If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Netflix is adapting the Sandman spinoff comic Death: The High Cost of Living - as a surprise new episode of the Sandman TV series

The Sandman series may be ending, but not before Death can take one final bow at Netflix

Published on Tue Jun 03 2025

Popverse's top stories

Discover (or Rediscover!) the origins of the Critical Role's Mighty Nein before Amazon's Prime Video TV series in a new boxed set coming this fall
MEMBERS ONLY: Before The Life of Chuck, Stand By Me, The Running Man, and The Shawshank Redemption showed another side to Stephen King [For Your Consideration]
Eat like a cosmic entity intent on destroying our planet with the new Fantastic Four: First Steps promotion move: a Galactus popcorn bucket (Thanks, Marvel)

Just as the first season of Netflix’s The Sandman was accompanied by a surprise episode drop, so will the show’s second and final season — but this time around, the additional episode isn’t coming from DC’s Sandman comic book. Instead, it’ll be an adaptation of the first original comic book series from the publisher’s groundbreaking Vertigo imprint.

Releasing a week after the second ‘volume’ of the final season of The Sandman will be ‘The Sandman Presents: Death - The High Cost of Living,’ a standalone episode focusing on Dream’s sibling, played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste. While Netflix has yet to officially comment on the additional episode beyond its existence, the title would suggest that it’ll adapt the three-part comic book series that launched DC’s Vertigo imprint in 1991: a comic book written by Sandman co-creator Neil Gaiman with art from Chris Bachalo that followed Death on the one day she became human.

Beyond publishing Sandman and Death comics, DC's Vertigo imprint would produce many of the most groundbreaking comics of the next couple of decades, including some titles that would be adapted into movies and TV shows such as Preacher, Hellblazer (AKA Constantine), The Losers, DMZ, and Y The Last Man. After closing the imprint in 2020, DC announced its return at New York Comic Con 2024.

The new episode’s addition is particularly surprising as The High Cost of Living comic is entirely devoid of any appearance from Dream, yet Sandman showrunner Allen Heinberg has spoken about the show intentionally paring the story back to Dream’s journey, compared with the more expansive comic book series.

The announcement of the additional episode came when the streamer released the episode titles of the second season in full. Those episodes are:

Volume 1, released July 3

Season of Mists
The Ruler of Hell
More Devils Than Vast Hell Can Hold
Brief Lives
The Song of Orpheus
Family Blood

Volume 2, released July 24

Time and Night
Fuel for the Fire
The Kindly Ones
Long Live The King
A Tale of Graceful Ends

The Sandman returns to Netflix July 3.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

Follow Popverse for upcoming event coverage and news

Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.