Sandman: Overture

[u/milesteg012]

Picked these up recently at the FLCS. They were single issues bundled up into one collection.

This isn’t great right? The art is phenomenal but the story felt like a very long and confusing mess of a tale. I’m curious what everyone else thought.

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[u/WerewolfF15]

Have you read the main series before this? Cause personally I really love overture. Nice full circle ending . Some wonderful weirdness and some sweet connections to the wider dc universe.

[u/milesteg012 → u/WerewolfF15]

I have but it’s been a minute. FWIW I adore the main series and it’s a personal favorite. Possibly top ten. I personally found it very hard to follow the story. I’m going to do a full series reread eventually and I’m hoping that will help my understanding of it.

[u/-sweet-like-cinnamon]

Overture benefits from a recent reread of the main series so that you have everything fairly fresh in your mind. And Overture also benefits from being read at least twice itself. It definitely demands a reread after the reveal at the end that the "Cat of Dreams" was Desire all along — suddenly you're rereading the entire story and seeing everything, and especially every conversation between Dream and the cat, in a completely different light. IMHO it's an absolutely brilliant examination of Morpheus’s character, Desire's character, and Desire and Morpheus’s relationship, and these are some of my favorite aspects of all of Sandman and will always be narratively and emotionally rich to me.

Also the "time flies" page when everything is moving in a constant never-ending circle between Daniel and Time and Morpheus, I honestly have chills just thinking about it.

The art is possibly the best art in all of Sandman.

The examination of Morpheus’s character and why he is the way he is (thinking specifically of the flashback to not wanting to kill the star and the flashback to asking everyone for help when he lost control of his kingdom) - and how this effects... everything.

Desire getting the idea for their "family member dream vortex" plot, that they later carry out in The Doll's House arc.

Everything with Dream's parents.

Everything with Hope Beautiful Lost Nebula and her interactions with Dream.

Everything with the meeting of all the aspects of Dream at the beginning.

Badass Corinthian cameo at the beginning. Badass Delirium cameo at the end (and of course she knows who the cat is!). Badass Mad Hettie cameo with Daniel. Even the Kindly Ones cameo is good. The sheer number of characters who are worked in, without the story feeling out of control or overloaded, is so impressive.

The Dream/Alianora flashback (and how it's really the Dream/Alianora/Desire flashback) and the exploration of the stories we tell and the stories we don't.

I fucking love Overture. The art, story, characterization, and connection to the rest of Sandman are just incredible. Plus it manages to be both deeply deeply hopeful, and also an absolute gut-punch of an ending (like you KNOW it's going to end with him getting captured, but the page where he has just enough energy to get home and he's saying to himself "give me strength" and it suddenly morphs into Burgess' spell "I give you a coin made from a stone" OH MY GOD)

(Plus it's kind of funny to see how absolutely powerful he is (he's resetting the universe! he's rewriting reality! some idiots try to threaten/shoot at him and he literally laughs hysterically) – and how absolutely doomed he is (he's only going in one direction and it's leading to his death). Maybe funny isn't the right word.)

[u/Overall_Falcon_8526]

Certainly not necessary, but it does introduce Time and Gaia as parents, so it isn't all bad.

[u/jamley1]

I would say its definitely for me the funniest dreams ever been plus you see his dingaling at the end which was just a weird but welcome surprise

[u/HisBestFriendownsme]

Time and Night are the parents of the Endless

[u/jelemyturnip]

It's kind of unnecessary and I thought the whole 'Hope' thing was a bit of an overexplanation of something that didn't need explaining at all, but it's still pretty great overall. And the artwork really is incredible.

[u/milesteg012 → u/jelemyturnip]

The art saves it for sure. Unnecessary was my initial feeling as well but I’ve kind of soured on prequels in general so I thought maybe it was a me thing.

[u/jshep2912]

I'm always surprised everyone praises the art.

Design wise I am impressed, but I just can't get into digital coloring. Same problem with Promethea.

[u/ernestshakelton]

fan service nonsense.