User:DanielCM/Sandman deaths

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This is a list of deaths in the 1989 comic book series Sandman.

Original series

Preludes & Nocturnes

Sandman #1: "Sleep of the Just"

• A dead man is mentioned when Roderick Burgess is performing the spell supposed to summon and imprison Death. One of the items used is a stick that Burgess had stuck through a dead man's eye.
• A cat is implied to be killed by Roderick Burgess with a dagger, as part of an attempt to kill Ruthven Sykes with a magic spell. This happens in Wych Cross, England, at some point after Sykes got his protective amulet in December 1930. This spell fails to kill Sykes because his amulet keeps him safe.
• In 1936, Ruthven Sykes dies, after Ethel Cripps stole his protective amulet and Roderick Burgess successfully uses a magic spell to make his head explode. This spell works even though Burgess is in England, and Sykes in San Francisco, USA. It is not clear if any other cat is killed this time as well.
• In 1947, Roderick Burgess dies while lamenting that he should not have grown so old while Dream still looks young after decades. Burgess also laments that Dream never gave him any special powers, including the power to stay young. Burgess's headstone has the words "Not dead, only sleeping".

Sandman #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

• Rachel (John Constantine's lover) dies after Dream took back his sand pouch, which was keeping her alive in a dream state.

Sandman #4: "A Hope in Hell"

• Some souls of dead people are seen confined in Hell, including Nada. Some other dead people are seen merged with walls. There are some spikes with disembodied heads, including one head of a man that is seen talking to Dream.
• In Hell, some people were transformed into trees at the Wood of Suicides, because they killed themselves. One tree remarks that it killed itself in order to make the suffering stop, but it had not stopped. These woods used to be a tiny grove, but it had grown to a large forest; this implies that a large number of people killed themselves.
• Some deaths are seen in the game played between Dream and Choronzon.
  • A wolf (Choronzon) is stabbed by the spear of a hunter (Dream) on horseback; the horse is then stung by a horsefly (Choronzon).
  • The horsefly (Choronzon) is consumed by a spider (Dream).
  • The spider (Dream) is devoured by a snake (Choronzon).
  • The snake (Choronzon) is crushed by an on (Dream).
  • The ox (Dream) is destroyed by anthrax (Choronzon).
  • A world filled with life (Dream) is cremated by an exploding nova (Choronzon).
  • The universe (Dream), encompassing all things, is ended by anti-life (Choronzon), the dark at the end of everything. After this, Dream wins the game by becoming hope, because Choronzon is unable to think of something to defeat hope.
• Ethel Cripps died at some point. This is revealed when a security guard in Arkham Asylum tells her son John Dee (one of the inmates at the asylum) about her death. John Dee also receives the protective amulet that Ethel had stolen from Sykes decades before.

Sandman #5: "Passengers"

• A night security guard was hanged by Scarecrow. The guard has a "kick me" sign behind his back. John Dee sees the dead guard when he is escaping from Arkham Asylum.
• Rosemary Kelly is murdered by John Dee with a gun. This happens after he entered her car and and made her drive at gunpoint.

Sandman #6: "24 Hours"

• Kate has a dream in which Garry is seen dead out of revenge for his infidelity. In the dream, Kate is holding Garry's head on a platter.
• There are some unseen deaths as a result of John Dee using the power of the ruby and driving people insane around the world. The deaths are whispered to him by the ruby itself, and are also mentioned on the TV news.
• A fly is killed and eaten by John Dee.
• Bette Munroe, Johnny Carson, Judy, Marsh, Garry, and Kate are murdered by John Dee at the 24 hour diner. Before killing them, John Dee used the power of the ruby to control their minds and torture them.

Sandman #7: "Sound and Fury"

• Some people are shown to become insane as a result of the ruby used by John Dee.
  • Elderly people are implied to die when the nurse Maude Carillon started a fire on the geriatric ward.
  • A plane has crashed and caught fire. It is not clear if any people died in this plane crash.
  • A dog is beheaded by a man.

