Sandman #3

Issue Details

Synopsis

Torch wielding villagers descend on the castle keep of a tyrannical Count. The Count's zombie gorilla minions keep the villagers at bay, long enough for the Count to swallow poison. Days later, distant relatives of the Count claim his body from the celebrating villagers. The Count's relatives are revealed to be masquerading zombie gorillas. The Count's body is placed in an electrostatic thermo-cylinder, then shipped overseas, to America. There, a Professor Rundhaven performs a miraculous operation that separates the Count's still living brain from his lifeless corpse. For his services, the Count repays Rundhaven with a quick death by psychic electrocution. Anxious to greatly expand his burgeoning mental abilities, and also escape the tank his brain now resides in, the Count makes plans to steal certain papers from the famous American brainwave scientist, Ralph Ervin. The disembodied brain enters into the dreams of Ervin's sleeping daughter, Susie. Influencing her to rise from her slumber, Susie is told to gather her father's paperwork on cerebro-static power absorption. The brain's intrusion into Susie's dreams, however, has not gone unnoticed. From the Dream Dome, the Sandman witnesses the ghastly horror intruding on the sleeping girl's mind, and jumps into the Dream Stream to confront it. Susie is ordered to leap off a cliff, in the dreamscape. While the Sandman is occupied with Susie's rescue, the brain withdraws from her mind.Susie awakens from her encounter with the Sandman and the Count's brain, and relays her fears to Ervin, who writes the whole tale off as a bad dream. Having failed to achieve his goal through his psychic prowess, the Count sends two of his zombie gorilla minions to Ervin's home, the following night. Maintaining his watchful eye on Susie, the Sandman interrupts her dream to broadcast an emergency warning, directly into her brain, regarding the ape intruders. Susie bolts awake and runs to tell her father what is happening. Once more, her fears...