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The Sandman Omnibus
The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 3
A New York Times bestseller! This massive hardcover collection reprints Neil Gaiman's seminal, award-winning The Sandman: Overture, plus The Sandman: Dream Hunters and his two acclaimed stories featuring Morpheus's sister Death.
The Sandman is the universally lauded masterwork following Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming--a vast, hallucinatory landscape housing all the dreams of any and everyone who's ever existed. Regardless of cultures or historical eras, all dreamers visit Morpheus' realm--be they gods, demons, muses, mythical creatures or simply humans who teach Morpheus some surprising lessons.
Originally published 25 years after The Sandman first changed the landscape of modern comics, The Sandman: Overture brought back Neil Gaiman's legendary series with a never-before-told tale featuring Morpheus!
The Sandman: Overture heralds New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman's return to the art form that made him famous, ably abetted by artistic luminary JH Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to the Sandman's origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, The Sandman: Overture features cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as the Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King's siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.
Collects The Sandman: Overture #1-6, The Sandman: Dream Hunters #1-4, Death: The High Cost of Living #1-3 and Death: The Time of Your Life #1-3, plus variant covers and extra bonus stories!
The Sandman is the universally lauded masterwork following Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming--a vast, hallucinatory landscape housing all the dreams of any and everyone who's ever existed. Regardless of cultures or historical eras, all dreamers visit Morpheus' realm--be they gods, demons, muses, mythical creatures or simply humans who teach Morpheus some surprising lessons.
Originally published 25 years after The Sandman first changed the landscape of modern comics, The Sandman: Overture brought back Neil Gaiman's legendary series with a never-before-told tale featuring Morpheus!
The Sandman: Overture heralds New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman's return to the art form that made him famous, ably abetted by artistic luminary JH Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to the Sandman's origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, The Sandman: Overture features cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as the Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King's siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.
Collects The Sandman: Overture #1-6, The Sandman: Dream Hunters #1-4, Death: The High Cost of Living #1-3 and Death: The Time of Your Life #1-3, plus variant covers and extra bonus stories!
976 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2019
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915 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 30, 2020
It’s a weird feeling having finished this book (more aptly having read the three Sandman omnibus’) I’m both incredibly satisfied with this fantastically spellbinding journey of modern mythology that Gaiman and friends have taken me on.....And am also ever-so-slightly depressed that (at least for now) the journey is over.
I’ve felt so many things reading this series and it’s all been wonderful.
Volume 3 kind of serving as eclectic after note to cap everything off, while still being just as resonant as volumes 1 & 2
If you’ve never read the Sandman before, do yourself the favour and become acquainted with Dream of the endless and his siblings (my favourite is easily Death, although I’m partially to Dream and destruction as well.....oh! And Delirium, can’t forget Delirium)
Read it
I’ve felt so many things reading this series and it’s all been wonderful.
Volume 3 kind of serving as eclectic after note to cap everything off, while still being just as resonant as volumes 1 & 2
If you’ve never read the Sandman before, do yourself the favour and become acquainted with Dream of the endless and his siblings (my favourite is easily Death, although I’m partially to Dream and destruction as well.....oh! And Delirium, can’t forget Delirium)
Read it
January 26, 2022
What to say about Sandman Vol 3? Those looking for ongoing epic plots will be disappointed, however those looking for an intriguing range of tales will not. I have to confess I thought I was in the former group at first but in reflection there is something memorable and hard hitting about these individual stories. I think while at first they seem fairly fantastical there is something about all the stories that makes you think twice about the world and life.
Something I'm wondering is how the upcoming series will go on with Sandman comics, my initial assumption (which could easily be wrong) is that the first season will cover the first volume. Possibly though stand alone episodes will be peppered throughout? Really looking forward to see what happens though.
Something I'm wondering is how the upcoming series will go on with Sandman comics, my initial assumption (which could easily be wrong) is that the first season will cover the first volume. Possibly though stand alone episodes will be peppered throughout? Really looking forward to see what happens though.
March 18, 2021
This was my least favorite installment only because it mostly contains stories that are merely tangential to the Sandman, and a lot of filler. The highlights for me were "The Sandman Overture" which is a prequel to the series; "The Dream Hunters", a made up Japanese fairy tale about a monk and a fox spirit; and "Endless Nights" , short stories about each of the Endless (except for the Despair story which was hard to follow, disturbing, and had the ugliest illustrations I've ever seen). The Death stories were pleasant but not life changing. The back third of the book is comprised almost entirely of just illustrations. Both the prose and comic book versions of The Dream Hunters are here, but the former was so beautifully illustrated that for me, it rendered the comic version unnecessary. Still, this was a necessary buy to complete the collection although I doubt I will revisit it as much as the first two volumes.
