There've been a fair few characters over the years that have gone by the name Sandman. There was the Golden Age one with the sleep gun and the opera cape, then Simon and Kirby's generic crime buster with obligatatory sidekick Sandy, and lastly, Neil Gaiman's epic pretension fest, beloved of female Goths everywhere.
But in between was this one, a return to the title, if not the concept for the Simon & Kirby team.
This Sandman is the Universal Master of Dreams, protecting the little kids of the world against nightmares from inside his Dream Dome, with the help of spooky buddies Brute and Glob. He's very much a make-believe character like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, spending his time looking in on lonely orphan Jed and his kindly grandfather on remote Dolphin Island.
The first issue was meant to be a one-off but the Doyen of Dreams returned a year later for a regular series, this time scripted by Michael Fleisher, and with art from Ernie Chua / Chan and Mike Royer, with Ernie doing his best Kirby impression, particularly on the patented blocky hands.
Fleisher, a man not overly known for feelgood fantasy, couldn't wait to get rid of Jed's grandpop as soon as he could, and placed the boy with an abusive aunt and uncle by issue five, presumably to up the fairytale quotient of the strip.
As zombie gorillas, invading frog-men and a mini-me version of Doc Ock all pop up,
The Sandman is a sprawling glorious mess of a comic, and a barrel load of fun.
In fact, as Jed nightly adventures with his magical friends, what you're getting is an almost perfect kids' bedtime book.
Kirby was back full-time for issue four, but the writing was on the wall, with fans possibly seeing the series as too juvenile for any kind of longevity.
It did go out on a major high however, with Wally Wood joining Kirby for this last issue, and Dr. Spider, the hapless would-be master of evil, returning with yet another cunning scheme to take over the world. Curses and double curses!
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