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The Sandman is a comic book series filled with fascinating characters and mythology, which recently became a adapted and directed by , a renowned pioneer in the medium. It's easy for the world of the Sandman series to stretch far beyond the original comics and its many spin-offs. The Sandman is popular fodder for crossovers, and the comic’s cast has found their way into all sorts of stories, interacting with characters ranging from Batman to Thanos—yes, Marvel's Thanos! No worries: If you want to keep track of it all, we've got you covered.
The Sandman is a comic series written by and published by DC Comics. The story follows Dream, also known as Morpheus, who, along with his siblings Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction, is one of the Endless, anthropomorphic embodiments of powerful natural forces. At the start of the series, Morpheus has been captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner for 70 years. When he escapes, he finds himself in the modern world and sets out to rebuild his kingdom.
The original Sandman series is 75 issues long and ran from January 1989 to March 1996. But just because the main Sandman comics officially ended in 1996 doesn't mean its characters haven't lived on in other ways. Along with spin-offs and adaptations, The Sandman has been a part of several crossovers.
But what are crossovers, you ask? Crossovers have been used throughout different types of media to connect characters and storylines across different properties. We see crossovers a lot in comic books because they allow characters to interact within a shared universe and create a through line of a consistent reality across various comic book series.
The Sandman crossovers are challenging endeavors because the Sandman comic series takes place in an alternate universe and not the main DC Comics universe. But that doesn't mean Sandman crossovers are impossible; in fact, there have been plenty of them. Here's a rundown of all existing Sandman crossovers, the characters involved, and where they appear.
Green Arrow (Volume 3)
The Green Arrow comics may not bring back any Sandman characters but they do feature a significant Sandman prop: the Magdalene Grimoire. The Grimoire is a book full of occult ceremonies, incantations, mystic rites, and summoning spells. And you guessed it—this very book was used to capture Morpheus way back at the beginning of the Sandman comic series. The Grimoire shows up again in #9 and #10 of the Green Arrow comics (Volume 3) and is used to try to bring Oliver Queen (the Green Arrow) back from the dead.