June 28, 2022
(Zero spoiler review for the series as a whole) 4.25/5
Having devoured the entire 5 deluxe editions over the last few weeks (and done reviews for each individual edition). I've given it a few days to let my final thoughts marinate before I wanted to write a quick little complete review to cement my feelings on this series and help bring a sense of conclusion and closure to this much heralded series.
I had held off on reading this series for around a year or so, because I don't like to burn through all of the best reads all at once. It would be a fairly dispiriting endeavour if your reading followed a continual downward spiral until you were left with nothing but the dregs at the bottom of the barrel. That said, sometimes you just have to go for gold and creak out the big guns. So now that its all over, what do I really think about Sandman? Well, it was really good, but I don't think I hyper loved it as much as others. Here's why:
Morpheus, the Endless and the Dreaming were some of the most memorable, most well fleshed out characters I've had the pleasure of reading in comics thus far. Where this series stumbled, and occasionally fell flat on its face, was when Gaiman drifted too far from this world, instead indulging his love for historical fiction and fairy tales. The man can write some, regardless of what he's doing. But too often, his overly long, somewhat pretentious, bland and boring stories got in the way of what could have been a flawless, much more concise story if you cut out a good dozen or so issues. Don't get me wrong, some of the stand alone stories were great, but there were always one or two each Deluxe edition that were bloated, went nowhere, didn't really tie in to any of the larger mythos in any meaningful or necessary way, and basically, sucked the momentum out of the experience.
That's really my greatest criticism with this series, and was enough to rob it of a whole point, taking it from a five to a four. That and some of the art wasn't always as good as I would have liked. You really get quiet an assortment here, and not all of it as good as others.
When Sandman is on point, which it usually is, it is some amazing storytelling, and some truly memorable and magnificent comics. When its not, it really got on my tits far more than I would have liked.
So yes, of course you should read Sandman. Everyone should, whether you read comics or not. I went in with pretty high hopes. It mostly met them, sometimes fell well short. Still bloody great though. Just don't watch the Netflix show. I'm calling it early, its gonna be shite. 4.25/5
OmniBen.
Having devoured the entire 5 deluxe editions over the last few weeks (and done reviews for each individual edition). I've given it a few days to let my final thoughts marinate before I wanted to write a quick little complete review to cement my feelings on this series and help bring a sense of conclusion and closure to this much heralded series.
I had held off on reading this series for around a year or so, because I don't like to burn through all of the best reads all at once. It would be a fairly dispiriting endeavour if your reading followed a continual downward spiral until you were left with nothing but the dregs at the bottom of the barrel. That said, sometimes you just have to go for gold and creak out the big guns. So now that its all over, what do I really think about Sandman? Well, it was really good, but I don't think I hyper loved it as much as others. Here's why:
Morpheus, the Endless and the Dreaming were some of the most memorable, most well fleshed out characters I've had the pleasure of reading in comics thus far. Where this series stumbled, and occasionally fell flat on its face, was when Gaiman drifted too far from this world, instead indulging his love for historical fiction and fairy tales. The man can write some, regardless of what he's doing. But too often, his overly long, somewhat pretentious, bland and boring stories got in the way of what could have been a flawless, much more concise story if you cut out a good dozen or so issues. Don't get me wrong, some of the stand alone stories were great, but there were always one or two each Deluxe edition that were bloated, went nowhere, didn't really tie in to any of the larger mythos in any meaningful or necessary way, and basically, sucked the momentum out of the experience.
That's really my greatest criticism with this series, and was enough to rob it of a whole point, taking it from a five to a four. That and some of the art wasn't always as good as I would have liked. You really get quiet an assortment here, and not all of it as good as others.
When Sandman is on point, which it usually is, it is some amazing storytelling, and some truly memorable and magnificent comics. When its not, it really got on my tits far more than I would have liked.
So yes, of course you should read Sandman. Everyone should, whether you read comics or not. I went in with pretty high hopes. It mostly met them, sometimes fell well short. Still bloody great though. Just don't watch the Netflix show. I'm calling it early, its gonna be shite. 4.25/5
OmniBen.
