Originally posted by -Pr-
I would rather it look like he's not flying underwater, but actually swimming. Water is supposed to have weight to it, unlike space or the upper parts of the sky etc.
Wouldnt his strength bypass that tho? I always imagimed his gliding thru the water...hes too powerful to swim
Originally posted by -Pr-I meant in the comics. Yar, I know she died. First ever crush of mine, she was.
They brought her back for the comic (and even tho noone seem it the movie as well)
Originally posted by Sin I AM
Wouldnt his strength bypass that tho? I always imagimed his gliding thru the water...hes too powerful to swimThey brought her back for the comic (and even tho noone seem it the movie as well)
It's not like flying where you just hold a pose to take off and land. Aquaman swims. Moves his arms, kicks his legs etc. Sure, he can do leaps and the like, but he's not going to cross the atlantic without moving his limbs.
Originally posted by Sin I AM
Wouldnt his strength bypass that tho? I always imagimed his gliding thru the water...hes too powerful to swimThey brought her back for the comic (and even tho noone seem it the movie as well)
Ah ok. I haven't watched the movie yet. Kind of dreading it tbh.
Originally posted by -Pr-
It's not like flying where you just hold a pose to take off and land. Aquaman swims. Moves his arms, kicks his legs etc. Sure, he can do leaps and the like, but he's not going to cross the atlantic without moving his limbs.
I get you. You have a certain way you want it to be depicted. Lemme ask...are you looking to be disappointed?
Originally posted by -Pr-Ah ok. I haven't watched the movie yet. Kind of dreading it tbh.
It has its moments but falls short. You have to shed your old man cynism and embrace it as a child.
Drax wrecking fodder
Originally posted by Sin I AM
I get you. You have a certain way you want it to be depicted. Lemme ask...are you looking to be disappointed?It has its moments but falls short. You have to shed your old man cynism and embrace it as a child.
Drax wrecking fodder
Honestly, no, but I'm already disappointed by a lot of what I've seen. I'm obviously not happy with how much they're changing him, or the casting for Mera because I don't have any faith in Amber Heard, but I keep hoping that, like the not-so great X-Men/DC movies, there's at least a couple of scenes that will justify rewatching in future.
Like, if they do Atlantis well, that would be something. Or Vulko. Even if they get Arthur's telepathy close to right, that would be cool too. I am expecting it to be a well received movie, for what it's worth.
lol, it's not so much cynicism as just wanting MMPR to be a good movie. The trailer really didn't excite me, though. I will watch it though, and maybe it'll surprise me.
Originally posted by -Pr-
Honestly, no, but I'm already disappointed by a lot of what I've seen. I'm obviously not happy with how much they're changing him, or the casting for Mera because I don't have any faith in Amber Heard, but I keep hoping that, like the not-so great X-Men/DC movies, there's at least a couple of scenes that will justify rewatching in future.Like, if they do Atlantis well, that would be something. Or Vulko. Even if they get Arthur's telepathy close to right, that would be cool too. I am expecting it to be a well received movie, for what it's worth.
lol, it's not so much cynicism as just wanting MMPR to be a good movie. The trailer really didn't excite me, though. I will watch it though, and maybe it'll surprise me.
I hope it does well AND is enjoyable. If you go to MMPR expecting a good movie you wont be entertained. U have to watch it without expectations
House of Mystery
Back in the 1970s DC had a series of horror comics in the style of Tales from the Crypt. The “hosts” were Cain and Abel much like how Tales from the Crypt had The Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper, and Old Witch. Cain was the first of the duo to have a series. “House of Mystery.” Abel had the “House of Secrets.”
Hose of Mystery is the comic book where Swamp Thing made his first appearance. House of Mystery was drawn by the great Bernie Wrightson.
When the comic was canceled the characters were actually told metastyle that they were “too old fashioned” however thanks to writers like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman they were re-established in present day DC and Vertigo canon.
Cain and Abel would later be established as residents of The Dreaming in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. In fact they nursed Morpheus (Dream) back to health after he collapsed right after his escape from captivity (issue 2 of Sandman. First story arc. Prelude and Nocturns).
