DC’s wild new Sandman comic pits Corinthian against Mormon angel Moroni

Before The Sandman ever premiered on Netflix, the choice of professional Handsome Menace Boyd Holbrook for the role of the Corinthian — the teeth-for-eyes nightmare who invented serial killers — all but guaranteed a fandom attachment to him.

And just in time, there’s a book precisely for the beautiful, precious people making gifsets and writing Corinthian/Reader fic in second-person perspective: Nightmare CountryJames Tynion V and Lisandro Estherren

Actually, it’s more than just in time. The book is five issues deep into a story about a young woman who sees nightmares when she’s awake. Her encounter with Corinthian results in a twist that is both unexpected and perfectly fitting. Sandman’s logic.

In Gaiman’s world, nightmares walk the earth, Lucifer runs a piano bar, and dreams don’t have to be real to have power. So it’s actually incredible that Tynion and Estherren revealed that the villain of their first arc is… the angel Moroni, who supposedly appeared to Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.

Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. It may not provide enough context. However, there will always be amazing comics.

Also, it was a slim week for releases, as “fifth Wednesdays” usually are, and so we’ve decided to focus on one neat book’s neat reveal. This is the latest edition.

Image: James Tynion IV, Lisandro Estherren/DC Comics

Gaiman’s Sandman — along with American Gods — are his great works of cosmological egalitarianism. All beliefs, from urban legends and superstitions to folk stories and organized religion, can be included and dramatized within the American melting pot. Comics gives us the opportunity to see British people write great American novels. WatchmenAs an example, Tap the Moroni figure as an example. SandmanThe character of Character shows the type of American writing that can provide insight into American spiritual fif-ups-ness.

Until now Nightmare CountryIt was a comic that combines disparate elements. All of them are extremely funny. Sandman. There’s a young artist who never dreams but sees a monster with toothless mouths for eyes when she’s awake. She has attracted the attention of her employers, as well as their horribly self-mutilated, hired killers Mr. Agony, and Mr. Ecstasy. This fascinates an unnamed menacing angel, who is himself a wealthy asshole. And the Corinthian, in what seems to be a search for the meaning of his impact on dreamers and the identity of the mouth-eyed monster who’s cramping his style, takes an interest in all of it.

The Corinthian, created at the close of the 1980s, was Gaiman’s response to America’s “golden age of serial murder,” positing that a rogue Nightmare created to force mortals to productively face their fears escaped into the Waking World and inspired enough killers that they could have a secret yearly convention about it. Horror writer Tynion — co-creator of the ferociously incisive Department of Truth with artist Martin Simmonds — has been marinating in American conspiracy theories, urban legend, and folk mythology since roughly 2016. Perspectives that Gaiman comes by secondhand, Tynion has by birthright: a queer sensibility and a cynical American’s understanding of the country’s mythology. It’s hard to think of a better match to incorporate America’s most mainstream home-grown religion into a story about the Corinthian.

Image: James Tynion IV, Lisandro Estherren/DC Comics

Nightmare CountryIt took its time setting up small stakes using the staples SandmanForm: Mortals are instantly destroyed by Endless drama and a murdering pair, while a wealthy man believes that he has the power to conquer the supernatural just as much as the material. Although I liked the comic, it was not something I would recommend to my friends.

Your villain, however, is the angel that invented Mormonism. He’s back to try again at forcing the American Dream into his secret plans. I can’t waitTo see what happens.