Reading Comics #111 "The Annotated Sandman Volume 1 #20"

The final issue in The Annotated Sandman Volume 1 is here!

We're talking about Sandman #20, the final issue included in the original Dream Country collection.  Like Dream/Morpheus/Sandman himself, it's a story about someone who in some other life was a superhero, in this instance Element Girl, a one-time sidekick of Metamorpho (whom Grant Morrison famously killed off in his initial issues on JLA, although the redoubtable Rex Mason eventually got better).

Before we go much further, it's worth noting that Element Girl recently resurfaced in the rebooted continuity of the New 52 within DC proper thanks to Geoff Johns and Justice League.  Neil Gaiman later wrote a Metamorpho story for the Wednesday Comics experiment (basically a twelve week comic book version of the cartoon section from your Sunday paper).  The latter Leslie Klinger might have referenced in his notes, but he neglects to, while the former occurred after publication of Annotated Sandman.

Anyway, it's just interesting that the collection begins and ends on Gaiman's particular interpretation of superheroes.  Hardly anyone will ever confuse Dream with a typical comic book superhero (although Death made a mainstream appearance a few years ago in Paul Cornell's Action Comics), but as his most basic level he's indeed linked to the Golden Age Sandman tradition, Wesley Dodds and his gas mask that is reflected in Dream's warrior helm.  Martian Manhunter appeared, Doctor Destiny ran a whole arc, the Jack Kirby Sandman helped inform another one.  Then we reach Element Girl.  The difference between a Neil Gaiman and a Garth Ennis is that Gaiman isn't rejecting the mainstream, he's looking beyond it.  Ennis, well, he's rejecting and subverting it every chance he gets, but try as he might he never quite influences the landscape.  Gaiman did.  Oh, did he.

The basic story of the issue is that Element Girl is clinically depressed, retired from the superhero game and everything else that used to define her life.  She no longer sees a point in anything, because she no longer recognizes herself, has lost nearly all connection to the outside world.  She's what Ben Grimm might have become if he were, well, grim, didn't have a Fantastic family around him.  Unlike the other women to have been featured in the series so far, she fits a fairly typical feminine psychology, which has been shattered by her altered appearance.

If there's anything to criticize in Sandman it's when Gaiman doesn't trust himself.  He doesn't trust himself in this issue.  He admits in notes Klinger reveals that he feared he'd go too far in depicting Element Girl's state of mind.  He saw only dark corners, and was afraid of the depression that might overtake him if he pursued them.

Because this is the last one and also because I played fast and loose with my formula with the last issue, I will omit checking in with specific pages and notes for this final look.

By the way, Gaiman achieves something pretty spectacular in the issue in managing to finally completely avoid employing Dream in his own narrative.  Instead it's Death who appears, having a little chat with Element Girl, making sure she's absolutely sure that she wants to die.  It's like Calliope a few issues ago, but because it's Dream who answers the call, there's no evasion.  There's a lot to love about Dream, and this is one of them.  Everyone else interprets Death to be pretty lifeless, and they think that makes perfect sense.  I think Gaiman has it right, seeing that Death would be the one who most understands what life really means.  I mean, if not her who?

And because it's Death who shows up, Element Girl's story ends with a kind of redemption, again a nice little bow on the top of this present to conclude Dream Country and The Annotated Sandman Volume 1.  The first issue was bleak through and through, and the stories that followed weren't much better.  I keep trying to figure out what Gaiman was trying to say about Shakespeare, why he thought the Bard needed some kind of agreement with Dream.  He has two plays to present Dream, and A Midsummer Night's Dream is the first. The Tempest, meanwhile, is the last, which informs the conclusion of the series as well.  Does this mean that Gaiman envisions Shakespeare as owing a debt to Dream?  Does this cheapen Shakespeare's legacy?

I guess it's a little like Death and Element Girl.  Death isn't in the habit of unscheduled collections.  She visits Element Girl because she happened to be in the area (and explains that she's in a lot of areas, actually), and has to be convinced that concluding the transaction is a good thing.  She also lets the reader know that the whole Metamorpho story is a lot more complicated than an archaeologist accidentally unleashing an Egyptian god's safety net (in so many words).  Gaiman could very easily have run with that.  He didn't even particularly run with it in Wednesday Comics.  That was a fairly straightforward superhero action adventure.

So instead of talking about Klinger's notes, which in the end I can only describe as invaluable and therefore I hope I serve as testament to the worth of the whole idea of The Annotated Sandman, I will simply say that the whole experience has helped guide me along in ways that I wouldn't have expected when I started out.  The more I meditated on each individual issue, the more I got from reading Sandman.  Finding the connections was one way of helping me make my own connections, getting me involved.  This is the end of the road for now, but the story continues...