#hell & gone

[panzerdrako]

By Gabriel Rodríguez

Locke & Key / Sandman

[thenightling]

You know, if I was Morpheus, locked in a glass cage, in someone’s cellar, I’d be pretty pissed off that Mary Locke took this...

...to mean “Go put on my helm, and wear my ruby, and go enter The Dreaming.” but somehow not interpret it as “Bring me my helm and let me out and I’ll help you.”

Also where the Hell are the guards who were supposed to be watching him?

[dangerthrillryanson]

PREVIEW: LOCKE & KEY / THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE crossover HELL & GONE - The Beat

In Locke & Key / The Sandman Universe: Hell & Gone, two of the most successful comic stories in recent history will come together.

Well this is cool!

[thenightling]

"M'lord, I neglected to tell you that while you were gone I was caged, gagged, blinded, and impaled.  And that was just the first decade."

[thenightling]

Sandman / Locke & Key Crossover continuity problems:

1.   Alexander acts like he's about twelve-years-old.  And this is meant to be about ten years after Morpheus' capture?! 2.   Cain doesn't "Sound" like Cain.  He reads like the version from Caitlin's run of The Dreaming more than the version from the old House of Mystery comics or Sandman. 3.  And that brings us to The Corinthian.  This portrayal of him comes from the now decanonized Sandman presents The Corinthian comics which cannot co-exist with Overture.   In 1916 The Corinthian went on the run.  He should not be IN The Dreaming to take it over. 4. I think, at some point in The Sandman, Lucien would have mentioned being caged, impaled, and having his eyes torn out and eaten... 5.   Where are Morpheus' guards?  He was supposed to have been guarded since the glass cage was installed.  He woke up to guards already there after his tools were taken. 6.    Morpheus should not be able to have enough dirt on the floor to write on the glass.  Also that would leave great big smudges.  I doubt he had Windex in there. 7.     Why did Mary Locke take Morpheus drawing the helm over where his own face would be to mean "Go wear my helm, and ruby, go to sleep, and enter The Dreaming." instead of "Bring me my helm and I'll help you."?  That seems like a weird assumption. 8.  Since when does Cain, Brute and Glob, The Corinthian, And Roderick Burgess all call Morpheus "Shaper"? 9.  Why and how are people mistaking a fairly well endowed woman in a white dress as Morpheus just because she has the helm on?   Cain, of all people, doesn't seem the type to fall for such a cartoonish mistake.

The art is very good and I am curious to how it plays out but I expect better and the continuity errors are annoying.

[thenightling]

Hey there! I was wondering if you could explain the Locke & Key crossover? Is that spin-off comic of the main Sandman series? Is it good? Do you recommend reading it?

Hello,

The Locke & Key Crossover is set in 1927 during Morpheus' captivity at the hands of Roderick Burgess.

Mary Locke comes to Roderick and exchanges one of the family keys in exchange for a visit with "The Entity" (Morpheus). If you're not familiar with Locke and Key it's about a New England family that have a set of magical keys made of a substance called "Whispering metal." And evil forces want to get a hold of these keys. One key can take you anywhere in the world. One key can let you enter the mind of others. Another key takes you into a mirror dimension. One key can be inserted into a crown and give you control over shadows and turn them into ghostly minion. Another key can let you astral project out of your own body.

Mary gives Roderick a key that can set anything on fire.  

Mary wants to see Morpheus because a member of her family is apparently trapped in Hell. She begs Morpheus to tell her what can be done and needless to say, during his captivity, he does not speak. Roderick laughs at her frustration but as he's walking away Morpheus talks a fistful of sand or dirt from the ground (which really shouldn't even be there...) and draws on the glass wall of his cage, showing her his helm, which she knows is in the possession of Alexander Burgess.

Rather than take this illustration against his cage to mean "Free me and bring me my helm" she takes it to mean she should wear the ruby and helm and enter The Dreaming... for some reason. Also for some reason Morpheus is not being guarded by his two guards he was supposed to have had for the entirety of his captivity.  I know he wouldn’t have been able to give his message to Mary Locke if he was guarded but there’s no explanation or even mention as to why his guards aren’t there.