The House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and Ghost Castle are now established as part of Sandman lore and buildings in the Dreaming that can also appear in the real world. Ghost Castle often appears in Transylvania Romania when it appears in the human world. Ghost Castle is the alternate name of Dream’s castle in The Dreaming realm.
In more recent comics The House of Mystery fell into the hands of Constanine but Cain remains there to “manage things.” Abel was MIA recovering “Nightmares that escaped from The Dreaming.” (God, Daniel’s incompetent…)
Cain and Abel have something of an odd Punch and Judy routine where something petty will upset Cain and he’ll kill Abel but Abel will regenerate as they both are mostly immortal. Only Cain is allowed to kill Abel. If anyone else does it he’d have to be resurrected by Dream of The Endless.
Cain has a pet dragon-like Gargoyle named Gregory. He also used to have a black cat named Oskar. Abel has a small golden Gargoyle he originally named Irving but Cain insisted it had to be a G name so the baby gargoyle was renamed Goldie.
Cain has even appeared in the animated series Justice League Action.
Cain is tall and slender while Abel is more stout and stammers.
Someone asked...
What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?
Explanation below.
Warning: Here there be Spoilers.
I fully admit that I, myself, am a late comer to the fandom of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics. Back in the 1990s many friends had recommended the series to me and or insisted that I would love “Death.” But no one gave me a proper explanation or summary of what I was to expect. I figured it had to have been an over-rated trend. I was too busy trying to get people to watch or listen to the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack (which hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomena it became in the early 200os).
The comics I read in those days mostly consisted of the likes of Morbius: The Living Vampire, The Midnight Sons, Legion of Monsters, Tomb of Dracula and the occasional Tales from the Crypt reprint when I could find it. I was lucky enough to have recurring access to a store called Dracula’s Comic Crypt on Long Island. But as a woman into all things Gothic (and most especially art in the style of Bernie Wrightson) I was recommended Sandman over and over again.
Part of what discouraged me was that I have always had poor eyesight. Today, of course, on a nice twenty inch computer monitor I can make the comic book images nice and big and keep physical copies mostly for collecting purposes. But mostly I just didn’t really know what it was all about.
Well, fast forward over twenty years later… The TV show Lucifer has gained my attention and is both fascinating and fun for being different so I finally cave and decide to read the comics that he first came from… Sandman. I was particularly interested in the storyline where Lucifer quits Hell (Season of Mists) but I wisely decided to start from the beginning. I started at the beginning… It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked this thing… I really, really liked this thing. In fact I soon found I liked the protagonist, Morpheus more than Lucifer.
My response was along the lines of “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was so good?” to which several friends practically shouted “WE DID!”
So for anyone who was or is in a similar situation to me, I’ll explain Sandman as best I can for you right now since no one properly explained it to me back when it was first recommended to me a almost a quarter of a century ago.
_______________
DC comics has had three characters named Sandman. The first was a gas mask wearing Noir character named Wesley Dodds. The second was a golden age style superhero who later passed his mantel on to another, a character called Hector Hall.
And now for the third, the most important of DC’s Sandman / Sandmen. The literal Sandman AKA Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as Morpheus. Ruler of The Dreaming realm. Master of both Dreams and Nightmares. First published by DC and later concluded by Vertigo (DC’s adult content label) Sandman was a very unique kind of story, set in the DC universe.
Morpheus (AKA Dream) sometimes changes his form but he’s fairly easy to recognize because he is always depicted with black talk bubbles with white text, originally intended to indicate a psychic form of communication more than actually vocal (but I think that idea was mostly dropped after the first issue and only hinted at again in the storyline called A Game of You).
During the very first storyline of Sandman comics Morpheus was captured by humans and so the universe (in an effort to balance itself out) granted Wesley Dodds certain dream based abilities. Dodds had something of a psychic link with Morpheus while Morpheus was in captivity. Later two nightmares escape from The Dreaming realm and these two (Brute and Glob) manipulate the super hero “Sandman” and his successor, Hector Hall. They do this to create a dream dimension of their own since the one Morpheus ruled had fallen into chaos without him.