Sandman #8: "The Sound of Her Wings"

• Death is seen visiting some people at the time of their death, together with her brother Dream:
  • Harry, an elderly man, dies at his house in New York, when he was playing violin.
  • Esmé dies from an electric shock when she was doing a stand-up show about Batman.
  • A baby dies when her mother is taking care of him.
  • A man is shown dead from taking pills.
  • A dead man is seen lying face-down on the street.
  • An elderly woman is seen dead at the hospital bed.
  • A man was shot at the stomach.
• The teenager Franklin dies when he gets hit by a car when chasing a soccer ball on the street.

The Doll's House

Sandman #9: "Tales in the Sand"

• As part of story that happened thousands of years ago, Nada transforms into a gazelle, and Dream kills the gazelle with a spear. This causes her to become human again.
• At the end of this story, Nada dies by throwing herself off the mountaintop, when Dream is insisting that they should be lovers. After Nada's death, Dream sentences her to Hell because she rejected him.

Sandman #10: "The Doll's House"

• Davy is implied to be killed by the Corinthian.

Sandman #11: "Moving In"

• Burt Paulsen (Rose Walker's father) died at some point in a two-car smash-up, which was mentioned on a newspaper.
• Ezra Paulsen (Rose Walker's grandfather) died when he drowned four years before the current events. He was 82 years old.
• Two young men have their eyes removed by Corinthian, and are implied to be killed by him as well.

Sandman #12: "Playing House"

• Two men attack Corinthian in a dark alley, but they are implied to be killed by him.
• It is revealed that Hector Hall was already been dead for two years, even though he remained as a ghost and was unaware of his own death. Eventually, Dream sends him away to the realm of the dead. Hector's wife Lyta Hall accuses Dream of killing him.

Sandman #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

• In 1389, it is mentioned that Ball and Tyler died. Additionally, Hob Gadling says that he lost half his village to the black death, and that he also fought in the war.
• In 1589, Hob says that at some point in the past, he killed people for white bread.
• In 1689, Hob mentions that at some point his wife Eleanor and his son Robyn died.
• In 1789, Hob says that at some point, a man named Jack Constantine died.

Sandman #14: "Collectors"

• In the Little Red Riding Hood story as told by Gilbert, the wolf kills the grandmother. The wolf also pour the grandmother's blood in a bottle, and slices her meat on a plate. Little Red Riding Hood unwittingly drinks the blood and eats the meat. At the end of the story, the wolf kills Little Red Riding Hood as well.
• There is a convention of serial killers. They talk to each other about their victims. Most of them appear to take pleasure in murdering people, without any guilt. It is later revealed that the Corinthian influenced them to behave this way.
  • Nimrod have four chest freezers implied to be filled with dead people.
  • At the convention, Nimrod tells a joke about a woman being "reaped" with a scythe.
  • The Bogeyman was a serial killer as well. According to Corinthian, the Bogeyman died three years ago.
  • A man calls himself a god, and says that he murdered men, women, and children to release them from the suffering and torment of their lives.
  • Another killer says that God told him to do it.
  • Philip Sitz pretends to be the Bogeyman at the convention. However, his lie is discovered by the Corinthian, then Philip is kidnapped and murdered by the serial killers.
  • A man says that he killed 170 people, most of them by drowning.
  • The Connoisseur says that he killed only eight people, because he specializes in murdering "preoperative transsexuals".
  • Fun Land says that he has going to a certain place (implied to be an amusement park) with many children. He mentions that he had been friendly with the children and playing with them. This has the implication that he murdered those children. Fun Land also mentions that the people who run that place know about him but keep it a secret, because they do not want people to stop going there.
  • A man says that his first victims were cats. He used to behead cats with a knife when he was a kid. When he got older, he started to have violent fantasies about women, and followed women around with a knife, "just to see how it felt". Eventually, he started to murder women.
• Corinthian dies when his creator Dream "uncreate" him.