June 7, 2022
One of the most incredible facets of the ending to this whole saga is the cyclical nature, and how everything was so meticulously crafted throughout every phase, that at the end, when it returns to the beginning, and the story is begun again (proper this time?) every detail came into play throughout the thousands of pages and gorgeously drawn, vibrant art and layered, genuine personalities of each character, regardless of seeming abstraction.
From beginning to end, Gaiman's fine attention to detail, blend of surreal, lofty story-telling mixed with equally enchanting art shows his mastery that is second to none. Through and through, the Sandman in all of its many moving parts sits with you like a glorious dream that hit on every sense, in which you return over and over to even get a piece of the infinite world and scenarios, profound and fantastic, sprawled within. There's nothing else like it, and it's a writer's dream to be taken on such a journey into unbridled imagination, as equal parts a love letter to endless possibility as it is the sentient condition as a whole.
Always one of my all-time favorites, deserves every award it's ever gotten, and inspires me to be a better, more inventive writer. Worth it just for the art and implications of recycled reality in Overture; what a gorgeous, thoughtful trip. Always find little truths in dreams, and always stay fascinated and curious by everything.
I think it's a carefully, thoughtfully curated reminder to try to look beyond your mundane every day whenever possible, and contemplate strange worlds beyond ours and magic and mystery and bizarre sciences not yet discovered. These stories are truly a gift.
From beginning to end, Gaiman's fine attention to detail, blend of surreal, lofty story-telling mixed with equally enchanting art shows his mastery that is second to none. Through and through, the Sandman in all of its many moving parts sits with you like a glorious dream that hit on every sense, in which you return over and over to even get a piece of the infinite world and scenarios, profound and fantastic, sprawled within. There's nothing else like it, and it's a writer's dream to be taken on such a journey into unbridled imagination, as equal parts a love letter to endless possibility as it is the sentient condition as a whole.
Always one of my all-time favorites, deserves every award it's ever gotten, and inspires me to be a better, more inventive writer. Worth it just for the art and implications of recycled reality in Overture; what a gorgeous, thoughtful trip. Always find little truths in dreams, and always stay fascinated and curious by everything.
I think it's a carefully, thoughtfully curated reminder to try to look beyond your mundane every day whenever possible, and contemplate strange worlds beyond ours and magic and mystery and bizarre sciences not yet discovered. These stories are truly a gift.
May 6, 2024
The Sandman story ended with Vol.2, this final omnibus volume contains a prequel mini series, random collections of one offs, a novella and other loose ends.
It still contains some really great stories and is great as a completionist piece but it doesn't stand as strong volumes 1 and 2.
It still contains some really great stories and is great as a completionist piece but it doesn't stand as strong volumes 1 and 2.
October 20, 2024
This volume is all the filler material that Gaiman wrote after his initial immaculate run of the Sandman. It also contains Sandman:Overture, which is singlehandedly as good as his Shakespeare arc in his original run. This book is a pickup for collector's of the series, however, not needed.
October 11, 2023
"Something is hurting. Something is waking up. Something is damaged." - Overture
The Sandman Omnibus, Vol. 3 by Neil Gaiman is more of a tribute collection than just a separate edition to the omnibus trilogy. The beautiful artistry (located at the very back of the omnibus) from various artists was extraordinary to look at, and I hope they've achieved well in the field of artistry!
This omnibus edition collects the spinoffs of The Sandman…
* Death: The High Cost of Living: Death takes on human form and wanders the earth for a day, a tradition she performs once every century; this tradition is mentioned in the original series and is a more literal vacation.
* Sandman Midnight Theatre: In 1939, England stands at the brink of war. Following a trail of blackmail, murder and suicide, Wesley Dodds - the mysterious crime fighter known only as of the Sandman - travels from New York to London and discovers a circle of socialites obsessed with the occult.
* Death: The Time of Your Life: Death continues to spend her days as a mortal in the 1990s. When a rising star of the music world wrestles with revealing her actual sexual orientation just as her lover is lured into the realm of Death that Death herself should make an appearance.
* The Sandman: The Dream Hunters: A reasonably traditional kitsune romance between a Buddhist monk and a fox spirit.
* The Sandman: Endless Nights: Focuses on each of the Endless, a family of brothers and sisters who are physical manifestations of the metaphysical concepts - Dream, Death, Desire, Destruction, Delirium, Despair and Destiny.
