Dream (comics)

Dream is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics' imprint Vertigo. The character is the protagonist of the comic book series The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman. One of the seven Endless, inconceivably powerful beings older and greater than gods, Dream is both lord and personification of all dreams and stories, all that is not in reality (which, in turn, Dream may define by his existence).^[1] He has taken many names, including Morpheus and Oneiros, and his appearance can change depending on the person who is seeing him. Dream was named the sixth-greatest comic book character by Empire Magazine.^[2] He was also named fifteenth in IGN's 100 Top Comic Book Heroes list.^[3]

Characteristics

Appearance

Morpheus usually appears as a tall, thin man with bone-white skin, black hair, and two stars in place of eyes. Most often they are silver, blue, or white, but when he becomes angered, they have been shown to turn red.

Morpheus' appearance ranges widely: People generally perceive him in a style of dress appropriate to their region and era. In the Dreaming, he is often seen wearing a grey T-shirt and dark pants. He appears to be light-skinned when interacting with similar characters, but the people of Tales in the Sand's primordial African city see him as dark. Morpheus appears as a huge black cat when speaking to the lonely cat-pilgrim of Dream of a Thousand Cats and as a cat-headed god when addressing the Egyptian feline goddess Bast. The Martian Manhunter sees Morpheus in the shape of a flaming Martian skull and identifies him as Lord L'Zoril; but Mister Miracle, looking at him simultaneously, sees Morpheus as a man. In Season of Mists, he appears in the same form to all the Gods (Bast comments: "I much prefer you in cat form, Dream old friend"). In The Dream Hunters, set in ancient Japan, Morpheus appears as a Japanese man to a Buddhist monk and as a fox to a fox spirit.

He customarily wears a billowing black cape, sometimes with a flame motif. In battle he wears a helm made from the skull and backbone of a defeated enemy. This helm, which resembles a World War II-era gas mask, is also his sigil in the galleries of the other Endless, as well as appearing in the dreams (and at least once on the staircase wall) of Wesley Dodds. His face and physique is based on the amalgamation of Neil Gaiman in his twenties, The Cure's frontman Robert Smith and ballet dancer Farukh Ruzimatov.^[4][5] Dream's face and appearance is also based on Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy.^[6][7] In fact, Gaiman explained that Murphy was the original model for Morpheus.^[8] Gaiman also stated that Sandman artist, Dave McKean, based Dream's face in the cover of Sandman #1 on Peter Murphy.^[9][10]

Speech

Morpheus' speech is usually portrayed as white text in black, wavy-edged speech bubbles bordered in white. The text is capitalized normally (sentence case) in stark contrast to other characters' speech generally in block caps text.

Personality

Although he is ultimately a heroic character, Dream is sometimes slow to understand humor, occasionally insensitive, often self-obsessed, and very slow to forgive a slight. He has a long history of failed amours, and is both shown and implied to have reacted harshly to the women therein. As Mervyn Pumpkinhead remarks: "He's gotta be the tragic figure standing out in the rain, mournin' the loss of his beloved. So down comes the rain, right on cue. In the meantime everybody gets dreams fulla existential angst and wakes up feeling like hell. And we all get wet." Near the end of the Brief Lives story arc, Desire says of Dream: "He's stuffy, stupid, and thinks he knows everything, and there's just something about him that gets on my nerves". There is a long-standing enmity between Morpheus and Desire, stemming from Desire's possible involvement in the failure of one of Dream's amours (seen in Endless Nights). It is implied that before his imprisonment he was crueler and more blind to his flaws, and much of The Sandman is focused on Morpheus' desire to atone for his past behavior (e.g., helping past lovers Calliope and Nada). Morpheus has a great pride that does not tolerate damage, examples include banishing Nada to Hell for rejecting him and being angry at Hob Gadling that he seeks companionship.

Morpheus is constantly aware of his responsibilities, both to other people and to his territory, and is detailed and exacting in their fulfillment (as noted in Season of Mists, where Morpheus is described thus: "Of all the Endless, save perhaps Destiny, he is most conscious of his responsibilities, the most meticulous in their execution"). He shares a close, reciprocal bond of dependence and trust with his elder sister, Death. He consistently strives for understanding of himself and of the other Endless, but is ultimately defeated by his inability to accept change: in The Wake, when asked (by Matthew, the raven), "Why did it happen? Why did he let it happen?", Lucien remarks: "Charitably... I think... sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change.". However, Death suspects Dream allowed himself to become vulnerable to the Kindly Ones (by leaving his realm, when summoned by a fairy). This would imply Dream accepted change enough to knowingly and willingly allow himself to be killed and reborn as another aspect of himself - a different one. One might argue, however, that this whole "die and be replaced by the Daniel version of himself" plot was just Dream playing his own role, as he already knew some of it would happen, when he met the Daniel Dream and retrieved the Saeculum (both events happening in The Sandman Overture). Thus, change was maybe never an option, but an imperative.