Sandman #15: "Into the Night"

• It is revealed that the raven Matthew used to be a man. At some point when he was a man, he died and became a raven.

Sandman #16: "Lost Hearts"

• Unity Kinkaid dies in place of her granddaughter Rose Walker. Dream originally intended to kill Rose because she was a vortex (which means that she had the power to merge all dreams and eventually destroy the universe). However, Unity willingly became the vortex in her place and died, so that Rose would continue living.

Dream Country

Sandman #17: "Calliope"

• Erasmus Fry is last seen alive in 1987. Years later, it is revealed that he died.
• Richard Madoc mention stories with an holocaust and a child sacrifice. This is a result of Dream using his power to force Richard to have ideas for several new stories.

Sandman #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats"

• Some newborn kittens are murdered. They were the litter of the female cat owned by Paul and Marion. Paul is seen drowning the kittens by placing them in a bag tied to a rock, and throwing them into a lake. He does this because the mother is a purebred blue-point Siamese cat and the father is a stray cat, and as a result the kittens were not worth much money. After killing them, Paul attempts to justify himself, stating that the mother cat did not understand what happened. Marion says that she felt "a little guilty" but agree with Paul.
• The cat mother goes through the Wood of Ghosts in a dream, which is said to be populated with the dead and the lost. They whisper promises to her if she would stop to play with them. She also hear her dead children calling her.
• Some small humans are hunted and eaten by giant cats. This happened in the distant past, when cats ruled the world. However, this past had since been erased and replaced by a new reality where humans had always ruled the world instead.
• A rat is killed and eaten by a cat.

Sandman #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

• Hamnet (William Shakespeare's son) dies in 1596. He was eleven years old.

Sandman #20: "Façade"

• Algon died in a volcano at some point. He was 2,000 years old.
• Death mentions that a woman died when she was changing the light bulb in her child's room, and the stepladder slipped. This happened in the same building where Element Girl lives.
• Death mention that somewhere there are old and young people dying at this moment, as well as innocent and guilty, people who die together, and people who die alone. Death says that she appears whenever someone is dying, including cars, boats, planes, hospitals, forests, and abattoirs.
• Death said that at this moment in West Africa, people are dying because a village is being massacred by mercenaries ordered by their own government. She also says that in a distant galaxy, a planet is being ripped apart by internal stresses, and as a result, crystal intelligences described as "calm and fine and beautiful" are dying as well.
• Death mentions that she was there waiting when the first living thing existed, and that she will be there when the last living thing dies.
• Death says that the "serpent that never dies" died 3,000 years ago.
• Element Girl has tried to kill herself several times in the past, but was unable to die due to her powers as a Metamorph, which were originally given to her by the Egyptian god Ra. Eventually, Death advise her to look at the sun and talk to Ra. Element Girl ask Ra to take away her powers, and she dies.

Season of Mists

Sandman #21: "Prologue"

• A pair of butterflies created by Delirium die, because Desire made the butterflies attracted to the fire. Death takes the butterflies with her, and Delirium looks upset with their death.

Sandman #22: "Chapter 1"

• Some people are seen punished in Hell after their death.

Sandman #23: "Chapter 2"

• Breschau lived in Livonia and died 11,000 years ago. Breschau is seen bonded with chains in Hell for his multiple crimes. He is the last dead person to leave Hell, once Lucifer expelled everyone from it.

Sandman #24: "Chapter 3"

• According to a prophecy, the Ragnarok will eventually happen, at which point the Norse gods Loki and Heimdall will fight each other and die. A ship made of dead men's nails is also mentioned in the prophecy.

