Season 1 of Netflix's The Sandman introduced us to several characters from Neil Gaiman's massive universe, including Dream, Lucifer Morningstar, Roderick Burgess, and many more. However, there's one specific character that caught everyone's interest - The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook.)
WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Netflix's The Sandman.
Corinthian's story in the Netflix live-action adaptation isn't that different from his origin in The Sandman comic books. The character first appeared in the tenth issue of Gaiman's comic series. In the TV show and in the comics, Dream uses his powers to create beings that he sometimes uses as Nightmares, and Corinthian is one of those creations.
In the comics, Corinthian was always fascinated by the World of the Living, or the Waking World. He wanted to shape the world to his liking, even though his creator, the Sandman, made it clear that his creations should not leave the Dreaming (Morpheus' Kingdom).
Corinthian first goes against Dream by eating the eyeballs of an ape. After that, he sneaked into the human world and killed a young man. The Nightmare used his powers to possess countless people and replaced their eyes with teeth. In fact, several serial killers in the Waking World were inspired by Corinthian's way of torture, and they saw the Nightmare as a living legend.
Of course, Dream wasn't exactly happy with Corinthian for crossing the boundaries of the Dreaming. So, he tries to destroy Corinthian, but at the same time, Dream gets pulled by the occultists, and the psychopath Nightmare is saved. After that, Corinthian lived for several years and created a place for himself in the Waking World. He even created a group of homicidal maniacs who called themselves the Collectors. Almost a century later, Dream escapes captivity and confronts Corinthian for the harm he has done. The Sandman finishes his incomplete work by getting rid of his broken creation.
When everything works out according to Dream's liking, he recreates Corinthian, but with a few changes. The new version of Corinthian had all the memories of his predecessor, but he stayed loyal to his master until the end.