Rescuing the damned in ‘Locke & Key/The Sandman: Hell & Gone’ and ‘The Sandman’ series
In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, scholar Joseph Campbell notes the global ubiquity of myths featuring a protagonist attempting to rescue a deceased loved one from the afterlife. This mythic effort to rescue the departed from an unpleasant afterlife has been explored poignantly in comics by Neil Gaiman and various artists in The Sandman series, and more recently by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodríguez in Locke & Key/The Sandman: Hell & Gone, a crossover comic featuring characters from The Sandman and Hill and Rodríguez’s Locke & Key series.
The debut issue of Locke & Key/The Sandman: Hell & Gone opens in 1927, twelve years after the events depicted in the Locke & Key: …In Pale Battalions Go… miniseries. The Locke family, based in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, possesses magical keys, each granting its user unique, wondrous abilities, such as flight, or instantaneous transportation. In 1915, fourteen-year-old Jonathan (“Jack” to his family)— against the pacifist wishes of his father, Chamberlin — used the keys to fight for the Allied cause in World War I. The effort ended tragically, with Jack now dead and his soul in Hell.
Hoping to bring peace to both her dying father and dead brother, Mary Locke visits and bargains with the unscrupulous English occultist Roderick Burgess in an effort to rescue Jack’s soul from Hell.
In The Sandman series, Burgess’ ritual in 1916 to capture Death — and thereby achieve immortality — instead results in the capture of Dream. Dream and Death are siblings, two of the cosmic entities known as The Endless. Dream, also known as Morpheus, has dominion over humanity’s dreams and stories from his realm, The Dreaming; Morpheus refuses to cooperate or even speak with Burgess, and Morpheus is held prisoner for years. Mary’s hope is that Morpheus’ knowledge can help her free Jack.
The first issue provides a suspenseful, poignant story, perhaps more so for longtime Locke & Key readers who are emotionally invested in the fate of the Locke family, and the crossover is a delight for fans of the Sandman mythos. Rodríguez’s artwork, with colors by Jay Fotos, is gorgeous; Rodríguez renders the characters and settings of both fantasy series with great craft, arguably producing some of the best artwork yet of his acclaimed career.
The crossover is not only a combination of two popular comics series, but also a fitting means to explore, via a mythic context, the feelings of grief and regret often experienced as a result of bereavement. For readers familiar with The Sandman series, Mary’s attempt to rescue Jack is reminiscent of Morpheus’ efforts to liberate a loved one from Hell.
In The Sandman #4, Morpheus, having escaped his imprisonment by Burgess, journeys to Hell to reclaim his helm; on that adventure, readers see him interact with a human soul named Nada. The exchange is brief; readers learn that Morpheus and Nada were lovers, and that Morpheus condemned Nada to Hell 10,000 years ago. Morpheus rejects Nada’s plea that he free her.
In The Sandman #9, the story of Nada and Morpheus’ romance is presented. At the dawn of civilization, Dream and Nada, the queen of humanity’s first city, fall in love; Nada is reluctant to pursue the romance, as she believes love between humans and the Endless is forbidden and will lead to tragic outcomes, which proves true when her city is destroyed. She rejects Dream; heartbroken, Dream condemns Nada to eternal suffering in the afterlife.
In the story arc “Season of Mists” (The Sandman #21–28), Dream’s siblings bring up his wrongful treatment of Nada; shamed and regretful, Dream travels to Hell in order to free her. The effort leads to Lucifer’s abdication as ruler of Hell, and Morpheus having to decide the future of Hell when he is given the key to that realm by Lucifer. The story arc concludes with Morpheus securing Nada’s freedom, although the two remain separated.
Gaiman would again explore the effort to rescue a loved one from the afterlife in The Sandman Special #1; Gaiman uses one of the best-known examples of this type of mythic tale, Orpheus and Eurydice, changing it to make the demigod Orpheus the son of Dream rather than the Greek god Apollo. When Dream refuses to help Orpheus free his dead wife Eurydice from Hades, Orpheus enlists the aid of his other Endless relatives and uses his superhuman musical talent in an effort to do so. Orpheus’ attempt is ultimately a failure, and he suffers a tragic fate as result of the measures he took to free Eurydice.
Campbell notes that the Orpheus story is one of many myths that portray attempts to reclaim loved ones from the afterlife, and comments on the thoughts that such myths inspire:
“The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and hundreds of analogous tales throughout the world, suggest … that in spite of the failure recorded, a possibility exists of a return of the lover with his lost love from beyond the terrible threshold. It is always some little fault, some slight yet critical symptom of human frailty, that makes impossible the open interrelationship between the worlds; so that one is tempted to believe, almost, that if the small, marring accident could be avoided, all would be well.”
Campbell observes that some of these myths end with success (as was the case with Dream’s rescue of Nada), but that these stories are not as emotionally impactful: “…where we also have a happy return, the effect is not reassuring, but only superhuman. The myths of failure touch us with the tragedy of life, but those of success only with their own incredibility.”
With one issue of Locke & Key/The Sandman: Hell & Gone remaining, it is uncertain whether Mary’s efforts will result in success (like Dream’s rescue of Nada), or end in tragedy like Orpheus’ attempt to reclaim Eurydice. Regardless, the creative team utilizes the respective narrative continuities of the Locke & Key and The Sandman series — and readers’ connection to the characters — to great effect, creating an engaging, poignant tale that reflects the emotional pain of bereavement, and the mythic stories these feelings inspire.
NOTES AND FURTHER READING:
Locke & Key/The Sandman: Hell & Gone #1 (Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodríguez, et al., IDW Publishing, 2021)
The Hero with a Thousand Faces [Third edition](Joseph Campbell, Novato: New World Library, 2008) The quotes above can be found on page 178.
The Sandman #4 (Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, et al., DC Comics, 1989)
The Sandman #9 (Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, et al., DC Comics, 1989)
The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists — 30th Anniversary Edition [collecting The Sandman #21–28](Neil Gaiman, et al., DC Comics, 2019)
The Sandman Special #1 (Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Mark Buckingham, et al., DC Comics, 1991)
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