Death of the Endless

The promotional posters from The Sandman gave us a look at some other main characters, starting of course with the fan-favorite Death. In the series, Death will be portrayed by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, in a change of look that already created some protests: albeit appearing most of the times as an extremely pale goth lady, however, Death takes a lot of different appearances throughout the comic series (once appearing also as an Asian woman, in manga-style), so the race-swap shouldn’t be so controversial this time. If, whatever ethnicity she is, the character is done right, she will be quite a blast. In the meanwhile, let’s take our usual look at the original.

Daughter of Night, the embodiment of nothingness, and Time, Death was the secondborn among the Endless, conceptual beings incarnation of the primeval forces of the universe. Younger only than her brother Destiny, Death appeared the moment the first living creature did, and from that moment she undertook her specific task: she appeared twice in the existence of all living beings, from mortals to gods to stars, at first to welcome them in life upon their birth (a meeting only she held the memory of), and a second time at the end of their lives, as she greeted their souls to bring them to their final resting place. Death knew since the very beginning that she would have been the last one to leave the universe, to “lock the door behind her” after the last living being had disappeared from the cosmos, and waiting for that moment she worked tirelessly. Once, some 80,000 years ago, she also had to come for one of her younger siblings, and unprecedented event that deeply changed her. The Endless brought their sister Despair‘s corpse to the Necropolis Litharege, the only place in the Multiverse to hold the knowledge of how to properly accompany an Endless to the afterlife, but they found that knowledge lost, and the Necropolitans made stupid and cruel by their wealth: the Endless destroyed the Necropolis, and let a new one, respectful of the dead, take its place. Even if Despair was soon reborn (or replaced by a successor, that much is unclear), Death changed her attitude towards her younger siblings, and from that moment she became a maternal big sister for them, guiding them with her wisdom, advising them in their time of need: in this capacity, she became particularly close to her younger brother, Dream, the one she enjoyed the most to spend some time with. In the meanwhile, of course, she traveled all planets in all creation to welcome each and every soul into life, and to accompany each and every one of them to wherever they were headed after.

Death never stopped a moment, and some times she also came for her family, such as when she took away Eurydice, wife to her beloved nephew Orpheus; some other times, instead, she made exceptions, as it happened with one Hob Gadling, a regular man she decided to never claim until it would have been him to ask for it (and he lived for several centuries after that, never giving the impression of wanting out). Despite her tireless work, she found time for yet another path of growth, and she decided that, one day per century, she would have lived as a mortal, among them, in disguise: she did learn a lot of things, indeed, as this little “vacations” helped her to better understand those she was called to serve during her “job”; to fully do so, however, she also had to die, and thus she always took the form of a mortal fated to die that very day, experiencing the last day of their life, and thus learning to value the very existence she contributed to giving and taking. Two other major events upset the life of the Endless family: first, in 1695, Destruction announced to his siblings that he was leaving for good, forsaking his task, something that Death never truly understood, as she was totally devoted to her purpose; then, in 1916, her favorite brother Dream went missing, imprisoned by a mortal mage. In the seventy years that followed, Death continued her job, meeting with several of the new superhumans popping around all over the universe, even establishing a friendship of sorts with some of them, such as the Phantom Stranger, John Constantine and Superman, and of course unknowing avatars of herself such as Black Racer, Black Flash or Nekron. Finally, Dream finally broke free… but Death immediately realized that his spirit had been broken, and that he was feeling humiliated, enraged and purposeless. It was the perfect time for big sis Death to take her little brother for a ride, reminding him of his place and his value in the universe.

Death of the Endless is the personification of death, but she’s much different from what one usually expects: kind, playful, caring, gentle, she’s the most human among the Endless, and albeit she takes her job very seriously, she is always cheerful and reassuring when she appears to those she’s come to take. She is probably the most powerful among the Endless, only slight less so than the Presence Himself, as being the personification of death she also defines life and existence in opposition; she is immortal and invulnerable, she is omniscient and omnipresent, she can change her appearance at will… and do pretty much anything else she likes since, unlike her siblings, she’s the only one among the Endless who’s not bound by any rule. Nearly omnipotent, but humble and delicate nevertheless, Death is a constant presence in everyone’s life, a silent companion who guides each and every mortal soul from cradle to grave with unexpected kindness and humor.