#sorry sorry rly long rant but i'm loving the comics so far

[lovely-v]

[SANDMAN SPOILERS - Comics and therefore probably future seasons of the show]

*tw for mentioned transphobia (though this whole post is about how I think the comics did trans representation well)

I just finished reading A Game of You (the fifth Sandman comic- the first season of the Netflix show covers almost the first three, for perspective) and WOW did it handle trans issues well. For 1993 especially, but also just in general.

 So there’s a trans character (not the first queer character in the comics by a long shot, Sandman’s always been a queer series despite what transphobes reviewing the Netflix show might tell you). But this character is an actively transitioning trans woman and she struggles with this A LOT. She’s even told at one point (by the reanimated face of a dead man, though we don’t need to get into that) that the gods don’t care about how she feels, gender isn’t something you can change. according to the laws of the universe, she will always be a man. She fights back and insists that she knows who she is, and she never wavers on this fact.

A lot happens in between, but basically, at the end of A Game of You [SPOILER WARNING AGAIN] she dies. Her funeral is horrible. Her entire family insists on calling her by her dead name, though the friend she died in order to save never appeases them by being “respectful” and referring to her as a man. She crosses out the dead name on the grave and writes “Wanda” (the woman’s chosen name). It’s an all right ending, but it still leaves you sad that she died and horrified at how her body was treated after death (her hair was cut, she was dressed in a suit for her funeral)

BUT THEN she’s seen with Death of the Endless, the character who is notoriously kind and loving despite being feared by everyone. Wanda appears beside Death as a woman, beautiful, with long hair and a lovely dress. Showing that, of course, the universe DOES care who you are. It DOES let you decide who to be. She was a woman, and though her body was changed against her wishes after her death, she remains a woman when seen with the personification of Death. Because that’s who she always truly was.

(And yes, you could argue it’s cruel that she dies at all, but the Sandman series is FULL of fates worse than this. Comparatively speaking, it’s a really heartwarming ending)

#sorry sorry rly long rant but i'm loving the comics so far #veesaysthings #the sandman #sandman spoilers #sandman comics #Wanda Mann #(yes unfortunately her last name was Mann) #A Game of You #Neil Gaiman #long post