The crossover fans have been waiting for has finally arrived, and it has found a way to make the Lord of Dream’s most despicable nemesis even viler.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Sandman Universe/Locke & Key: Hell & Gone #1 by Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, Jay Fotos and Shawn Lee, on sale now.
After months of waiting, the crossover between the world of Locke & Key and the Sandman Universe of Neil Gaiman has finally arrived. The much-anticipated release blends these two franchises together masterfully, introducing the Locke family history into Dream’s own in a truly fascinating way. Not only that, but it has also reintroduced one of Morpheus’ worst enemies, somehow making the Lord of Dream’s former tormentor into something even worse than ever before.
In the twelve years since the events of Locke & Key: In Pale Battalions Go!, Mary Locke has watched her father, Chamberlin, descend further and further into bad health and an even worse depression, both exasperated by his frequent attempts to revive his lost son only to be met with a hellish vision of his long-dead child instead. Mary can’t stand to see things go on this way, and in a last-ditch effort, she goes to see one of the most despicable occultists of all time — Roderick Burgess. Burgess is well aware of the rumors surrounding the Locke family and the magical keys they possess, and Mary’s supernaturally fast travel across continents is all the confirmation he needs to know that the keys are indeed fact rather than fiction. In exchange for one, he is willing to give Mary an audience with his unwilling guest, and their meeting takes readers back to one of the most acclaimed stories in the history of the Sandman Universe.
First introduced in The Sandman #1 by Neil Gaiman and Sam Kieth, Roderick Burgess was born towards the end of the nineteenth century to a wealthy family of industrialists. In the early twentieth century, he used his amassed wealth and influence as Lord Magus of the Order of Ancient Mysteries to purchase a manor that would serve as the base of his occult operations. There, Burgess attempted to capture Death, one of the Endless, and sister to Dream. Instead, he found himself in the possession of the latter entity who was already in a weakened state. Dream never served Burgess, and instead watched the occultist whither away with old age. That took decades to happen though, and in the present of Hell and Gone, Roderick Burgess is still alive to torment not only Morpheus, but his own son Alex as well. Roderick neglects his son, taunting the poor boy incessantly when Alex chooses to stay away from one of his father’s famous Dionysian parties. The excess and debauchery doesn’t interest Alex. Fortunately for him, Mary Locke is willing to trade him the Anywhere Key in exchange for a couple of Dream’s trinkets that Alex just so happens to be in possession of himself, giving Roderick’s downtrodden son a chance to escape.
Roderick Burgess has always been a malicious and foul-tempered villain, and now that he is in possession of a key for himself, not to mention his own son having one even more powerful, there is no telling what kind of terror he is now capable of carrying out. Thankfully, longtime readers already know how the story ends for Roderick Burgess, but we are a long way away from his ultimate demise in the current story’s setting. Hopefully, there isn’t too much more of Roderick Burgess yet to be seen, and if there is, hopefully he doesn’t get a chance to do too much damage during his time back in the limelight.
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