Morpheus / Dream is a member of The Endless and his full title (besides Sandman) is Dream of The Endless.
The Endless is a family of anthropamorphic personifications representing seven aspects or abstract concepts in relation to conscious life. It’s not as complicated as it seems.
The Endless are:
Destiny: Destiny is the eldest. He is depicted as a shrouded blind man whose wrist is chained to a book containing the past, present and future. Despite being apparently blind he can read his own book. His sigil (the symbol that represents him) is a book.
Destruction. Destruction grew weary of …well, destruction when he saw humanity progressing toward increasing violence. Determining that each Endless actually represents a concept and it’s counter-part he quit his vocation and wandered off to try to reinvent himself as a creative force instead of destructive. His sigil is a sword.
Death. Death is Death incarnate, much like Death of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld but instead of resembling the traditional Grim Reaper Death takes the form of a pale Goth girl with an eye of horas tattoo under her right eye. You might think that she might be the most depressed or brooding of the group but no. She’s friendly and optimistic. She also loves films like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid (Disney version). She wears an ankh pendant, which also is her sigil.
Now we have Dream AKA Morpheus. He is The Sandman of folklore. Dream is the middle sibling and he is The Sandman. He rules the realm of The Dreaming. He has wild “Robert Smith style” hair, bone-white skin and black eyes with small star-like pupils. Morpheus is also very tall and skinny. Dream’s sigil is his “Helm” - a battle mask he made for himself using the bones of two Lovecraftian “Old Gods” that attacked The Dreaming a long time ago. (He almost never gets to wear it in actual battle). The helm is made from a large skull and spine and so it resembles a bone version of Wesley Dodd’s gas mask
Desire. Now come the twins, the first of which is Desire. Desire is a genderfluid being that can be male or female (or both or neither) at will. Desire is very fickle and can also be extremely cruel but also (on occasion) can be helpful and once even saved the universe (even though Desire doesn’t remember doing it). Desire is slender, androgynous and has golden eyes. Desire’s sigil is a heart.
Despair. Despair is the twin of Desire though you might never know it. They look nothing at all alike. Despair is a short, very full-figured woman who has jagged tusk-like teeth, and almost never wears clothes. Despair’s sigil is a ring with a sharp hook attached to it.
Delirium. Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and very child-like. She used to be Delight but someone or something hurt or abused her a long time ago and she became Delirium as a way to cope. It’s implied that someday she might return to being Delight but as it stands that might take a whole lot of therapy. Delirium can be very sweet but if you are mean to her or try to touch her without permission she will punish you by driving you to madness. Her sigil was once a flower. Now it’s a rainbow blob or smearing of color.
And there you have it. The Endless in a nutshell. Now on to the basic plot of Sandman
Sandman was first published in late 1988 and ran until 1996. It then had several spin-offs and one shots, a prequel novel set in Ancient Japan (Dream hunters), a collection of short story comics called Endless Nights (one for each Endless), and finally the gorgeous prequel comic Sandman: Overture (compiled as a graphic novel in 2016).
Since the first run of Sandman is over seventy five issues long I will only give a summary of the first story arc. Prelude and Nocturns
A group of late Victorian / Edwardian era occultists known as The Order of Ancient Mysteries (Modeled loosely after the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn) is lead by their Lord Magus, Roderick Burgess. They use a grimoire known as the Magdalene Grimoire (which will later get use in Green Arrow) to cast a ritual spell to summon Death incarnate but instead of summoning her they accidentally summon The Sandman.
A “sickness” occurs where several people end up with severe sleeping disorders because of the way Morpheus was taken. One woman ends up with “Sleeping beauty syndrome” where she would wake for brief periods of time but usually slept. Another goes into a coma. One young man in Africa dreamt of a cloud castle, as was his usual dream, but the castle crumbled and he became catatonic. A soldier would suffer a form of “Shellshock” that made him severely insomniactic. But in general most people continued to sleep and dream normally
However in the Dreaming realm Morpheus’ absence was noticed. And over time things started to deteriorate. The vast library in The Dreaming started to disappear. Some dream entities vanished. Some Nightmare creatures escaped into the human world. And Morpheus’ castle began to fall into disrepair. This all happened over the span of many years, mind you.