Morpheus is noted in Season of Mists as "accumulating names to himself as others make friends, but he permits himself few friends". He is given more names in The Sandman than any of the other Endless, beyond the many translations of Dream.

The Dreaming

Morpheus lives in a castle at the heart of his realm, "the Dreaming". Both the castle and the rest of his realm are mutable and change often, often at Morpheus' will, although his resistance to change (and difficulty changing) is a theme throughout the series. Morpheus maintains both the castle and the realm, as with all aspects of his appearance, in a half-accommodating, half-terrifying state, simultaneously acknowledging both the courtesy due to others and the attention due him as the realm's master, and indeed the pleasantness and terror of dreams themselves.

Morpheus is the only one of the Endless known to populate his realm with speaking characters: a multitude of dreams and nightmares he has created, as well as entities from other realms. These include the narrators from older DC horror comics, including Cain and Abel, and Fiddler's Green, who emulates G. K. Chesterton in human form. Morpheus recruits or creates (or re-creates) servants to perform roles he could easily carry out himself, including the reorganization of the castle and the guarding of its entrance. Although this is not stated in the series, Gaiman has said that he "always assumed" Morpheus had once been alone in the Dreaming and that he populated it for want of company.^[11]

Other than Morpheus himself, the most important inhabitant of the Dreaming is Lucien, the first of Dream's ravens and now the Librarian of the Dreaming. Dream gives Lucien authority over the Dreaming on several occasions. The character originally appeared in the 1970s DC comic Tales of Ghost Castle, which lasted for only three issues (and was apparently killed off in Secrets of Haunted House #44).^[12] Lucien and Cain have a similar appearance as both were originally created by the same artist.^[13]

Other notable inhabitants include:

• A pumpkin-headed scarecrow named Mervyn who assists the physical maintenance of the Dreaming.
• A Faery named Nuala who has unrequited affections for Morpheus, and who plays an unwitting part in his downfall.
• A raven named Matthew who travels through the waking world on errands for Morpheus, usually as a scout or spy. Matthew was formerly a mortal man (Matthew Cable) and a character in DC Comics' Swamp Thing, who died in the Dreaming. Gaiman used Matthew as a way to explain some background information to the readers.^[13]

Morpheus' realm at any moment is also full of all creatures dreaming at that moment, although these seldom appear in the comics panel. Several comics in DC's Vertigo line have been set in the Dreaming, most notably a series of the same name (chief author Alisa Kwitney).

Aspects of Dream

The events of The Kindly Ones and The Wake reveal that Morpheus is only one aspect of the concept 'Dream of the Endless'. After his death, the human child Daniel Hall is transfigured into a new aspect of Dream: physically resembling Morpheus, but with white hair and predominantly white clothing. One character at Morpheus' wake, perplexed by the question of who exactly has died, is told by Abel that the purpose of the wake is to mourn "a p-p-point of view". The new Dream instructs his followers to use the name "Morpheus" only for his predecessor.

Dream and mythology

The Sandman Special #1 implies that Morpheus is the Greek deity of that name (in DC Comics continuity, another version of this god, clearly not Dream, appears in George Pérez' Wonder Woman #11 (December 1987) — what relation this figure, an old man dressed in purple vaguely resembling Agatha Harkness, has to this aspect of Dream is unclear). Morpheus is the father of Greek hero Orpheus by the muse Calliope, and once-patron of Aristeas of Marmora: thus taking the role given in legend to Apollo, with whom he is often confused.

In DC continuity

Since the creation of the Vertigo imprint (itself largely inspired by the success of DC Comics' increasingly mature titles such as Swamp Thing, Watchmen, Hellblazer, and The Sandman), DC's horror/occult characters such as Morpheus have drifted progressively further away both from DC continuity and from each other. Dream originally began as a mainstream DC character able to interact with DC superheroes, and Gaiman's versions of Dream have appeared in DC superhero titles written by Keith Giffen and by Grant Morrison, as well as in Gaiman's own The Books of Magic series and in a Rick Veitch-authored issue of Swamp Thing (where he meets Matthew Cable). Morpheus also appears briefly during Kevin Smith's run on Green Arrow in a flashback showing him in Alexander Burgess' basement, still imprisoned in Roderick Burgess' glass globe prison. He also appeared occasionally as the inspiration for the Golden Age Sandman (Wesley Dodds) in the pages of Sandman Mystery Theatre.

See also

• List of The Sandman characters

References

External links

• Dream at the Comic Book DB
• Markstein, Don (2008). "The Sandman". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017.