A Game of You consists of The Sandman issues #32-37.
Premise[]
The central character of A Game of You is Barbie, introduced as a resident of the house where Rose Walker stayed during the events of The Doll's House, wherein Barbie dreamed a vivid dream of herself as a princess of a fantasy realm. As A Game of You opens, Barbie, who no longer dreams, but lives in an apartment block with her best friend, Wanda, the lesbian couple, Hazel McNamara and Foxglove; the witch, Thessaly; and a quiet man named George
Martin Tenbones, a character from Barbie's dreams in The Doll's House, enters into the waking world to give her the Porpentine, a quartz amulet, but is slain by the police. Using the Porpentine, Barbie returns to her fantasy realm, known simply as the Land, where she is required to oppose the mysterious villain called the 'Cuckoo'. Upon return to the Land she is greeted by Wilkinson the shrew, Prinado the monkey, and Luz the dodo — her allies in the quest.
In New York, George, recruited by the Cuckoo, releases a flock of birds to give nightmares to the other apartment residents. Immune to this, Thessaly kills George, and uses George's remains to divine the threat of the Cuckoo. Thessaly then summons the moon, which offers advice; on which Thessaly, Hazel and Foxglove travel to the Land to assist Barbie, leaving Wanda with the unconscious Barbie and George's still-animated head.
Barbie has multiple adventures, which involve pursuit, loss of friends, and betrayal, and discovers that the Cuckoo resembles herself as a child, while the Land is identified as part of The Dreaming. The Cuckoo describes Barbie as "the perfect place to develop" and describes herself as "unable to fly", but intends to escape from the Land so that she can fly through the worlds and lay her own eggs in more young girls' minds. She therefore causes Barbie to break the Porpentine on a monolith called the Hierogram, which summons Morpheus who unmakes the Land.
Morpheus absorbs its inhabitants, and assures the Land's original owner, a woman named Alianora, that the Land has been home to many minds since her own time. Thessaly urges him to kill the Cuckoo, but Morpheus suggests that some action of Barbie's prevented the Cuckoo from leaving the Land, in connection to the events of The Doll's House. Dream then grants Barbie a single boon, for which she asks that she and her friends be returned to New York "safe and sound". The Cuckoo escapes into another reality, and Barbie and her friends learn that a storm (Hurricane Lisa), resulting from Thessaly's spell, has killed Wanda. At the funeral, Barbie finds Wanda buried under the name of her former self, Alvin Mann; and when alone, alters the name upon the tombstone. She then dreams of Wanda, with a perfect female body, and Death, who both wave her goodbye.
Issues[]
| Issue | Title | Writer | Penciller | Inker | Colorist | Letterer | Ast Editor | Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Slaughter on Fifth Avenue | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| 33 | Lullabies of Broadway | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| 34 | Bad Moon Rising | Neil Gaiman | Colleen Doran | George Pratt & Dick Giordano | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| 35 | Beginning to See the Light | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| 36 | Over the Sea to Sky | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus & Bryan Talbot | Shawn McManus & Stan Woch | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| 37 | I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying | Neil Gaiman | Shawn McManus | Shawn McManus | Daniel Vozzo | Todd Klein | Alisa Kwitney | Karen Berger |
| Series | |
|---|---|
| The Sandman | |
| Collections | Preludes and Nocturnes • The Doll's House • Dream Country • Season of Mists • A Game of You • Fables and Reflections • Brief Lives • Worlds' End • The Kindly Ones • The Wake |
| Novellas | Midnight Theatre • The Dream Hunters • Endless Nights • Overture |
| Spin-offs | |
| The Sandman Universe | The Dreaming • House of Whispers • Lucifer • Books of Magic • John Constantine: Hellblazer • The Dreaming: Waking Hours • Hell & Gone • Nightmare Country • Dead Boy Detectives |
| Other | The Dreaming • Death: The High Cost of Living • Death: The Time of Your Life • Lucifer • Book of Dreams • Dead Boy Detectives |