Jed Walker, also known as Jed Paulsen, is the brother of Rose Walker.
History[]
Jed was born about 1977 to Burt Paulsen and Miranda Walker. After his parents' separation in 1982, Jed's father was granted custody of him and moved to Brevard county, Florida. Burt died in a car crash when Jed was 8, and Jed went to live with his grandfather, Ezra, a lighthouse keeper on Dolphin Island near Cape Canaveral. The relationship was by and large an cordial one, although, by this time, Jed had become more withdrawn and sullen after so many repeated separations from his family - an emotional crisis that only worsened when his grandfather then also died, drowning at sea in 1985.
After that, Jed was taken by his father's cousin Clarice and her husband Barnaby to their isolated, rural farmhouse in upstate Georgia.[1] The couple was extremely abusive, having only taken in a foster child to receive welfare checks. Jed was frequently starved and physically abused. When a year later he tried to escape, the couple, fearful of losing their income, locked him a bare basement with no light, no bathroom facilities, and only a thin blanket on the stone floor for his bed.
In this dark, nightmarish prison, Jed's only escape was sleep. In dreams, he was the main character of a brightly-colored comic book. The recurrent cast of characters included two superheroes, Lyta Hall and Hector Hall, who called himself "The Sandman." They treated him kindly and took him on magical adventures. Unknown to Jed, Lyta, or Hector, what they each believed to be a very long, sequential dream was, in fact, a pocket dimension of the Dreaming, which Hector's "assistants," Brute and Glob, had secretly isolated during the real Sandman's absence. Glob and Brute were able to harness the power of Jed's connection to Unity Kinkaid, the Dream Vortex, and planned to turn this pocket realm into their own personal dream kingdom.
The real Sandman had since escaped his captivity, however, and in the course of restoring order to his domain, discovered the secret dream-realm. Morpheus invaded Jed's dream and destroyed the realm, banishing Brute and Glob, and returning Lyta and Jed to their rightful places in the waking world. The subsequent blast severely damaged the farmhouse, freeing Jed and killing his abusive foster parents.
Fleeing in terror, Jed was unlucky enough to hitch a ride with the nightmare known as the Corinthian,[2] who eventually left Jed unconscious in the trunk of his car "for later." Morpheus, however, still in search of his lost dreams, discovered the Corinthian and unmade him. Jed was rescued by his sister Rose and a gentleman calling himself Gilbert and taken to the Brevard county hospital.[3] Jed's ordeals left him unconscious and severely dehydrated; he had to be put on a drip, and the doctors were worried for his life.[4] Morpheus, however, after his dealings with Rose, declared that their family "has suffered enough" and caused the boy to wake. Jed was reunited with his mother who was living outside Seattle and presumably remained with her, gradually returning to a somewhat normal life.[5]
Due to his long interaction with the Dreaming, Jed was allowed to attend The Wake, where Rose revealed that she was pregnant. Jed seemed happy at the prospect of becoming an uncle.
Trivia[]
- Jed was first introduced in the first issue of the 1974–1976 DC Comics series The Sandman during its Earth-One era. Counting just 6 issues, the series also featured the Sandman himself, his sidekicks Brute and Glob, the lighthouse on Dolphin Island, the old Ezra Paulsen and his death after an attack of a sea serpent in #5, and the abusive uncle Barnaby and aunt Clarice. Gaiman's Sandman had these events retconned, where the seemingly heroic adventures Jed embarked on with the titular hero were revealed to be set in Jed's mind created by Brute and Glob.
- The dates of Jed's early life can be calculated from Rose's research and her estimation of Jed's current age in Moving In, although that leaves less than a year for his life at the lighthouse.