Sandman #25: "Chapter 4"

• Several ghosts appear at the St. Hilarion's school. Most of these ghosts are boys that used to study there. They had been in Hell, but they came back to the world of living because everyone had been expelled from Hell.
  • In 1914, the young boy Edwin Paine was killed by Cheeseman, Barrow, and Skinner. They wanted to sacrifice him to the Devil, so they performed rituals and drank his blood. But once they died as well, nobody in Hell cared about their rituals. Barrow and Skinner died of diphteria. At some point later, Cheeseman died in the war when he was seventeen years old. Cheeseman's name is listed in a memorial with several names of former students who died in the war between 1914 and 1918. Edwin returned as a ghost; Cheeseman, Barrow, and Skinner returned as ghosts as well.
  • The current headmaster's mother returned as a ghost as well. She had died in January 1942.
  • Parkinson, an elderly former headmaster, returned as a ghost and is seen performing his duties as headmaster with the ghost boys.
  • A mother is with the ghosts of her two dead children: the young baby Veronica who died as a cot death, and an unborn fetus that died when the mother was sixteen years old and had German measles.
  • The ghost of Simon Mould says that he died by hanging himself in 1955. He apologizes to the headmaster Parkinson for killing himself.
  • The ghost of Peter Hinchcliff says that he choked on his own vomit in 1977, because of "booze and pills".
• Charles Rowland is the only living boy at school with the ghosts. At some point, he is tortured by Cheeseman, Barrow, and Skinner and falls sick, and then the ghost boy Edwin Paine takes care of him. Charles eventually dies in December 1990 and becomes a ghost as well. When Death comes to take Charles, he refuses because he wants to stay with his friend Edwin.
• Charles Rowland's mother died at some point.

Sandman #26: "Chapter 5"

• Cain kills Abel by sawing him in half for people's amusement, and then making sausages with Abel's body.

Sandman #28: "Epilogue"

• An old man talks about the death of his loved ones. His son Darren was killed in Vietnam, and later his other son Sean died in a car crash. His wife died after she had a lump in her breast.
• Some dead people are seen being punished in Hell once more.

Fables & Reflections

Sandman #29: "Distant Mirrors: Thermidor"

• In 1794. many severed heads are seen inside a room in Paris. The living disembodied head of Orpheus was also placed there by Johanna Constantine. At some point, Orpheus starts to sing, and all the other severed heads sing with him.
• In the same year, Robespierre is executed by guillotine.

Sandman #30: "Distant Mirrors: August"

• The funeral of Julia (grandmother of Roman emperor Augustus) is mentioned. The death of Julius Cesar is mentioned as well.
• It is mentioned that emperor Augustus personally killed or ordered the deaths of several people. He is also seen killing a rat with his bare hands.
• Dream mentions that all gods return to his realm to die whey they are old.
• Decades later, Augustus's death is mentioned as well.

Sandman #31: "Distant Mirrors: Three Septembers and a January"

• In January 8, 1880, Joshua Abraham Norton, Emperor of the United States, collapses at the street in a rainy night and dies. Death is seen taking him away.

A Game of You

Sandman #32: "Slaughter on Fifth Avenue"

• The giant dog-like creature Martin Tenbones is shot and killed by multiple police officers, after he left the Land (located in Barbie's dreams) and attempted to find her in the waking world. In the Land, the bird Luz feels his death.

Sandman #33: "Lullabies of Broadway"

• Hazel has a nightmare in which a dead baby is given to her in a box. This is a result of George using his ravens to make several people have bad dreams. In Hazel's dream, her dead baby also kills and eats a living baby that was the child of her girlfriend Foxglove.
• One of George's ravens is killed and burned by Thessaly after it entered her room. The death of his raven harms George to some extent.

Sandman #34: "Bad Moon Rising"

• George is killed by Thessaly with a knife, and his dead body is left in the bathtub. Later, she cuts off his face, eyes, and tongue, and uses a magic ritual to make the dead man talk with her.

