The first appearances of some non-Gaiman Sandman characters.

[kamino_neko]

Recently, I was reading Moore's run on Swamp Thing, and the issue which reprinted the first Swamp Thing story (adding the Alex Olsen Swamp Thing to the Alec Holland Swamp Thing's mythos), and the framing story, featuring Cain and Abel got me to thinking about the pre-Sandman existences of some of the major characters...after tracking down their earlier appearances, it occurred to me to share the first appearances of the ones I knew of... (I'll be ignoring most of the superhero characters and John Constantine, since, with one exception, they only had roles in one arc, aside from The Wake. (Or, in the case of Wesley Dodds was barely a cameo in either of his appearances, even if they were in different arcs.))

Most of the ones who got major, recurring roles, started out as the hosts of horror anthologies in the 60s and 70s. I mean...there were a solid bunch of them.

Let's take them in approximate chronological order of when we meet them in Sandman...

Starting with Cain, whose first appearance was in House of Mystery 175 (one issue after the book was converted to a horror anthology)...


'Able caretaker'...eeesh.
We'll skip the stories themselves, since, obviously, he didn't appear in them, and visit his other appearance from the end of the issue.

This is also Gregory's first appearance!

Next up, Abel, whose first appearance was in House of Secrets 81, its very first issue as a horror anthology. Interestingly, it starts with a 10 page origin for the House itself, then a 4 pager about Abel taking over as caretaker, which is where the following comes from...



One notices he doesn't stutter much. Nor did he in his Swamp Thing appearance.

The next we met was Lucien, who made his first appearance in Tales of the Ghost Castle, a very short lived (3 issues) anthology.





... Somewhat different than he'd be in Sandman. Perhaps being on his own for 30 years unhinged him, a bit.

Let's move on, shall we, to the Three-Who-Are-One, who first appeared (in their witchy guise) as the hosts of The Witching Hour, starting from #1.




Once again, rather different than they'd be presented in Sandman. Cynthia lacks the veneer of ditziness, and the sinister aspect of Mildred is right there, rather than buried under a pile of matronly affability. (Also, you know, the whole 'step-sister' thing.)

Finally, we meet the most surprising of this batch...

Destiny.

Yep, one of the Endless themselves began life as a mere host of Weird Mystery Tales...a book he'd later get shoved out from by another host...



Not really much to say about this, except that Destiny was clearly a late add-on to a Kirby-drawn story...he was (apparently) drawn by Berni Wrightson.

There were two other characters sourced from horror anthologies, but both of them were significantly less important to the main goings-on than those four...one was a fairly important tertiary character, the other only got a couple cameos, and is only recognizable because she's mentioned by name by Lucien.

The first of those is the one who pushes Destiny out of Weird Mystery Tales about a year or so in. Matthew's companion, Eve - who got her start in Secrets of the Sinister House #6.




... Yeah.

That raven isn't Matthew, of course. His name is Edgar Allen. I don't think she mentioned him when she was telling Matthew about the other Ravens, but I might just have forgotten.

The final host is The Fashion Thing, who is implied to change up her look depending on what's in fashion at the time...at the time of her first appearance, in The Unexpected #108, she was the Mad Mod Witch (as mentioned by Lucien)...



The electric cauldron is a nice touch. I wonder how Mildred and Mordred would react to HER.

The last two subjects of this post first appeared in non-anthology books...

Matthew the Raven talks, occasionally, about his human life, but he's generally non-specific, so you'd be forgiven for not knowing...or caring...that he was a pre-existing character, even if you read the stories he appeared in before (I hadn't, but I don't think I'd have made the connection, even if I had).

In life, he was Matt Cable, a significant supporting character in the Swamp Thing series, making his first appearance in the first issue of the 1972 series.

Initially, he's escorting pre-Swampification Alec Holland and his wife, Linda...



So, we skip the non-Matt bits, which are Swampy's origin - some sinister people come to Alec, trying to get ahold of his formula, and when he refuses, they try to kill him, but he becomes Swamp Thing, instead. (Or not, but that retcon's more than a decade away.)

So...we pick up at Alec's funeral.



So...yeah, the people who killed Alec are still around, and now they're coming after Linda...but...


Matt is off chasing a dog... Well, I suppose that might lead him to the bad guys, right?

... Oops.

So, while Matt is out like a light, the bad guys kill her, which leads Alec to pursue them...finishing them off just in time for Matt to come to...




Despite this inauspicious beginning, Matt would eventually become friends with Swampy...until his life gets fucked up by depression and alcoholism, which eventually kills him, leading to his becoming Dream's raven. Yay?

Finally, we reach the character who is probably the most important character in Sandman, other than Dream, himself. Hippolyta Hall.

