heterosexual encounter. It is likely that Alvie is named after Wanda (see below).
Unity Kinkaid
Unity first appears as one of the victims of the sleepy sickness that follows Dream's capture in the first collection of issues in the series, Preludes and Nocturnes. Following his capture, she sleeps until he escapes. While asleep, she is raped and gives birth to a daughter, Miranda Walker.It is later learned that the father of this child was Desire. Unity was supposed to be a "vortex of Dream," a special entity that appears only very rarely, with the ability to connect the dreams of other beings, a dangerous ability that can eventually cause the destruction of The Dreaming. The only time Dream is allowed to take a human life is to kill a vortex. Desire's intervention confuses the issue, and eventually Unity's granddaughter, Rose Walker, becomes the vortex. Desire does this so that Dream will be forced to kill a person of family blood, thus bringing the vengeance of the Furies on him.
However, just before Dream can kill Rose, Unity appears, explaining that she should have been the vortex, and asks for Rose's heart. The heart is a red glass one (remniscient of the green heart-shaped piece of glass that appears in the opening tale of this series). Taking the heart, Unity becomes the vortex, and dies.
Unity is of medium height, with reddish-brown hair that she wears long and loose in the self-image she uses in the final dream-meeting between herself, Rose, and Dream; as the old woman we meet at the start of The Doll's House, she has grey hair and wears a curiously old-fashioned dress. She seems kind, and smiles a lot.
Prez Rickard
Prez Rickard appears in a single issue as the ideal President.
Ruthven Sykes
Ruthven Sykes is a bespectacled Afro-Caribbean man with short hair.He is Roderick Burgess' second-in-command of the Order of the Ancient Mysteries until November 1930, when he steals a number of treasures (including Dream's helmet, ruby and pouch of sand) and £200,000 in cash from the order and flees to San Francisco with Roderick's mistress, Ethel Cripps. In December 1930, he trades the Helmet with the demon Choronzon for an amulet that looks like an eyeball on a chain. This amulet protects him from the magicks of Burgess until 1936, when Ethel Cripps leaves him, taking the amulet with her. He is then killed.
Jed Walker
Jed Walker, originally called Jed Paulsen, appeared in Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's short lived series The Sandman, where he was protected from nightmare monsters by the titular hero. In Neil Gaiman's revisionist version of The Sandman, Jed was the brother of Rose Walker and the grandson of Unity Kinkaid and Desire.
Rose Walker
Rose Walker is a fictional character from the Sandman series written by Neil Gaiman. She makes her first appearance in issue #10, part one of The Doll's House story arc. She is a young blonde with red- and purple-dyed streaks in her hair. In later issues, she is shown as having red hair with a blonde streak.
Historical figures
- Haroun al-Raschid: The King of Baghdad during the time that Sindbad the Sailor was written/set. Worrying about his beloved city, he sells the city to Dream to keep it alive forever, but with a catch; the city lives only in dreams, and never existed except in the famous stories, the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
- Caesar Augustus: The first emperor of Rome. In The Sandman he is revealed to carry psychological scars from being continually raped by his uncle, Julius Caesar. Dream gives him a way to deal with it without the gods finding out.
- Joshua A. Norton: An English-American believing himself to be Emperor of the United States in "Three Septembers and a January." Dream gives him his delusion as part of a challenge with his three younger siblings; Despair, who tries to make him fall into her realm by making his life increasingly difficult, Delirium, who makes a half-attempt to actually send him mad, but is refuted by the fact that 'his madness keeps him sane', and Desire, who uses The King of Pain to tempt him with a real palace and a Queen. In the end, however, Joshua Norton remains delusional, but lives a happy and dignified life. He is so much liked and respected that, when he dies, thousands come to see him off.
- Marco Polo: The famous 13th-century explorer and trader. He is lost in a part of the dreaming that connects to the real world, and encounters Rusticello, a friend of his future self, Fiddlers Green, and Dream, shortly after he had escaped from his prison. Marco offers him water. In return, Dream uses up the last of his energy granting an otherwise forbidden passage home (explaining why he collapsed upon entering the House of Secrets). Upon waking Marco is unable to remember any of his encounters.
- William Shakespeare: The famous 16th-century English playwright. Dream gives him the inspiration for many of his plays in exchange for Shakespeare writing two plays for him: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.
Minor mortals
- Daniel Bustamonte: A victim of the 'sleepy sickness' that results from Dream's capture. He falls asleep in 1926, then wakes up sometime before 1955, staying awake much of the time but unable to speak. He recovers fully on September 14, 1988 when Dream escapes.
- Francis "Chas" Chandler: a cab driver and friend of Constantine's who drives him and Dream to Rachel's father's house so that Dream can retrieve his pouch. Chas takes his nickname from Jimi Hendrix's manager, and is a recurring character in the comic Hellblazer.
- Compton - Roderick Burgess' butler.
- Nurse Edwards: The caretaker of Alex Burgess at the time he is put under Dream's curse.
- Ernie and Frederick: Two of the men guarding Dream when he escapes from his imprisonment.
- Doctor "Piggy" Huntoon: A Doctor in Arkham Asylum and former schoolmate of Constantine's. He used to perform electro-shock therapy on Constantine, back when he was institutionalised.
- Leigh: A man who works in "Easy Diner," an American-style diner in London.
- Ellie Marsten: A victim of the 'sleepy sickness' that occurs during Dream's capture. She sleeps continuously for decades, awaking only four or five times a year, and recovers in an insane asylum on September 14, 1988 when Morpheus escapes. Her waking memory is basically founded on the book Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. Present whereabouts unknown.
- Paul McGuire: Good friend and lover of Alex Burgess.
- Rachel: An ex-girlfriend of Constantine's who stole Dream's pouch of sand from Constantine and became addicted to its effects.
- Stefan Wasserman: A victim of the 'sleepy sickness' that results from Dream's capture. Joins army during first world war at 14, and goes over the trenches shortly before he catches the sickness. Commits suicide in 1918 at age 16 because he cannot sleep. He was inhabited by the dormant spirit of the Corinthian.
- The Scarecrow: In a cameo, the Arkham inmate attempts to dissuade his friend Doctor Destiny from escaping (albeit not forcefully), saying Arkham is a better home for their kind than the outside world.
- Wanda: A male-to-female transsexual (or shemale) featured in A Game Of You who is Barbie's best friend. She dies in the freak storm caused by Thessaly's magic and is buried as Alvin (her parents dress her as a man), though Barbie rectifies this by crossing out Alvin on her gravestone with lipstick and writing Wanda. Wanda is later seen in Barbie's dream as a real, proper woman, and waves goodbye to Barbie with Death.
Lists of fictional characters by series | Sandman characters
"Characters of The Sandman"