The Sandman: The Kindly Ones

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones
Cover of The Sandman: The Kindly Ones  (1996), trade paperback collected edition. Art by Dave McKean.
Publisher	DC Comics
Publication date	The Sandman February 1994 - July 1995 Vertigo Jam August 1993
Genre	Dark fantasy Mythology in comics
Title(s)	The Sandman #57-69 Vertigo Jam #1
Main character(s)	Dream
ISBN	ISBN 1-56389-204-9
Creative team
Writer(s)	Neil Gaiman
Artist(s)	Dave McKean Kevin Nowlan Marc Hempel Glyn Dillon Charles Vess Dean Ormston Teddy Kristiansen Richard Case
Penciller(s)	Kevin Nowlan Marc Hempel Glyn Dillon Charles Vess Dean Ormston Teddy Kristiansen Richard Case
Inker(s)	Kevin Nowlan Marc Hempel D'Israeli Glyn Dillon Charles Vess Teddy Kristiansen Richard Case
Letterer(s)	Todd Klein Kevin Nowlan
Colorist(s)	Daniel Vozzo
Editor(s)	Karen Berger Shelly Roeberg

The Kindly Ones (1996) is the ninth collection of issues in the DC Comics series, The Sandman. Written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D'Israeli, Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Charles Vess, Dean Ormston and Kevin Nowlan, coloured by Danny Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein.The volume features an introduction by Frank McConnell.^[1]

The issues in the collection first appeared in 1993, 1994 and 1995. The collection first appeared in paperback and hardback in 1996.

Marc Hempel is the primary penciller, inked variously by himself, D'Israeli and Richard Case. He is relieved at different points in the story by Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon and Dean Ormston, and Charles Vess draws a story-within-a-story sequence. Kevin Nowlan draws a short story which originally appeared in a Vertigo promo book.

It was preceded by Worlds' End and followed by The Wake.

Synopsis

The Kindly Ones belongs with the second collection, The Doll's House, and the seventh, Brief Lives, in that it finishes off a story that mostly originated in these collections; but includes elements of Season of Mists and the story of Orpheus, told mostly in Fables and Reflections. The most structurally ambitious of the collections, The Kindly Ones is a single storyline written as a Greek tragedy, with Morpheus as its doomed hero and an aspect of the triad of witches, the Erinyes, as the Greek chorus. It pulls together various threads left dangling throughout the series, notably the grudges against Morpheus of several characters: Hippolyta Hall; the witches themselves; the Norse god Loki; and the witch Thessaly. The Kindly Ones also continues several other stories, including that of Cluracan of Faerie and his sister Nuala; that of the Corinthian; and that of Rose Walker and her former landlord Hal.

After Daniel is kidnapped by Loki and Robin Goodfellow, Lyta, his mother convinces herself that Morpheus has killed him and resolves to destroy Morpheus; and finally persuades the Erinyes to do so. In many places, Lyta is depicted as Medusa, and even encounters Medusa's two sisters, Stheno and Euryale. Unbeknownst to Lyta, Daniel is recovered alive and well by Morpheus' servants, the raven Matthew and a restored Corinthian. At length, Morpheus yields to the Erinyes, and the main story ends with Morpheus and his sister Death on a desolate peak with a flock of pigeons; echoing a sequence from one of the series' early high points, "The Sound of her Wings" (issue #8). Death asks for Morpheus' hand, and he disappears. Immediately upon the death of Morpheus, Daniel becomes a new aspect of Dream, with white clothes and hair, and an emerald (identified, in an earlier collection, as 'the heart of Khoschei the Deathless') suspended on his neck and chest.

Issues collected

Citations

1. ↑ "Vertigo". Retrieved April 14, 2010. 

References

• Bender, Hy (1999). The Sandman Companion. New York: Vertigo DC Comics. ISBN 1-56389-644-3. 

External links

• The Annotated Sandman