The Flash Discovers the Origin of Sandman’s Endless

Summary

• The Flash explores cosmic forces and potentially uncovers the origin of Sandman’s Endless in the DC Universe.
• Physical constants take on anthropomorphized forms and monitor manifestations of emotions in order to prevent stars from succumbing to envy and desire.
• The Flash: 2024 Annual suggests the Endless may have originated from an emotional plane of existence in the universe.

Warning: Spoilers for The Flash: 2024 Annual ahead!Ancient, powerful, and inscrutable, Sandman’s Endless are some of DC’s most mysterious beings. However, as the fastest Flash (Wally West) continues to push the boundaries of the Speed Force to explore the upper echelons of DC’s cosmology, he may have stumbled upon the secret behind the Endless’s own creation.

The Flash: 2024Annual sees Wally West continuing to speed out of synch with reality, hurtling between dimensions to try and track down the mysterious entities known as The Stillness. At one point, Wally meets with the anthropomorphized figures of the physical constants of the universe (light, gravity, thermodynamics, etc.), taking a moment to discuss the strange blob creatures he’s been fighting.

To Wally’s shock, the physical constants reveal that the blobs are actually emotions, which the constants carefully monitor lest “stars and atoms…start wallowing in envy and desire and so forth.”

The Flash: 2024 Annual
is by the team of Simon Spurrier, Scott Koblish, Amancay Nahuelpan, George Kambadais, Tom Derenick, Marissa Louise, Lee Loughridge, Matt Herms, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

The Endless: Emotion Distilled Into A Concept

This description strongly parallels Sandman‘s Endless, seven eternal entities/concepts whose names are their identities and function throughout the universe: Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Destruction, and Delirium/Delight. Much emphasis is placed on the Endless’ function as beings who both are and oversee their respective concepts: Dream’s capture at the start of the series kicks off decades of mental trauma across the universe as minds are no longer able to rest or imagine properly. Meanwhile, the Brief Lives storyline covers the ramifications of Destruction having entirely abandoned his responsibilities.

The Sandman: Brief Lives
covers issues #41 – #49 of
The Sandman (1989)
, and is by the team of Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, Vince Locke, Dick Giordano, Daniel Vozzo, and Todd Klein.

As anthropomorphized concepts, the Endless frequently deal with entities that are more than mortal beings. Critically, they have been known to discuss matters with cosmological elements such as dimensions and stars themselves: In the Sandman: Endless Nights anthology, the story “The Heart of a Star” deals with the Endless’ presence at a conference of celestial entities, where prominent guests include stars such as Mizar, Sol, and Rao. Despair even convinces Rao to seed life on an unstable planet (Krypton), calling it “a perfect piece of art if one single life-form escaped” – inadvertently creating Superman.

“The Heart of a Star” is by the team of Neil Gaiman, Miguelanxo Prado, and Todd Klein.

Does The Flash Explain How The Endless Were Formed?

The universal constants in TheFlash: 2024 Annual have described the process by which stars can emote by attracting enough of these “feeling” entities; “The Heart of a Star” acts as proof. If this is how forces of nature like stars begin to anthropomorphize, then it could be theorized that the Endless came about in the same way: as concepts attuned to this emotional plane of existence. It certainly seems relevant that the physical concepts invoke “envy and desire” as their reasons for keeping emotions away from their realm, with Desire being the most mercurial and vindictive of the Endless.

Generally, it is accepted that the Endless are as old as the universe/multiverse itself (despite them having a hierarchy of age), having existed as long as existence. With its exploration of DC’s cosmological forces, The Flash: 2024 Annual presents a new possible explanation for how the Endless came into being. As The Flash continues to explore the metaphysical forces that make up the DC Universe, more secrets are waiting to be uncovered – secrets potentially even grander and older than Sandman‘sEndless themselves.

The Flash: 2024 Annual is available now from DC.