Is The Sandman Netflix show part of the DC Universe? There are other connections even in that first Sandman volume as well, including fighter-of-the-occult John Constantine (previously played in live-action by Keanu Reeves and Matt Ryan, played in The Sandman on Netflix in kind-of-gender-swapped form, as Johanna Constantine (a DC character in her own right) by Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman) and a brief visit with Justice League member Martian Manhunter.īut since The Sandman was sold off as its own universe, these connections are largely limited to the comic.

This is how he eventually ends up in an asylum.Īn asylum, you say? Yes, you guessed it-the asylum that Dee ends up in is none other than Arkham Asylum, known best as a home at one point or another for most of Batman's unhinged villains. We see him going by the persona of Doctor Destiny, a superhero getting beat up by the likes of Batman and the Green Lantern. Yes! While the initial 75-issue run of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic generally tells its own standalone epic-consisting largely of interconnected short arcs and standalone tales-there are numerous references to the story existing in a world where other DC staples, such as Gotham City, also exist.įor example, in the first arc of The Sandman, titled 'Preludes and Nocturnes'-which is adapted into much of Season 1 of Netflix's The Sandman-when we first meet up with John Dee (played by David Thewlis in the show), he's become a monster-ish shell of a human after overusing the ruby stolen from Dream. Is The Sandman comic part of the DC Universe? And even more luckily, it's not all that complicated. When shows like Peacemakerare spinoffs to movies like The Suicide Squad, just about everything we watch on Disney+ is connected to some larger world-either the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars-and even franchises like Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and The Boys are now expanding with prequel series, it's sensible to wonder whether something like Netflix's The Sandman (which is based on a DC Comics series written by Neil Gaiman) is connected to any larger DC Universe, much in the same way that the aforementioned Peacemaker is.

Alas, we're not talking about the actual cosmos of outer space, but the somewhat-related worlds of sci-fi, horror, and genre movies and shows.

If you're a fan of television or film, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you're not, that probably sounds like something Neil Degrasse Tyson or Carl Sagan would say. We're living in a world of interconnected universes. The following story contains light spoilers for The Sandman comic and Netflix series.

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