The Sandman: Overture Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Corinthian

The Corinthian is a nightmare created by dream to reflect the dark aspects of humanity that they would rather not acknowledge. Dream informs the Corinthian that there are boundaries between the waking and the Dreaming that the latter has violated. Although Dream's creations are supposed to remain in their own realm, the Corinthian has been visiting the waking world to kill people. For this reason, Dream plans to uncreate the Corinthian.

However, before he can do so, Dream receives a powerful summoning that he cannot resist.

The Corinthian takes the opportunity to escape into the waking world. In the original "Sandman" series, in the story arc called, "The Doll's House," Dream catches up with the Corinthian at a serial killer convention, where the latter is the keynote speaker. Dream finally uncreates him there.

Answer: Other versions of himself

These other versions of Dream are described as "aspects" of himself drawn from different times and realities, and take a vast array of forms, some quite alien, some machine-like, and there are even feminine versions. They are meeting because an aspect of Dream somewhere has died and "the orderly transfer to another facet of Dream has been interrupted."

Answer: A vortex

A dream vortex is a being capable of breaking down the barriers that separate individual dreamers, with the result that people start sharing the same dream. Left unchecked, this can envelop a whole world, ultimately resulting in all of the dreamers dying. On an alien planet, long ago, when the first dream vortex arose, he was unwilling to kill it; the home planet of the vortex was destroyed as a result. Death, his older sister, warned him that he must put out the planet's sun, to prevent the problem from spreading throughout the cosmos, but he would not.

The sun became a mad star, and its madness is now spreading like a cancer that threatens to destroy the mind of the universe.

Answer: Desire

Desire is Dream's androgynous younger sibling, with whom he has had a strained relationship, ever since It pulled a cruel prank on him aeons ago. (Desire is both male and female, so the other members of Dream's family use the pronoun "It".) When this deception is finally revealed, Desire explains that Dream would not accept help from anyone but himself, and without Desire's help, Dream would have failed, and the universe would have died, bringing an end to Desire's realm, which It could not bear.

Answer: Hope

Her full name is Hope Beautiful Lost Nebula and her father had been killed shortly before Dream found her. At the climax of the story she plays an instrumental role in assisting Dream in resurrecting the whole universe.

Answer: A lover

Desire sends him a being of light he calls Alianora. Dream promises her his heart in return for her help and together they slay the two gods. Dream forges his helm from the skull of one of them. Eventually, Dream's relationship with Alianora turns sour.

She feels unable to return to the waking world because she has become adapted to living in the dreaming, so he creates a skerry, a kind of island in the dreaming, for her own use. This is referenced in the storyline "A Game of You" in "The Sandman" #36, where Alianora's ghost makes a cameo appearance.

Answer: Saeculum

The Saeculum has an almost Dali-like appearance, as it takes the form of a pocket watch that bends and changes shape. It first appears in Chapter 2, in a scene set in Dream's future in 2015, when he visits the old woman known as Mad Hetty, who had hidden the Saeculum away many years earlier.

In the story's present of 1915, it is revealed that Dream had borrowed it from his father, Time, and later lost it. Actually, Desire induced mad Hetty to steal it, so that Desire could use it to assist Dream in the universal crisis, and arranged for it to be hidden for a hundred years so that Dream could later return it to their father.

At the climax of the story, when Dream is resurrecting the universe, there is a small panel featuring Time holding the Saeculum, implying that he may have been assisting Dream in the process. "Overture" has a non-linear storyline that involves a number of time paradoxes that all come together in a meaningful pattern in the end.

Answer: Destiny

Destiny, the eldest of the Endless, is seldom surprised by anything, as the book he carries with him contains a record of everything of everything that was, is, and will be. However, he is quite astonished to find a sailing ship in his garden that is not in his book.

He determines that it belongs to Dream's realm, and summons his brother to explain its presence. Dream is reluctant to accept the summons, claiming he was doing "perfectly well" on his own, even though he clearly was not. Although Dream does not recognise the ship, he acknowledges that it belongs to him. On board he meets the Cat, who has parked it in the garden out of harm's way.

The Cat has saved a thousand beings from many different worlds from the great war that now rages across the cosmos; the ship is a vessel to hold them.

Their dreams will be needed to recreate the universe.

Answer: Night

Dream visits Night's realm while trapped inside a black hole. She advises him to let the universe die and come live in her realm. She even offers to make a dreamworld in her realm for him, including a partner to love him. He declines her offer, so she calls him selfish and leaves him in the black hole to think about the consequences of his actions.

Answer: 3

Desire tells her twin Despair that the first time around, Dream was destroyed completely, the second time, he rejected Desire's offer of help and was "plunged into darkness, never to return." The third time, Desire posed as the Dream of Cats and was able to help him restore the universe. Desire was able to do all this using the Saeculum to reset time after Dream failed in his efforts.