MYTHCOMICS" "DREAM-- THE HEART OF A STAR" (SANDMAN ENDLESS NIGHTS, 2003)

 I don't remember having noticed the collection SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS following the conclusion of the ongoing series, so all seven tales-- each based around one of the seven "Endless" characters-- were new to me. Naturally there's some mythopoeic content in all of the stories, but only the one centering around a "young" version of Morpheus achieves conscrescence. "Dream-- the Heart of a Star" is also of interest because it anticipates some of the story-tropes seen in 2015's SANDMAN OVERTURE, in that the Endless interact with stars that incarnate as humanoid entities with human-like emotions.

Another two similarities to OVERTURE: artist Miguelanxo Prado goes all-out to portray the Endless within a cosmic setting divorced from mundane realities, and Gaiman structures the story as a loosely-plotted interaction of characters. It begins with a framing-device of a "father" telling a story of long-distant events to his child, though by story's end it will be revealed that the storyteller is the sun of Earth's solar system while the child is the Earth itself, or its indwelling spirit. the story begins with our viewpoint character, blue-skinned Killalla of the Glow. The facts of her skin-hue and her manipulation of green energies-- with which she seems to be making a small humanoid image-- probably signal to any DC fan that Killalla has some connection to the immortal Guardians, who will later found the galaxy-spanning Green Lantern Corps. The second page establishes that Killalla is traveling through space in a bubble, implicitly created by her lover Morpheus, and that the two of them are attending a gathering-- though it will transpire that Morpheus has not told his paramour everything about the nature of the attendees.

  Killalla and Morpheus arrive at a gargantuan palace floating in space. Killalla will later be astounded to learn that the entire structure was conjured into existence by the gathering's host, Mizar, one of many attending stars who has assumed humanoid guise, even as the Endless do. The purpose of the "parliament," as Mizar calls it, is largely political, since the stars and the Endless are negotiating spheres of influence, though again, there seems to be no good reason for the Dream-Lord not to inform Killalla that she's the only organic being present. 

Killalla's first encounter with one of Morpheus's "conceptual family" is with Desire.  The dialogue establishes that Morpheus believes that his sister Desire somehow made possible his meeting with Killalla, though Desire's remarks on the subject suggest that she's something less than beneficial in her intent. Meanwhile, some dialogue between Mizar and other stars-- one of whom is the sun of Krypton-- establishes that one of the suns, Sol by name, is very young and clumsy, and that as yet he has no living planets within his orbit.

Killalla has a confusing encounter with Dream's sister Delight-- who will only be known as "Delirium" in the regular SANDMAN series-- while Mizar and her fellows are more than a little disconcerted when Death accepts the invitation and shows up at the gathering, albeit only briefly. Mizar is considerably less disturbed by the presence of Dream's brother Destruction, explaining to Killalla that "he is the process that fuels all the stars." Killalla also meets Destiny, who informs her that in the future her interaction with Morpheus will determine the attitude of the Endless toward romantic interactions with mortals.

Finally, after Gaiman has finished dancing around, the main conflict rears its head. One of the flame-headed humanoids, Sto-Oa, reveals to Killalla that all of his kind are incarnated stars-- and that further, Sto-Oa is the personified sun of Killalla's own homeworld Oa. The sun also proposes that he and the mortal woman get together, and like the mortals of many a myth, Killalla is instantly beguiled by one from her own stomping-ground. Morpheus witnesses the two of them kissing, and though Sto-oa expresses some trepidation that the Dream-Lord may take vengeance, Morpheus does nothing but make his excuses to Mizar and to leave the party. He does however blame Desire to steering him toward an ultimately unfaithful paramour, and here she does take some obscure responsibility, saying that she considered it "a joke." This provides a reason for the general hostility between Dream and Desire in the ongoing series  

On a sidenote, Dream's remaining sister Despair puts into the mind of Rao, the sun of Krypton, the idea of what a poetic thing it would be if a planet perished and only one mortal denizen survived. This conceit might have worked better if Krypton had perished in a supernova-- which implicitly would have been an act of Rao-- rather than the planet perishing because its core was unstable. In any case, Sol of the Future concludes the story by saying that Killalla returned to her system with Sto-oa and eventually died, though she was somehow joined in the heart of her solar lover. It's a slight story compared to the best of Gaiman, but HEART does succeed in its limited goal, to show that romance, as much as the fiery hearts of stars, has a propensity for destruction.