Record: Neil Gaiman
The UK native Neil Gaiman, who began his career writing short stories, was once known in comicdom as writer of the 1989-96 Sandman series, and has several other comics to his credits. He also went on to write various novels, and even co-authored a few with scribes like the late Sir Terry Pratchett. And then, Gaiman went on to work in TV shows and at least a handful of films, mainly in the late 2010s until recently.
But in June 2024, his fame turned to notoriety as it was reported he'd been accused of sexual assault by several women in the past 4 decades (also that same month, the Canadian literary author Alice Munro was accused of siding with her 2nd husband, Gerald Fremlin, after it was discovered he'd sexually assaulted her daughter Andrea Robin Skinner). Since that time, Gaiman's career has taken a downfall, as you could expect, and deservedly so. And now, in this post, I'll list a number of troubling moments from his comics writings that should be pondered, because what he did for comicdom in past years only did more harm than good, what with how he passed himself off as a "male feminist", and that's just for starters. In quite a few of his writings, including - but not limited to - the Sandman series, there's allusions to sexual violence that, in light of the new discoveries, only give his work a whole new meaning.
- In the Sandman series, when Morpheus confronts Dr. Destiny after he uses the enchanted gem to force several people at a diner to kill themselves in graphic and gory fashion, the "hero" doesn't deliver any serious punishment to the villain after defeating him, which is troubling, considering how heinous Destiny's deeds were. Morpheus just takes Destiny quietly back to Arkham like nothing ever happened, and the victims of Destiny's crimes are otherwise forgotten. That particular storyline is never mentioned again.
- Also, two more moments in the Sandman series stick out as alarmingly horrific and defeatist - issues 14 and 17. In the former, the focus is on a convention for serial killers/rapists at a hotel complex(!), and a girl nearly falls victim to a giant, obese child rapist before Morpheus stops him. But, once again, a lenient approach to sexual violence occurs in the script - the giant rapist starts dreaming that his victims forgive him for his crimes and party with him, and Morpheus just delivers a lecture to the offenders who're attending the contrived scenario of a convention, and lets them all slip away without ensuring the police will arrest them. In the latter, when the writer Richard Madoc repeatedly rapes Calliope after buying her as a sex slave from Erasmus Fry for the sake thinking up ideas for books, Morpheus' idea of punishment - and how to free the lady from Madoc's clutches - is again very weak. He merely clogs the creep's mind with an avalanche of ideas for literary writing "in abundance", causing Madoc at one point to get a scratch on his face from desperation and frustration in memorizing, and Morpheus never calls the police to arrest Madoc for sexual violence and false imprisonment. Madoc just whines in the end that, with Calliope no longer in his clutches, he can't think of anything else to write. Most bizarre is how Madoc is written describing himself as a "feminist writer" at one point, and nobody thought at the time this was hurtful to the feminist cause? Gee whiz.
- In the 20th issue, the only point seems to be to getting rid of Metamorpho's female counterpart, Element Girl/Urania Blackwell. And the way Death of the Endless acts like it's fun and amusing to see Element Girl perish was sickening.
- Gaiman's mistreatment of Lyta Hall/Fury, to say nothing of her husband Hector Hall/Silver Scarab (neither the latter's codename nor Infinity Inc. receive any mention in the Sandman series), was nothing short of insulting too. Under Gaiman's writing, we're told the anthropomorphs Brute and Glob had Hector resurrected as a semi-ghost so they could come up with their own substitute Sandman while Morpheus was MIA, and after Morpheus makes the two monsters disappear, he causes Hector to disintegrate in a very cold, uncaring manner, and doesn't give a damn if this upsets Lyta, who believes Morpheus killed Hector. In all the time I've known about that storyline in issue 12, I've been shaking my head in disbelief at how anybody, no matter their standings on Roy Thomas' creations, could ignore that or not be disappointed at the cold way Gaiman deals with Lyta and Hector. And the son, Daniel? Well the way that's dealt with - Morpheus wanting the little guy to be heir to his throne in the Dreaming, and the 1994 storyline where the series' takes on Loki and Robin Goodfellow apparently burn the poor little guy to death in order to transfer him to the Dreaming - was nothing short of repulsive too. Oh, did I mention Lyta also falls victim to sexual misconduct in later issues like 59? A story which does a terrible disfavor to Black men as well.
- In the 38th Sandman issue, a girl complains about sexism, and here Gaiman turned out to be even worse in real life.
- In Books of Magic - the original 4-part prestige-format miniseries from 1990 - when Zatanna puts on her original costume with fishnet stockings and a top hat similar to her father Zatara's, Tim Hunter and a cabbie look at her like she's nuts. Which must've been Gaiman's way of trying to conceal his contempt for women by playing "moralist" on the issue of sexy outfits, when in real life he behaved terribly to the fairer sex. And towards the end of the storyline with Zatanna in it, when a crowd of monsters at a convention threaten her and Tim, John Constantine merely cuts in and puts an end to everything without a fight. Which unfortunately results in an underwhelming portrayal of Zatanna that doesn't give the reader a chance to see how effectively she can be written as a lady combatant. In light of the discoveries about Gaiman, of course, such a cop-out takes on a whole new meaning.
- In a 1994 miniseries titled Alice Cooper's Last Temptation, which Gaiman wrote as part of a short-lived imprint called Marvel Music, there's a panel that's set up so it makes it look like the young protagonist of the story is being threatened by a child rapist, which in the story is a form of zombie. The scene is so repellent because it looks like a sex assault scene hidden in plain sight. It also reeks of coded dialogue.
- In the 2007 Eternals miniseries Gaiman wrote, Sprite, the member of the group who's meant to resemble an 11-year-old, tells how he wishes he could have sexual relations with Sersi, who, according to Gaiman's script, has done it with almost all other male Eternals. As though it weren't bad enough that near the beginning of the miniseries, Gaiman depicts Sersi blabbering that a homosexual man she knows told her he likes her because she "looks like a cross-dresser"! That too was offensive based on how it's demeaning to women by saying she looks like a man(!), but even worse is the scene near the end where Sprite, when confronted by Zuras over the former's misdeeds (Sprite all but erased the Eternals' memories), threatened to tell authorities that Zuras tried to assault him sexually, a scene which minimizes the seriousness of sexual abuse by making it look like children not only lie about being sexually assaulted, but that such lies are routine (Identity Crisis has a similar problem in the epilogue with Animal Man dismissing a newspaper headline about Jean Loring being assaulted in prison). And then, adding insult to injury, Zuras broke Sprite's neck towards the shoddy tale's end.
- In Secret Origins Special, a woman implies she's uncomfortable with the thought Batman could be peering through her bedroom window while she's asleep. When Gaiman did worse. And the topic of infidelity comes up in the tale, something Gaiman did too. And, in Secret Origins 36, Poison Ivy's reading a book titled "Feminist Trash". Could that have been Gaiman's way of hinting what he really thought of feminists too?
The Gaiman Sandman series will hopefully be going out of print after this scandal, and let's hope DC's archivists will be willing, for a change, to concentrate on reprinting the original Golden Age Sandman stories featuring Wesley Dodds (and also Sandy Hawkins). Those great stories nearly a century ago from 1939-46 are what people should really be reading, not some shoddy modern-age mishmash like what Gaiman turned out.