The Sandman: Volume II (1991)

The Doll's House (1991)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Mike Dringenberg / Chris Bachalo / Michael Zulli | Page Count: 228

"[I]f it touched you, you could wash and wash until your skin was tattered and bloodied, but you'd never be clean again."

Volume II of X in the Sandman saga is where the series really begins to separate itself from the larger DC Universe; it feels like a self-contained world populated by a collection of believable people, not dependent on past histories. Morpheus grows into a more three dimensional character, not the insubstantial entity he was before. Everything's more focussed and immediate.

The stories also undergo a drastic change, being much better developed in terms of their depth and interconnectivity; while some of the subject matter is darker and more adult. I found one part of the story to be uncomfortable reading, but at the same time the very idea that it could ever happen was intriguing.

Dream orders a census of the Realm and discovers that some of its inhabitants are missing. He deems it his responsibility to find and return the absentees before they can do any kind of damage in the waking world. Gaiman lets his imagination run free with the concept. We meet more of the Endless family, and you may begin to notice something unusual about all of them. Some of those bit players I mentioned from Volume I return and upset the apple cart. It's as if Gaiman created for himself an opportunity to fashion a house full of weirdos and then studied them like a sociological experiment.

Having read the entire collection more than once before, I could go into further detail about the ripples that Volume II creates in the Sandman's story as a whole, but that's spoilery and I believe it's best if a reader discovers such things for themselves. If you didn't give up at the beginning of Volume I, then I feel your patience will be well-rewarded in The Doll's House (1991) collection.

The book collects together Sandman issues 9 - 16.