THE SANDMAN (BOOK 3) - NEIL GAIMAN, et. al.

The great reread of The Sandman is now almost over. There remains only one volume left, which I’ll be able to read when my wife finishes it. As always, the art is varied and incredible. There are a handful of artists represented in this volume, all of whom preform wonderfully, though I especially enjoyed P. Craig Russell, Jill Thompson, and Vince Locke’s sections. This volume balances the “main story” about Dream and his family members alongside a handful of one-off episodes that only somewhat tie into the main storyline. As always, the one-off stories are a bit hit or miss. Some of them are really great, I’m partial to the one about Baghdad, while others are sort of meh. The main story here is progressed further than in any of the other story lines. I only vaguely remember what happens with this stuff, based on my original read. I remembered that Dream had a family member, Destruction, abdicate his duties and that he went on a quest to find him, which does happen in this book. However, it remains unclear what abdicating means in this world since things are obviously still being destroyed. It actually calls back to the earliest sections of this work where Dream himself is imprisoned, tho dreaming still occurs in the world, he’s just not incharge of it. It all makes it a bit unclear as to what these personifications actually do and are. Perhaps it will be explained further in the last volume. But light criticism aside, this book is really a masterpiece. It’s beautiful, the stories are great, the characters are so original and interesting, it’s easily a top 5 comic.