Daniel Hall

Daniel Hall is a fictional character in the Sandman comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. An infant for the majority of the Sandman series, he is the son of Hippolyta 'Lyta' Hall and Hector Hall, borne in utero for two years in the Dreaming. Hector Hall was a perennial DC character, son of Carter Hall (the Golden Age Hawkman), and has assumed many guises during his stay in the DC Universe, and was at one point the Sandman. Lyta was the daughter of the Golden Age Wonder Woman (later changed post-Crisis to a new "Golden Age Fury") and once a superheroine called the Fury whose powers were derived from Tisiphone. When her fellow members of Infinity, Inc. learned she was pregnant, she was forced to resign from the team.^[1] Daniel, at the end of the Sandman series, becomes the new "Dream of the Endless".

Fictional character history

Daniel's father, Hector, was a ghost revived by the two nightmares Brute and Glob, in Morpheus's absence; whereafter Lyta and Hector's ghost lived in the dreams of a child, Jed Walker, for two years. Upon Dream's return to the Dreaming, he destroyed the barrier that the two had created around the child's mind from the real Dreaming; imprisoned the two nightmares; released Hector's ghost; and restored Lyta to the waking world. Upon leaving her, Dream revealed that because her unborn son had spent much of his gestation in the Dreaming, he would someday belong to Dream himself. Before Dream faced Lucifer, he paid another visit to the two, and named the child Daniel. In one of the issues in Fables and Reflections, Daniel was regaled with stories by Cain, Abel, and Eve, while Matthew watched. In the Kindly Ones saga, Lyta incorrectly believed that Daniel had been 'abducted' by Dream, and took her grievances to the Furies, with whom she destroyed much of the Dreaming. Unknown to her, Daniel was abducted by Loki and Robin Goodfellow, and retrieved by the Corinthian and Matthew. At Morpheus' citadel, Morpheus transfers his role to Daniel, and allows Death to take him. Daniel, as the new Dream, is an amalgam of a child and the Endless whom he represents. His speech is largely unchanged but it is drawn with black font on a white background (as opposed to the direct contrasting style of the former self). He is still identified by the honorific 'Dream of the Endless', but refuses the name of 'Morpheus'. He is inexperienced in government of the Dreaming and relies on the raven, Matthew, for advice. As Dream, Daniel is a gentler and more merciful lord than Morpheus.

Daniel was named in accordance with Neil Gaiman's decision to give the Endless names or titles beginning with the letter 'D', and after the Biblical prophet who interpreted dreams. Whereas Morpheus almost always wears black, Daniel robes himself in white. Morpheus' garments also tended to be styled with a flame motif, while Daniel's are often adorned with floral patterns. Daniel is unable to convince Fiddler's Green to return to the Dreaming but otherwise recreates the entire land, including its populace, as it was before.

Appearances outside of The Sandman

Daniel has appeared from time to time in other Vertigo series. He was often identified, and infrequently appeared, in The Dreaming by Caitlin Kiernan. He appeared in Lucifer: in Nirvana, helping Lucifer track an enemy, and in The Sandman Presents: The Furies, in which he met his mortal mother for the first time since the Wake.

Within the main DC Universe, Daniel has made guest appearances in JLA #22–23, in which he helped save the Earth from Starro, and in which he repaid the 'debt' his predecessor had owed the Justice League. He also assured Kyle Rayner that he had surpassed Hal Jordan, and will continue to do so. Daniel next appeared in a handful of issues of JSA, in which he, among other things, transferred the prophetic dreams from Wesley Dodds to Sandy Hawkins. In another appearance, he prevents the time-traveling villain Degaton from tormenting his parents.^[2] Still later in the series, Daniel, in the form of a magic mirror, tells Hector Hall (reincarnated as Dr. Fate) and Lyta about Sand, who is trapped in a dream world created, again, by Brute and Glob.^[3] Daniel brought the spirits of his mortal parents to live in the Dreaming after their deaths.^[4]

Dream Girl tells Doctor Destiny that she foresaw his death, being tortured in his sleep by "the owner of the dreamstone".^[5]

See also

• List of The Sandman characters

References