Sandman: Joker was supposed to appear in the story, but Gaiman was forced to remove him

When telling sandman Author Neil Gaiman has created a very close encounter between the world of the Eternals, specifically that of Dream, and the world of the Earthlings. For that, Gaiman was able to indulge himself by adding characters and locations already seen in other DC Comics series, and to begin with he also included a very well-known villain.

The clown prince of crime and Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, had been inserted into a sequence that would later become part of the fifth volume of Sandman. Gaiman himself revealed it in an interview: “At the beginning of the fifth volume of Sandman, John Dee, Doctor Doom, runs away from Arkham Asylum and he should have hit the joker“. However, after writing the entire sequence, he received a phone call asking him to change characters, since in the scene described, Joker headed for the waters of the Gotham River and disappeared.

Given how the upper floors had perceived the scene, or with Joker’s death quickly implied, Gaiman was asked to change characters in the sequence due to discontinuity issues with the other series. The choice then fell on another, historical antagonist of the Caped Crusader scarecrow. In the scene released later, Scarecrow talks to Dr. Dee trying to get out of the asylum, referring to the clown: “If you see Joker, tell him to hurry up and come back. It’s not an April Fool’s joke without its jokes.”

this request led Gaiman to avoid including DC Comics giants flow into the story, avoiding the risk of having to rewrite entire sections of the script. Finally, we remind you that we leave you our review of the Netflix series of Sandman and five unforgettable stories of Joker.