Sandman #35: "Beginning to See the Light"

• The old man Tantoblin is found dead in Barbie's dreams, holding a scroll with a message for Barbie. Luz says that she had felt his death.
• At some point in the past, the Room Patrol (some creatures that literally carried a small room) was destroyed by the Cuckoo.
• As said in Tantoblin's message, baby birds are left to die outside their nest, when their mother is taking care of a cuckoo.
• The monkey Prinado is found dead, hanging from the neck at the forest.
• Wilkinson is killed when he tries to shield Barbie from the Black Guard, but a Black Guard soldier cuts Wilkinson's throat. The Black Guard knew their location in the first place because Luz betrayed them.

Sandman #36: "Over the Sea to Sky"

• Luz is killed when Thessaly breaks her neck, because Luz had falsely identified herself as the Cuckoo. The real Cuckoo survives because of Luz's sacrifice. Thessaly actually wanted to kill the real Cuckoo, as revenge because the Cuckoo attempted to harm Barbie and the people near her, including Thessaly herself.
• Billy (Maisie Hill's grandson) was found dead in a motel room at some point, with his head crushed with a monkey wrench.
• All the inhabitants of the Land are implied to die when Dream uncreates the whole place and makes it crumble to dust. The Land's inhabitants included giants, centaurs, witches, fauns, bears, trolls, and giant spiders. Prinado, Wilkinson, and Luz are seen living again for a short moment, but then they are uncreated as well.
• The ghost of Alianora is seen disappearing with the Land as well. As explained later in Sandman #37, she actually had died a long time ago but remained in the Land up to this point.

Sandman #37: "I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying"

• In 1991, Wanda and Maisie die when the building collapsed because of a hurricane.

Fables & Reflections

Sandman #38: "Convergence: The Hunt"

• It is mentioned that Vassily's mother had died bringing him to the world.
• Some wild animals are hunted for food, including a rabbit and a deer.
• According to the peddler woman, Koschei the Deathless died after a woman stole his heart (a heart-shaped gem) where his life was kept.
• Eventually, the peddler woman is found dead at forest.
• When Baba Yaga and Vassily are flying through the night, it is mentioned that mothers are miscarrying, Jews are being burned in their houses, and Romani people are being beaten to death.
• It is mentioned that Vassily's lover (Celeste's grandmother) died at some point.

Sandman #39: "Convergence: Soft Places"

• Fiddler's Green says to Marco Polo and Rustichello da Pisa that both these historical figures have been dead for centuries from his point of view.

Sandman #40: "Convergence: The Parliament of Rooks"

• A dead rook (the bird of the crow family) is seen in Cain's story. It is said that a rook tells a story to the other rooks; if they don't like it, they peck the storyteller rook to death.
• It is mentioned that Adam's second wife (the one other than Lilith and Eve) may or may not have been destroyed by God.
• In Abel's child-friendly story, he and Cain fight and then Death takes Abel. This has the implication that Cain murdered Abel.
• Cain kills Abel once again, by striking him with a fire iron, and then placing his head in the burning fireplace.

Brief Lives

Sandman #41: "Chapter 1"

• Johanna Constantine's gravestone is seen. She died in 1859.
• There are some old shrines to gods that are long dead.
• An old homeless woman mentions that her son Steven died. She was told that his death was an industrial accident, but she does not believe this.
• Delirium mentions people being crushed to death by giant worms. This seems to be a metaphor for Despair's tone of voice that may indicate that she is angry or upset.
• Three blind hummingbirds are eaten by rats. The hummingbirds may have been created by Delirium; the rats live in Despair's domain.
• In London 1665, several people are dead because of the plague. A pile of dead cats and dogs is seen as well; people killed them because they might have helped spread the disease. In a certain house, both parents of a baby are dead from the plague, and the baby is seen trying to suckle milk from the dead mother.

Sandman #42: "Chapter 2"

• Alianora (written as "Eleanora") is mentioned as a former love of Dream that died.
• The little chocolate people are left to melt and die at the table. They were ordered by Delirium as a meal, but she did not eat them.