For all its popularity, I've never read Sandman from DC...with a few exceptions. I've read the Golden Age stories by Simon and Kirby and the later reboot by that same team. I've read a few of the Golden Age stories by other talents as well. And I've read a few installments of the DC/Vertigo series Sandman Mystery Theatre. I was searching for some variety in the 1990's in my comics reading after years of steady Marvel consumption and found this weird dark comic among many others. It deals with the established Golden Age hero but transforms him into an exceedingly mortal Wesley Dodds, living in a gritty urban environment filled with crime and bizarre murder. Dodds gets dreams and is forced to act upon those bewildering messages, to find the answers and solve the puzzles those dreams present. He is aided by Dian Belmont, the daughter of the District Attorney and in many ways the center of many of the stories. All the stories with a few exceptions are transmitted in four-issue arcs, giving the creators a good expansive canvas to spin their creepy yarns.
The first four-issue tale is titled The Tarantula and offers up an exceedingly creepy series of murders and tortures committed by a weird, hooded individual. We meet a strange family and realize they are connected in perverse ways to the deaths. It's in this first sequence that we first meet Wesley Dodds, a wealthy man fresh from the Orient who is taking over his recently deceased father's expansive businesses. He's a quiet, even meek man who puts on a gas mask and invades city hall to gather data for his investigations. We meet Dian Belmont, a well-to-do young woman who is seeking not only pleasure but meaning and she and Wesley seem attracted to one another. Also on hand in this first one is police detective Lieutenant Burke, a hard-nosed racist and sexist cop who brings a distinct edge to the storytelling. All the stories in the series were written by Matt Wagner and Steven T. Seagle and drawn by Guy Davis, with some exceptions I will take note of as necessary.
The Face shifts the action into Chinatown and involves both Dian Belmont and The Sandman with the Tongs. Actually, the villain is a killer who can shift his looks. We learn a great deal about Dian and about her former romances. The art by John Watkiss offers the reader a much more idealized hero than Guy Davis presented.
The Brute gets The Sandman involved with the boxing game, in particular with a boxer named Ramsey who refuses to take a dive and is forced to flee with his ill daughter to escape the revenge of some mobsters. The titular "Brute" in this story is an enforcer with a particular secret. This story does an excellent job of counterpointing the extreme poverty present in the 30's with the creature comforts of the world both Dian and Wesley inhabit. The art on this sequence was by R.G. Taylor.
The Vamp focuses on Dian Belmont again, this time her friends. Bodies drained of blood are turning up all over the city and getting to the bottom of this lurid mystery is The Sandman's focus. The repressive social morals of the era are highlighted in a story which gives us a villain who operates as do so many from pain and regret.
The Scorpion brings the "Wild West" into the urban world of The Sandman. We are treated to a range of characters, from country singers to grasping oil executives. Wesley is pressured to participate in a financial scheme he has grave doubts about, meanwhile as The Sandman he attempts to stop a killer who leaves a scorpion brand and uses scorpion venom to slay his victims.
Dr. Death offers us a killer who uses perverse medical skills to do in his victims. The social ill focused on in this sequence is sexism and the brutality of men to women. These issues are counterpointed nicely by the increasingly complex relationship between Dian and Wesley.
The Butcher, as the name implies, is to date the most gruesome of the sequences in the series. It is in fact the first of the storylines I followed back in the 90's when I plugged into the series. Burke gets a focus as he attempts to bring to ground a brutal killer who seems to wander the city at will unseen. What he leaves behind is nauseating. The Sandman is up against it when he finally has to confront the killer.
The Hourman is about exactly what you think it's about. The broader DC Universe is tapped into as Rex "Tick Tock" Tyler debuts in the series as "The Man of the Hour". I've always liked Hourman and it was nifty to see this "origin" story. Tyler is a man who seems to genuinely want to help people with the talents his "Miraclo Pill" has granted him. He is unclear how to do that. He and Sandman do a proper team up and it's great to see.
The Python closes out this first of two volumes reprinting the series. The Sandman finds himself investigating a strange series of bizarre strangulations, and the search takes him into the world of celebrity and the health industry. Dian for her part becomes integral to the story when she ends up at a remote health farm, one in which clothing is optional. It's all handled with taste. The art for this sequence was produced by Warren Pleece.
I haven't commented on the covers for these stories. Art and photography are combined by Gavin Wilson for all the covers with the assistance of Richard Bruning on some. These offbeat covers give the series a bizarre but distinctive look. I'm not sure how effective they were, because I likely hesitated originally on the series by judging the book by its covers. I've come to appreciate them more as the years have rolled by.
More to come in volume two later this month.
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