* The Sandman: Overture: In 1915, Dream of the Endless has found the errant nightmare called the Corinthian. But something pulls him away at the last moment. Something momentous is happening in the universe, darkness is forming, and Dream is called to an important meeting...of himself.
Endless Nights gives us a brilliant insight into the personified characters. Each tale is stylistically different and illustrated by a different artist. Most of the tales are independent of each other; however, Destruction's tale relates to and immediately follows Delirium's. Destruction and Delirium's tales are the only ones that take place after the events of the Sandman series. But Overture is, without a doubt, my favourite of the third omnibus! I especially adore the beautiful, surreal artwork by J. H. Williams III is nothing short of masterful, with intricate, imaginative details, subtle clues littered throughout the pages, and even the frames that are often tied into the storytelling itself.
The Sandman Omnibus, Vol. 3 by Neil Gaiman is more of a tribute collection than just a separate edition to the omnibus trilogy. The beautiful artistry (located at the very back of the omnibus) from various artists was extraordinary to look at, and I hope they've achieved well in the field of artistry!
This omnibus edition collects the spinoffs of The Sandman…
* Death: The High Cost of Living: Death takes on human form and wanders the earth for a day, a tradition she performs once every century; this tradition is mentioned in the original series and is a more literal vacation.
* Sandman Midnight Theatre: In 1939, England stands at the brink of war. Following a trail of blackmail, murder and suicide, Wesley Dodds - the mysterious crime fighter known only as of the Sandman - travels from New York to London and discovers a circle of socialites obsessed with the occult.
* Death: The Time of Your Life: Death continues to spend her days as a mortal in the 1990s. When a rising star of the music world wrestles with revealing her actual sexual orientation just as her lover is lured into the realm of Death that Death herself should make an appearance.
* The Sandman: The Dream Hunters: A reasonably traditional kitsune romance between a Buddhist monk and a fox spirit.
* The Sandman: Endless Nights: Focuses on each of the Endless, a family of brothers and sisters who are physical manifestations of the metaphysical concepts - Dream, Death, Desire, Destruction, Delirium, Despair and Destiny.
* The Sandman: Overture: In 1915, Dream of the Endless has found the errant nightmare called the Corinthian. But something pulls him away at the last moment. Something momentous is happening in the universe, darkness is forming, and Dream is called to an important meeting...of himself.
Endless Nights gives us a brilliant insight into the personified characters. Each tale is stylistically different and illustrated by a different artist. Most of the tales are independent of each other; however, Destruction's tale relates to and immediately follows Delirium's. Destruction and Delirium's tales are the only ones that take place after the events of the Sandman series. But Overture is, without a doubt, my favourite of the third omnibus! I especially adore the beautiful, surreal artwork by J. H. Williams III is nothing short of masterful, with intricate, imaginative details, subtle clues littered throughout the pages, and even the frames that are often tied into the storytelling itself.
August 23, 2019
Finally all the extra stories of Sandman (by Neil anyway) put together in omnibus format. Absolutely loved Vol 1 and 2 and had all these stories in smaller individual books, so I was very excited to see this released. It looks great on my book shelve next to the others. Now I'm waiting for the Lucifer Omnibus and hopefully one day we will see The Dreaming in the same format.
April 17, 2020
While the first two thousand-plus-page volumes of the Sandman Omnibus trilogy contain the base story (75-issue run, plus supplemental stories related to Morpheus), this is a thousand-plus pages that can be seen as the equivalent of DVD-extras. I rated the first two volumes at 5/5 because they are perfect. Neil Gaiman at his absolute best. This one isn’t perfect, but it’s good.
This omnibus collects both the Death Deluxe edition as well as the Sandman Overture, Endless Nights, Midnight Theatre, and both versions of the Dream Hunters. If it weren’t for Overture, this would be another perfect 5/5. I would give the Overture portion 3/5 on its own. I know that Overture is almost universally acclaimed, but I just didn’t like it that much. Some fun parts, but overall kind of boring.
The rest of this book is absolutely amazing. The Death stories are great as always, the various other stories a good too. My personal favorite was The Dream Hunters.
TL;DR: It’s not as good as the first two volumes, but still good enough to keep the Sandman Omnibus Trilogy in my top 10 collected comics.
This omnibus collects both the Death Deluxe edition as well as the Sandman Overture, Endless Nights, Midnight Theatre, and both versions of the Dream Hunters. If it weren’t for Overture, this would be another perfect 5/5. I would give the Overture portion 3/5 on its own. I know that Overture is almost universally acclaimed, but I just didn’t like it that much. Some fun parts, but overall kind of boring.
