Review - The Kindly Ones (The Sandman)
The Kindly Ones is the heaviest of all the volumes, and the hardest to get through, because there's a lot packed into it and it's quite emotionally hard-hitting.
As a story, it's pretty amazing. A lot of threads come together in this book and you can finally see where everything was going all along -- so many characters are revisited and their stories tie firmly into the whole. I especially liked the reappearance of the Corinthian, and Nuala's story, which I was anticipating but still got me right in the heart. We don't actually see Orpheus in this volume, but he's still behind everything that's happening, in a way -- and yet all you need to know is that he was Dream's son and Dream killed him. It's really amazing how all the volumes tie together and yet can be read alone.
The art has changed a lot from the first volume, most noticably in this volume. In some ways, I like it a lot -- I particularly like Death and Delirium's character designs in this volume -- and in another way it's kind of jarring.
As a story, it's pretty amazing. A lot of threads come together in this book and you can finally see where everything was going all along -- so many characters are revisited and their stories tie firmly into the whole. I especially liked the reappearance of the Corinthian, and Nuala's story, which I was anticipating but still got me right in the heart. We don't actually see Orpheus in this volume, but he's still behind everything that's happening, in a way -- and yet all you need to know is that he was Dream's son and Dream killed him. It's really amazing how all the volumes tie together and yet can be read alone.
The art has changed a lot from the first volume, most noticably in this volume. In some ways, I like it a lot -- I particularly like Death and Delirium's character designs in this volume -- and in another way it's kind of jarring.