I was going to use her first post-Crisis appearance for this, since Lyta is one of those characters whose post-Crisis history was necessarily very different from her pre-Crisis one, and that's the version Sandman used, but...I actually don't know what that was. So, let's go with the pre-Crisis version's first appearance, from Wonder Woman #300.

The surrounding story is unimportant, aside from the fact that the Wonder Woman of Earth Two picks up her Earth One counterpart and brings her to visit her house on Earth Two.




Interestingly, this issue also featured an appearance by the Sandman - Garret Sanford version (Hector (who was introduced 2 months previous, if I'm reading his page on the DC wiki correctly) wouldn't take up the mantle for another 5 years).

So, there we go...hope you enjoyed.

Comments

[alicemacher]

Excellent research there. Thank you for posting this.

Also, the mouse-over captions for the scans are funny.

[kamino_neko]

Danke.

[brushwoodthicket]

Awesome post, thanks!

[kamino_neko]

Thanks.

[thatnickguy]

I quite enjoyed this. I know he "borrowed" other characters to fill out the supporting cast, like Cain/Abel, Lyta, and Matthew. I had no idea Lucien was borrowed, too. Neat! I tweeted this to Neil Gaiman. Not sure if he'll see it or if he'll be interested, but there it is. I think he'd appreciate it.

I'm with alicemacher; the mouse-over captions were hilarious. My favourite is "Double double, toil and all-natural ingredients." That gave me a good laugh.

Also, although it's not a direct first appearance, one of my favourite moments during Sandman was when Neil Gaiman did an homage to Windsor McCay's Adventures in Slumberland. Right down to the same format and panel layouts.

[kamino_neko]

I had no idea Lucien was borrowed, too.

Yeah, but it certainly makes sense that he would have begun as an anthology host, given his role.

[cainofdreaming]

Fashion Thing was the one I didn't know about. Guess you do learn something new every day.

Very nice post. Though I must say that the artist hadn't quite captured my natural good looks yet in that first appearance.

[icon_uk]

Excellent research and a fun post... the Mad Mod Witch has a lot of Phyllis Diller going on there.

[kamino_neko]

... Hahah, she does, now that you mention it.

[jkcarrier]

Very cool! I never got into Sandman much, but I always respected how Gaiman incorporated so many little bits and bobs from DC's checkered history.

[kamino_neko]

This sort of continuity porn is one of my favourite things about comics from the Big Two.

[captainbellman]

Though of course, it should be noted that Caine, Abel and Etrigan appeared in the early arcs of Sandman because up to "The Sound of Her Wings", he was cribbing the basic plot beats from Moore's Swamp Thing.

[thatnickguy]

Welp, this is pretty cool, too. Gaiman himself gives his approval for this post.

https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/744173146924793856

[kamino_neko]

Sweet.

[alschroeder3]

And kudos to Gaiman himself for giving a framework where the various DC mystery-hosts can interact. Moore included them in his Swamp Thing run, but it was Gaiman who made them servants (or brothers, in Destiny's case) of the King of Stories, a place in Dream's hierarchy.

Thanks for posting this. I remember getting the first Witching Hour, but not the first Cain and Abel appearances.

[kamino_neko]

Some of them actually interacted quite a bit in the anthology days. Cain and Abel, primarily, for obvious reasons.

Notably... Cain, Abel, and Eve shared the hosting duties in the Mad-style comedy series, Plop!
Cain, Abel, Eve, and Destiny shared Secrets of the Haunted House for the first two years. (Issue 5 has the first three taunting Destiny because he didn't have his own book - but that was the same month Weird Mystery Tales ended, so Eve was now without a book of her own...and in about a year, SotHH would become Destiny's alone!)
After the cancellation of House of Secrets and The Witching Hour, Abel and the Three Witches took over The Unexpected.
Issue 44 of SotHH (which was hosted by Abel for the last 7 issues) featured a Halloween party that Abel hosted for the other hosts. Almost everyone was present, with the notable exceptions of the Three Witches (I think this was coincident with when they were supposedly gone missing in The Unexpected) - The Witching Hour was represented by their servant, Eegor, and The Unexpected by The Cat, who had appeared in the couple issues after Abel was sent packing - and Destiny. (Also the Mad Mod Witch, but she'd been dropped almost a decade earlier, presumably because mod was no longer in fashion.) Lucien was apparently killed off in this issue.

[veleda_k]

Wow, I didn't know any of this. Well, Hippolyta Hall, vaguely, but not any of the others. Thanks!

[leoboiko]

Thank you so much for posting this. I knew there was continuity going on, but had no idea on the specifics.

I liked the "new-agey, wiccan witch conflicts with traditional horror-story ones" trope in Terry Pratchett; it's cool that there were predecessors.

[zylly]

I don't know if I've ever quite forgiven Gaiman for undoing Hector and Lyta's happy ending.

[laughing_tree]

There's also Mad Hettie, who first appeared in an issue of Hellblazer, I believe.