All good things must come to an end. The Wake is the tenth and final volume of The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. There are other comics about Death and his unusual siblings so there’s a lot more Sandman mythology to explore, but the main story ends here.
The first three issues are about the funeral and wake for our old pal Morpheus. While Daniel is trying to settle into his new role as Dream of the Endless, everyone is trying to come to grips with the fact that Morpheus is gone and what that means. The other issues are stand-alone stories about how Morpheus affected a few mortal dreamers. There’s a follow-up on Hob Gadling, the guy who refuses to die. There’s a story about an exiled Chinese dude nearing the end of his life. And it all concludes with William Shakespeare completing his pact with Morpheus by writing his final play for him.
Reading The Sandman is a pretty daunting task. 75 issues spread over 10 volumes is a lot. You feel like you accomplished something when you’ve read all of it. And then you want to find someone else who has read it so that you can talk about it. You want to share it with somebody. You want everybody to know that The Sandman is fantastic; that it’s deep and rich and amazing, that they should have fucking own it and read it once a year. You can’t keep good literature to yourself, that’s just selfish.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
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