{"id":1137,"date":"2012-08-06T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2012-08-05T17:54:44","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T00:54:44","slug":"mark-reads-the-sandman-9x13-part-thirteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/08\/mark-reads-the-sandman-9x13-part-thirteen\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Sandman’: 9×13 – Part Thirteen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the sixty-ninth issue of The Sandman<\/em>, Dream faces his destiny. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Sandman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Part Thirteen”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am very happy that of all issues of this series, this<\/em> is going to be the very first one that gets a live reading. The wonderful Jane Humphreys bought this video way back in June, when I first started selling Mark Reads videos, and she has dedicated it to her friend Johanna! This was a total blast to do, especially since it was a challenge to read a comic book aloud. I FELT LIKE I WAS TELLING THE INTERNET A BEDTIME STORY.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s the video:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nI don’t want this video to be the only<\/em> thing I say about this monumental issue. It’s just so impressive that Gaiman managed to bring together so many characters from earlier in the series in a way that gives a powerful thematic ending to the story of Dream. This might be some of the slowest<\/em> character building I’ve ever seen of a protagonist, and I’m just so impressed with how this all comes together. I don’t know if Gaiman planned to end the series this way the whole time, but I suppose I don’t really care. He could have made this all up as he went along, or he could have planned it from the beginning. Neither really matters to me, because all I care about is the story that came from this process. (Which isn’t to say that I’m not<\/em> fascinated with behind-the-scenes info regarding how something is written; I’m just saying I don’t need it to appreciate the story as it is.)<\/p>\nIt’s weird to say that I’m satisfied<\/em> by this ending. I mean, I know I have one final volume left, as well as the extra material. (Check the Master Schedule! Surprises are there!) But this is really the climax of The Sandman<\/em>, and I can’t imagine a better ending than this. Dream had to die, and he had to pass on his realm to someone else. Delirium was right; his existence had warped the universe, and this was his chance to do something to rectify that. Is it sad? Hell yes<\/em>. I didn’t cry, but I was hit with this immense wave of wistful longing when I got to that sequence of panels where Dream took Death’s hand.<\/p>\nUgh, there’s another volume. HOW. HOW<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the sixty-ninth issue of The Sandman, Dream faces his destiny. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Sandman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[235,216,104],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sandman","tag-emotionally-destructive-fiction","tag-mark-reads-the-sandman","tag-neil-gaiman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}