The Sandman: Season of Mists

Season of Mists (1992) is the fourth collection of issues in the DC Comics series, The Sandman.

It was written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Matt Wagner, Dick Giordano, George Pratt and P. Craig Russell, coloured by Steve Oliff and Danny Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein.

Overview

The issues in the collection first appeared in 1990 and 1991. The collection first appeared in paperback and hardback in 1992. The title is the opening phrase of John Keats' "Ode to Autumn."

It was preceded by Dream Country and was followed by A Game of You. The 2003 graphic novel Death: At Death's Door by Jill Thompson is also related.

Kelley Jones pencils the bulk of the story, inked in various issues by Malcolm Jones, Dick Giordano and P. Craig Russell. Jones's larger-than-life grotesques and obvious sense of humour make him ideal for gods, demons and other supernatural figures. His episodes are bookended by a prologue and an epilogue drawn by Mike Dringenberg, the former inked by Malcolm Jones III, the latter by George Pratt; and an interlude set in an English boarding school is drawn by Matt Wagner and inked by Jones III. It introduces Endless siblings Destiny and Delirium, and features Thor, Odin and Loki from Norse mythology, Anubis and Bast from Egyptian mythology, Susanoo-no-mikoto from Japanese mythology, Lucifer and the Angels Duma and Remiel from Christianity, Shivering Jemmy, a Lord of Chaos with the body of a child and the mind of a monster, and the fairies Cluracan and Nuala, who will play important roles in later stories.

Season of Mists is the first rehearsal of one of the central themes of the series, that of rules and responsibilities and whether we can lay them down. The Endless family conference which opens the book makes the second reference to the "prodigal" (the first reference appearing in "The Doll's House"), an Endless sibling who abandoned his realm and responsibilities, and centres around Lucifer deciding he doesn't want to be the devil anymore.

In 2004 this collection received the award for the best scenario at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Synopsis

The fourth collection belongs with the first as perhaps one of the two collections most focused on Morpheus himself.

It begins with an Endless family meeting descending almost immediately into an Endless family argument. Desire angers Morpheus by taunting him about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, whose story formed the prologue to the second collection, The Doll's House; Death angers him further by agreeing with Desire, but Morpheus' immense respect for Death leads him eventually to agree with her assessment.

Morpheus leaves his realm to travel to Hell, where he imprisoned his former lover, to release her. Having left Lucifer, lord of Hell, somewhat angry with him the last time he ventured there (in the first collection, Preludes and Nocturnes) Morpheus is apprehensive about the task. He sets about it, wanting to do what is right.

In the event, his apprehension is somewhat misplaced. As he arrives, Lucifer is busy closing down Hell. Morpheus follows Lucifer around in a state of some bafflement before Lucifer finally persuades him this is not an elaborate trick, that he indeed intends to leave Hell, and his obligations as its lord, forever. His final act before leaving is to lock all the portals to Hell and cut off his wings; he then hands the key to Hell to Morpheus, to do with as he will. Much of the rest of the collection is concerned with Morpheus' attempt to divest himself of this troublesome piece of real estate.

Much to Morpheus's chagrin, the interested parties promptly convene in the castle at the centre of his realm, the Dreaming. Here many characters who have parts to play later in the series are introduced, amongst them the representatives of Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala. After much bargaining, wheedling, bribery, trickery, Norse drunkenness, and threatening behaviour, Morpheus manages to get rid of Hell without much obvious harm coming to him. The collection ends with Lucifer sitting on an Australian beach, grudgingly admiring God's sunset.

The oddball issue in this collection is #24, "In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education", a take on the traditional English boarding-school story which is used to illustrate the consequences of Hell's closure. This plotline was cut off before the resolution of Morpheus's predicament. Unfortunately, the two focus characters are never heard from again in the Sandman series, though they later appear as "The Dead Boy Detectives" in Gaiman's Vertigo cross-over story The Children's Crusade, and in a mini-series of that name by Jill Thompson.

Issues Collected

See also

• American Gods

References

• Bender, Hy (1999), The Sandman Companion, New York: Vertigo DC Comics, ISBN 1563896443

External links

• The Annotated Sandman
• Review of the trade paperback, Silver Bullet Comic Books

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