For over seventy-two-years Morpheus is kept prisoner inside a clear crystal-glass cage, surrounded by a magical binding circle in Roderick’s cellar. They take his helm, his pouch of dream sand, and his ruby amulet as magical trophies. They also take his clothes and leave him naked and caged. They don’t even bother to feed him and though he won’t die of starvation he does suffer hunger. The binding circle holds back Morpheus’ magick and psychic powers while the glass cage holds his physical body.
During Morpheus’ captivity Roderick grew old and died and his son took his place as Morpheus’ main captor. And eventually old age started to creep up on the son, Alexander. One night Alexander visit’s his prisoner (who has refused to speak the entire time of his captivity) and Alex’s assistant (and very likely lover) Paul, accidentally brushes Alex’s wheelchair slightly over the rim of the binding circle, breaching it and it’s hold over Morpheus’ psychic abilities. But they do not notice this slight breach. Morpheus waits for his opportunity. As one of his guards has a brief day dream about a vacation on a beach, Morpheus is able to psychically connect with this dream to steal a fistful of the sand there on the dream beach and use this sand as he would use his pouch of dream sand.
Morpheus pretends to collapse within his cage
Appearing to be dead the guards call for their employer and open the glass cell. Morpheus uses the pilfered dream sand to make good his escape.
The first thing Morpheus does is he enters someone’s dream about wearing a clown costume to a party and no one else is in costume. Here Morpheus (still quite naked) raids the buffet, even eating frog legs from a fried chicken style bucket held by Colonel Sanders. He’s too hungry to think about anything other than eating. Once that’s done he conjures clothes for himself and seeks revenge on his captor…
Morpheus enters the dream of Alexander Burgess where he confronts him on holding him prisoner and how he treated him. Morpheus used to be a very cruel and petty being and his cruelty lingers long enough for him to punish Alexander severely. He condemns him to a dream of eternal waking- waking up from a nightmare only to find he’s in yet another nightmare, just to wake up again and be in yet another nightmare and on and on forever while his body remains comatose and or may actually one day die while his soul could be stuck in The Dreaming for eternity. (Dream does eventually release Alexander Burgess though and forgives him).
Exhausted by this act of vengeance Morpheus tries to make his way to his castle at The Heart of The Dreaming but faints in “The shifting lands” where he’s found by Gregory The Gargoyle. Gregory is the pet of Cain.
Cain and Abel are old horror host comic book characters from the 1970s in the style of the Crypt Keeper, with Cain compulsively murdering Abel roughly once a night (he recovers each time). And yet Cain and Abel weirdly love each other.
The House of Mystery are the comics that first introduced DC’s Swamp Thing. At The House of Mystery (Cain’s home) while Cain is presenting Abel with a new baby gargoyle egg (this gargoyle eventually gets named Goldie. Originally Abel called the baby gargoyle Irving but Cain insisted that gargoyles need G names) that’s when Gregory carries the barely conscious Morpheus to Cain. This is the only time in the comics where you out right see Morpheus ask for help. He’s a very proud character.
Cain and Abel set about nursing their king back to health. Morpheus gradually recovers in Cain’s House of Mystery (Abel’s home is The House of Secrets) before making his way to his castle (now in ruins) in the heart of The Dreaming. Morpheus’ loyal librarian, Lucien, had been trying to keep things running in Morpheus’ absence. Meanwhile Morpheus’ usual groundskeeper, Mervyn (A Jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow) had taken to driving a bus in The Dreaming and had to be brought back to The Castle to return to his original duties.
Morpheus realizes he needs to get his property back- The pouch of dream sand, his helm, and his amulet (which is a conduit and amplifier for his powers) that had been taken at the start of his captivity and had drifted to different owners over time. The Hecateae (The triple goddess AKA The Furies AKA The Fates AKA The Kindly Ones) tell Morpheus that John Constantine had his pouch of Dream Sand. And so Morpheus goes to meet Constantine.