She finds young Alex sulking in hi room because his father has broken yet-another promise to him about taking him to America. It's clear Roderick is verbally abusive to Alex and treats him like an inconvenience. For some reason Alex appears to be about twelve-years-old here but he was sixteen when Morpheus was captured in 1916. I think Joe Hill isn't that good at timelines.

Mary gives Alex the "Anywhere Key" so he can visit America and she takes the helm and ruby and enters The Dreaming.

In the Dreaming Cain briefly mistakes her as Morpheus (Because apparently Morpheus always wears a dress, and has breasts and human flesh tone... but she had the helm on so...???!??!) The House of Mystery transforms itself into the Locke family home, Key House (which I admit was very clever). Cain kills Abel with a key loaded canon and Mary flees toward the castle.

Cain did NOT sound like himself at all. I almost feel as if Joe based him on the version of Cain in Caitlin R. Kiernan's version of The Dreaming instead of the version actually in The Sandman or the old House of Mystery comics. It didn't "Sound" like his voice if you know what I mean, the dialogue didn't fit him.

Brute and Glob are smashing a stain glass window in a ...shrine to Death (For some reason). And one of them is urinating. Yet again she's briefly mistaken as Morpheus because apparently all you need to look like Morpheus is his helm and ruby. Human skin tone, boobies, and light colored dress somehow are overlooked.

On her way to the castle Lucien (with eyes missing) is displayed, impaled, and locked in a cage, his body obviously broken, gagged, and hanging in a narrow cage outside the castle. You'd think Lucien would have brought up this having happened to him to Morpheus when he returned to The Dreaming but obviously not...

After this brief body horror of poor Lucien hanging outside the castle, Mary comes to the castle where she's greeted by The Corinthian.

Joe Hill meant for this to be a direct connection to The Corinthian's comic from Sandman Presents but obviously no one bothered to tell him that's not canon anymore. And now I feel like he never read The Sandman: Overture because The Corinthian went on the run in that before Morpheus was ever captured. In short, he should NOT be in The Dreaming at this point.

Outside of continuity errors like The Corinthian being in The Dreaming, and Alexander Burgess de-aging, and Cain not "sounding" like himself, and the weird fact that Mary took Morpheus' message against the glass to mean "wear my helm and ruby and go into The Dreaming" it IS an interesting story.

I'd still like to know where Morpheus got the dirt to write on his cage's wall. The first sand he gets a hold of in the original comic was from one of his guard's dreams and only after the circle was breached.

Also does Joe Hill not know how smudged glass gets? Morpheus doesn't have Windex in there. Someone will notice.

I am curious enough to keep reading but it's by no means a perfect story and it makes some questionable continuity decisions. Seeing Lucien blinded, impaled, gagged, and caged felt gratuitous, especially since we just saw half-decomposed, and then splattered Abel bits.

The art is very nice. My favorite panel is Morpheus seated in his cage.

So it's a decent read, better than a lot of The Sandman Universe comics but I do feel it could be better. I also hate the constant delays. I know the Pandemic is partly at fault but this was supposed to be out last summer, then last Autumn, then issue 1 came out in April and now there's no sign of issue 2 other than a few unfinished pieces of art on the artist's Twitter feed.

 @pakosmells

[thenightling]

Morpheus’ entire scene in The Sandman / Locke & Key crossover

[thenightling]

Why am I the only one who noticed that this is technically impossible?

since The Corinthian went on the run in 1916 before Morpheus was even captured...

I know Joe wanted to pay homage to The Corinthian’s Sandman Presents comic but Overture caused that to lose it’s canon-ness(?).   Date-wise it can’t work.   The Corinthian went on the run before Morpheus was even locked away.  

I know the Netflix series will do things differently but this is not the Netflix series, this is comic canon.