Sandman: Death of the Endless

Benjamin Franklin once astutely observed that only two things in life are inevitable - death and taxes. Personally, given the evidence, I fear the second more.

That's because I've spent most of my adult life in the knowledge that Death looks and acts like your cool big sister. That's precisely who she is for Morpheus, the protagonist of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.

A less grim Reaper is hard to imagine.

Death dresses as a Goth chick, quotes Mary Poppins song lyrics and keeps two goldfish. When we first meet her, she's throwing a loaf of bread at Dream's head.

She will listen to your crap, and offer sound, pragmatic advice. Absolutely nothing fazes her. But then she is Death. She is the Dark Lady creeping near. For every elderly person, who died peacefully in their sleep after a full and satisfying life, she must have collected another twenty candidates for a Darwin Award.

Death has seen it all and collected them all. She's been around since the first spark of life flickered, blazed and snuffed out. She shadowed our ancestors back when they were all single cells. She's been in our periphery since birth.

As anthropomorphic personifications go, Death has it all - killer one-liners, classy aspect and a manner which makes us all feel like we're already best friends.

I have friends with her face tattooed on their bodies. I have others with her picture on their wall.

While not exactly making any of us want to rush towards the end, Sandman's Death does at least take the sting out of that old inevitability. It seems like the last thing that will ever happen to us is to meet her; and that is quite a welcome thought.

Such was her appeal that Death was featured in the first two solo adventures to spin off from the Sandman graphic novels.

Absolute Death collates the two mini-series stories, alongside stand-alone chapters featuring Death from the main Sandman stories. The Sound of her Wings and Facade are the additional stories.

Death Deluxe merely gives us the mini-series tales in one single volume.

She dances like there's nobody watching. She embraces adventure like there's no tomorrow. She wears top hats in the street, even when everyone's looking. Because top hats are great, and she knows that's what everyone is thinking when they look.

Death doesn't blink when people rant, rave and spin stories so fantastical that anyone else would be sneering by now. (She knows those reports could possibly be true.) Instead she cuts through to the crux of the matter and fixes it.

Or offers a hot-dog. Or a Band Aid. Or a needle and thread to sew the tear in your jeans. Or a trip outside your comfort zone, into a place that will possibly help you see the world anew.

She teaches us to reach beyond mere survival into the wondrous grasping of all that it means to be alive. Perhaps because Death, more than any being, knows how impermanent existence will be. She's heard every death-bed regret ever uttered. She learned to love life and smiles at it so fondly, as she snuffs it out.

Of all the Endless, Death seems the most like us. A better, brighter, more brilliant version of living, breathing things. Yet she is still Death, the destroyer of us all.

Now, would anyone like an apple?  They're deeee-lissssh!