John Constantine (who is a practicing occultist and private investigator) figures out that a former lover of his his own has the pouch of self-replenishing dream sand (he, himself, was unable to pull the draw strings). The exlover has tragically been using the sand to get high and several Dream entities have been feeding on her imagination when she does this. Her body is shutting down. By the time Morpheus and Constantine find her there is little that can be done but Constantine demands Morpheus do something for her and so Morpheus gives her a pleasant final dream before she passes away. Morpheus repays Constantine’s assistance by helping him with his chronic nightmares.
Next Morpheus has to retrieve his helm, which was taken by a demon. Morpheus is forced to visit Hell to reclaim it. Here he is guided by Etrigan The Demon, who deliberately takes Morpheus past an imprisoned former lover of Morpheus’ own, Nada. She pleads for Morpheus to rescue her but he tells her that though he loves her he has not yet forgiven her.
Morpheus has started to change since his captivity. He’s becoming softer, less cruel. And though he does not rescue her here, he will eventually go back for her after his older sister, Death makes him realize that he had wronged Nada.
The demon who has taken Morpheus’ helm challenges him to a contest where each one has to out do the creativity of the other, inventing personas that would best the previous one conceived by the opponent. Eventually Morpheus wins with the simple phrase “I am Hope.” (This is later very bitterly sweetly elaborated on in the prequel comic Sandman Overture where Hope is revealed to have been a little girl whose ghost helps Morpheus but all he can remember of her is her name).
Side note: Lucifer (the main ruler of this Hell) becomes bitter and slowly makes up his mind to quit ruling there. He doesn’t actually do this though until the storyline called Season of Mists, in which he leaves the key to Hell to Morpheus when Morpheus came back, looking to rescue Nada. Lucifer also asks Morpheus to help him by cutting off his wings (Lucifer gets those wings back in his own solo comics, back to their original white, feathery state). Eventually Morpheus gives the key to two angels, and Lucifer opens a piano bar in LA called Lux but that’s a whole other story.
Morpheus’ ruby had been taken by the villain Doctor Destiny. (Not to be confused with Morpheus’ elder brother, Destiny personified). Doctor Destiny was being kept at Arkham Asylum. Doctor Destiny happens to escape around this time as Morpheus is trying to reclaim his lost amulet, which was in a Justice League of America storage warehouse. The amulet had been so corrupted by Doctor Destiny that merely touching it saps Morpheus of a great deal of his strength and he collapses, fainting in the warehouse where it was being stored.
By the time Morpheus regains consciousness he finds Doctor Destiny has taken the amulet and used the ruby’s power on a diner full of people (whom he has toyed with, driven to madness, and then ultimately killed or made them kill each other and themselves in very gruesome ways). Doctor Destiny and Morpheus have a confrontation where Doctor Destiny says he will kill Morpheus.
Morpheus tricks Doctor Destiny into following him into The Dreaming where Doctor Destiny destroys the ruby, believing it will kill Morpheus to do so. Instead of killing Morpheus, the power that was in the ruby reverts to Morpheus, making him more powerful than he has been in centuries. The ruby had contained a small fragment of Morpheus’ very soul. Morpheus (who has started to change, becoming a bit kinder) shows pity on Doctor Destiny and instead of cruelly punishing him, he escorts him back to Arkham Asylum where he gives all the inmates a night of deep sleep and pleasant dreams.
Once Morpheus has gotten back his last artifacts Morpheus restores his castle and library.
Now he feels restless and uncertain as to what to do with himself. He’s lonely and feels like he’s lost his purpose. So he goes to a park to feed the pigeons in order to try to cheer himself up. (He loves birds and feeding pigeons is a comfort for him). Here he meets up with his sister, Death, who makes pop culture references that fly right over his head (Since he’s been out of touch for nearly a century and wasn’t very good at slang to begin with).
Morpheus loves and respects his sister and doesn’t understand why so many people fear her. He considers himself far more terrible than she could ever be. She manages to cheer him up by simply being there. She has him accompany her as she makes her rounds through the city, escorting souls to where they are meant to go.
There are several adventures after this but this is the first story of the Sandman comics.