The rest of this book is absolutely amazing. The Death stories are great as always, the various other stories a good too. My personal favorite was The Dream Hunters.
TL;DR: It’s not as good as the first two volumes, but still good enough to keep the Sandman Omnibus Trilogy in my top 10 collected comics.
November 2, 2019
4.5 stars. The final volume includes several art galleries and some stand alone stories in the Sandman universe, as well as the Overture. I found the stories to be as captivating as the series itself (plus, and this may because I was a child of the 80's and 90's, but I have kind of a crush on Death) and the galleries were fascinating. The only thing I would have liked to have added was more of the notes to the reader, as they added quite a bit of great background info on the creation of the series. Very satisfied with the purchase overall.
January 23, 2022
This is my favorite Sandman omnibus out of all 3 omnibus series. Each one of Dreams family members have their own story. Plus additional stories tying up some characters from the previous stories. There is amazing artwork from J.H. Williams III, P. Craig Russell, Milo Manara, David McKean and others. Sandman Overture is my favorite Story out of all Sandman Stories, and J.H. Williams the III illustrations are nothing short of Genius. Sandman Overture is also in my opinion, Neil Gaiman’s best work.
October 15, 2022
The final collection of Sandman stories delivers a great ending to the series. I loved the collection of stories, art, and the amazing final arc of Overture. This is not like volumes 1 and 2 in that it does not contain a continuous narrative. This one is a collection of the one off stories and has many Easter eggs that tie in to the first two volumes. If you have the first two volumes then I think this a must have, but if you are a casual reader maybe library this volume.
September 11, 2019
And so, as we get to know Death, Desire, and Dream a lot more, we also say goodbye to the Endless (at least for now). This volume is complex: a mashup of content that--although seemingly random--binds the loose ends of The Sandman's universe ("Death", "The Dream Hunters", "Overture", and such). Next stop, The Dreaming--with an open mind, of course.
August 24, 2022
On the one hand this has some absolutely top notch Endless moments, don't think I'll ever be bored of Death in Venice... on the other hand, not really sure why this third wrist busting volume is really necessary: pretty much everything here has been collected already in nice, much less unwieldy hardback editions.
October 26, 2022
I read this a little at a time for nine months, and it made my year richer. I personally found "SANDMAN MIDNIGHT THEATRE" to be a real drag and ultimately skipped it, but both versions of "THE DREAM HUNTERS" alone makes this collection worth it. "SANDMAN OVERTURES" is lush and the perfect note to end on.
February 2, 2023
This is a fantastic series which you can never say you know what's coming. The characters are all fantastic and original and every story grips you all the way through it. This won't be the last time I'll be reading it and I'd really recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and a strange world. It is brilliant and I absolutely loved it 🙂❤️
May 1, 2020
I just read the parts of this that I hadn't read already, which was mostly just the two different versions of The Dream Hunters (which was just OK) but "The Wheel" is still one of my favorite comic handlings of 9/11
March 9, 2022
This concludes the epic Sandman story. If you've made it this far, you've got to push through to the end. The additional tales, stories about Death of the Endless or prequel/sequel stories about Dream of the Endless are all worthwhile reads. Very satisfying and appropriate conclusion.
June 17, 2024
This more than any of the other omnibuses feels very thrown together in that they kind of had to find stuff to fill out the page count which isn’t to say that it’s bad just when you have to put in the same story twice by different illustrators your kind of stalling.
April 25, 2019
Sandman is still the best graphic novel there is.
May 29, 2019
this was the least favorite of the 3 omnibus books, as the stories did not center around "dream" himself for most of the book but around his siblings.
July 21, 2020
kino #3
November 1, 2020
Thoroughly enjoyed the Dream Hunters story!
April 19, 2022
Vols. 1 and 2 cover the entire Sandman series, with this volume including the Death spinoff, a couple special publications that came later, and some artwork collections.
November 16, 2022
Best graphic novel there will ever be (pt 3)
November 19, 2022
This makes for a great coaster, paper weight, mobile phone prop stand, door binder and squatty potty toilet stool.
May 5, 2023
Can't believe he died I mean it was foreshadowed to the point where they basically told us beforehand but still
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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August 16, 2023
Perfect. Impossibly perfect.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews