#Proverbial Lambs to the Ultimate Slaughter

[onlyhurtforaminute]

FAITHXTRACTOR-SPIRITUAL FOG DISSOLVE

[thenightling]

The original House of Mystery (for Sandman fans)

What is the House of Mystery?                          Or A History of The House of Mystery!

Everything you need to know lies below...

 The original House of Mystery comic books were a horror anthology series published by DC.  Cain The Caretaker didn’t make his first appearance until issue 175 for the issue “The Gift of Doom.”  (Sounds like an Invader Zim episode title, doesn’t it?)

Cain was the caretaker for a strange and spooky old house, VERY similar to the one you see in the opening credits of Tales from the Crypt TV series from 1989.  

Notice how Morpheus describes The House of Mystery when he wakes up there in issue 2 of Sandman, after fainting at Cain and Abel’s feet upon his return from seventy-two-years captivity.  

 Each issue of the original House of Mystery comics contained one to three short (one-shot) scary stories told to us by the ghoulish and pun-loving narrator, Cain.  Since the stories were usually stand-alone stories that means you could read them in any order.   So if you want to skip straight to issue 175 to meet Cain, you won’t be lost if you choose to that.   

The House of Mystery began as a supernatural horror anthology but that temporarily changed in the 1950s into the early to mid-60s.

During the comic book persecution and censorship era of the 1950s (which killed EC comics) DC tried to make House of Mystery more a crime drama comic or science fiction short stories and avoided the supernatural.  But the arrival of Cain in issue 175 signaled the end of all that tiptoeing around the comics code.  Cain brought the spooky, supernatural horror with him, back from the proverbial grave.

This is why it’s important The House of Mystery’s roots should not be forgotten.  Cain’s very existence was an “F--- You” from editor, Joe Orlando, and directed toward the ham-handed censorship and prohibition against supernatural horror (That the general public somehow seemed to think was the cause of all their ills).  For modern writers and game developers to downplay the supernatural horror attached to The House of Mystery and to diminish it in New 52 and in DC Universe online MMORPG is a sin against comic book history.       

For a while in the 1960s into the early 80s The House of Mystery was DC’s answer to EC’s Tales from the Crypt.   While EC had The Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper, and Old Witch, DC had it’s knock offs own versions in Cain, Abel, and Mordred AKA The Crone from The Witching Hour (or sometimes Eve).

 Nope!  No similarities here!   

Note: I don’t care if they’re a rip-off.  I love them both.

Despite serving the same purpose as The Crypt Keeper, Cain was physically modeled after Len Wein.  Both Cain and Abel were physically modeled after real DC writers.  But their purposes were strikingly similar to the EC characters.  

Len Wein even posed as Cain for a DC staff Halloween party.  

Where Vault Keeper got his own spin-off with Vault of Horror, Abel got his own spin-off from The House of Mystery with The House of Secrets.

Cain was so much like The Crypt Keeper that both would say similar phrases such as “Pleasant Screams!” or “Pleasant Nightmares!” and “Greetings, Boils and Ghouls!”  They both loved their horror related puns.

EC’s characters of the Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper, and Old Witch only appeared together in media outside of the comics for the entire second season of the animated Tales from the Crypt Keeper horror anthology cartoon series that ran from 1993 until 1999. 

EC comics fell victim to the mid-50s comic book witch hunts where comic books were blamed for all things from juvenile delinquency to mental illness and violent street crime.  EC collapsed but its legacy would live on. Tales from the Crypt would get movies and a popular HBO TV series in the late 1980s, followed by a three season animated series that would run until 1999.   

The House of Mystery comics spawned their own legacy.  DC attempted several other horror anthology spin-offs including The Witching Hour and Tales of Ghost Castle.   The Witching Hour was hosted by three witches who represented the traditional Mother, Maidan, and Crone trinity.  Sandman fans will recognize them as the Hecatae.  Tales of Ghost Castle was hosted by a certain Lucien, The Librarian.

 Lucien’s come such a long way from his humble roots that you might not recognize him now in his current form.

A more dapper suit of clothes and better hairline.

In the early eighties it seemed like the horror anthology comics were a dying genre but Alan Moore kept Cain and Abel in use for Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing began as a story told in Abel’s House of Secrets after all.  (issue 92).

The House of Mystery is where many DC properties can find their roots.  The House of Secrets was a spin-off of The House of Mystery.   Swamp Thing was a spin-off of The House of Secrets.  I, Vampire (the stories of Andrew Bennett)  came from The House of Mystery.   Constantine, by extension, began as a Swamp Thing character.  This is also true of Matthew The Raven who began as the human Matthew Cable in Swamp Thing.  

For a few years in the early 80s Elvira: Mistress of The Dark took over hosting The House of Mystery and took many jabs at poor Cain.

And ultimately all these horror hosts from The House of Mystery and the other DC anthologies found their way to... Sandman.

The House of Mystery gained editor Karen Berger at issue 292 in 1981.  She would more or less single-handedly run DC’s horror line into the 1980s.  Karen Berger was the editor for Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and later founder of the Vertigo imprint.  

 She also once bribed Cain with cookies! 

(Fourth wall?  What fourth wall?)

In issue 2 of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman we get “Imperfect Hosts.”

The title is a pun on the fact that not only was Morpheus a guest convalescing in the House of Mystery with Cain and Abel doting upon him but virtually every character in the issue (other than The Sandman, Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless, himself,) were former horror host characters.  Let’s count them.

Cain = House of Mystery  Cain’s Gargoyle, Gregory = House of Mystery  Abel = House of Secrets  Eve (AKA The Raven Woman) = Secrets of Sinister House. (Note: Eve can change her form at will to look like a Maiden, Mother, or Crone. Lucien The Librarian = Tales of Ghost Castle (Turns out that was Morpheus’ castle all along!  Don’t you just love retroactive continuity?)    Note:  Lucien had a love of werewolves and a pet werewolf named Rover. 

This is paid homage to in the werewolf issue of Sandman, issue 38.)

 The Mad Mod Witch (AKA The Fashion Thing) = The Unexpected 

Destiny = (Neil Gaiman added the “of The Endless” and gave him a family) = Weird Mystery Tales

The Three Witches (AKA The Hecatae / The Fates / The Kindly Ones - The Furies) = The Witching Hour  

Bonus mention:  Judge Gallows  = The Unexpected.  Neil Gaiman never used Judge Gallows but both versions of The Dreaming spin-off have a version of Judge Gallows.  (I am NOT a fan of Judge Gallows.)   

Thanks to Sandman, Cain and Abel (as well as many of the other horror hosts) were now established as being loyal subjects of the Dream Lord, Morpheus, and their houses (which could appear anywhere in the world) had their roots in the realm of dreams (known as The Dreaming.)

Cain’s own existence in The Dreaming (Realm of Dreams) could be taken as a pun since the Judeo-Christian Cain was supposed to have been banished (or wandered) to The Land of Nod.  In children's’ literature The Land of Nod is an old term for “The land of Dreams”.   

Whether Cain is the literal Judeo-Christian Cain, or just a dream-entity created from the collective unconscious idea of who Cain should be, is left ambiguous even though Lucifer, in Sandman, respects Cain’s mark as if it definitely is the real mark of Cain.   It could even signify the importance of symbolism and belief that it would be respected even if he was just the collective idea of Cain.  

Lucifer is also, apparently, one of the only things that can frighten Cain.

In Judeo-Christian lore Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve.  Abel made an offering to God of a slaughtered lamb. God was pleased.  Cain made an offering of fruits and vegetables he had grown. God showed no interest. In jealousy Cain murdered his brother by bashing his head with a rock.  A version of this tale is told in Sandman issue 40, The Parliament of Rooks.

When God asked Cain where his brother was he replied “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Though a more accurate translation of the scene had God ask where the sheep keeper was and Cain replied with something like “Do I look like a brother keeper?”  Cain was banished for his crime and given a mark that was to serve as protection that others were not allowed to do him harm lest they be punished sevenfold.  

In modern lore this has been used to indicate he was also cursed with immortality.   A nod to this comes up in Sandman issue 67 during Sandman: The Kindly Ones.    

The TV show Lucifer followed an overly simplified version of this lore borrowed from the show Supernatural and its version of Cain the mark just meant he was immortal and served no other purpose. The version of Cain in the Lucifer TV series was very, very different from the version who hosted The House of Mystery and would regularly appear in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. 

In Sandman Cain does have a compulsion to habitually kill his brother fairly regularly. Since they are both immortal beings Abel usually recovers. 

The Aunts in Netflix’s version of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are modeled after Cain and Abel as they were depicted in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.     

The use of Cain, Abel, and Eve in Sandman could also be seen as a nod to George McDonald’s novel, LIlith, which also entailed a mysterious and ghostly “librarian” known as Mr. Raven and a surreal fantasy world.  It’s been told that Lucien was Morpheus’ first raven.  And some believe he may be Adam the way Mr. Raven was Adam in Lilith.  

 Not only did Neil Gaiman salvage nearly all of the old horror hosts who were falling into obscurity after Crisis of Infinite Earths (DC’s first major reboot) but he made these old horror hosts important characters within Sandman lore as either being servants of or (in the case of Destiny) relations of the main protagonist. 

Neil Gaiman, in a way, saved their lives in preserving them as fixtures of DC canon in a now beloved “ever-green” story that is Sandman.  

The Sandman issue Imperfect Hosts (which can be found in the graphic novel The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes) is a treasure trove issue for lovers of old school horror comics.  There are even subtle nods to the artwork of the late Bernie Wrightson (A favorite of mine).

Imperfect Hosts also gave us Abel’s adorable baby gargoyle, Goldie. 

Goldie was named after Abel’s “imaginary friend” that Abel and sometimes Cain would tell stories to.  She was very likely not imaginary at all but real and a ghost who was haunting The House of Secrets. 

It is said this cover is depicting the original Goldie.

In the original House of Mystery comics Cain would sometimes torment his brother.  It wasn’t quite as brutal as it got in Sandman.   And Cain had a soft spot for children, reveling in stories where those who mistreat children get their comeuppance.  (Side note: I wonder what became of Cain’s pet cat, Oskar / Oscar.  Cain still has his gargoyle but not his black cat.) 

Thanks to a repeated running gag that was featured in (and outside of) Sandman,, which carried over into the 2008 House of Mystery volume 2, we can safely assume Cain’s voice is a great deal LOT like Vincent Price.

Cain and Abel appeared in some of the Sandman spin-off comics of the late 90s and early 2000s but those have since been de-canonized (no longer acknowledged as having happened).   

During New 52, DC higher ups decided that they loved the concept of The House of Mystery.  This was during a spike in Doctor Who’s popularity in the US.  They saw The House of Mystery as a mysterious old house that is apparently bigger on the inside and can appear virtually anywhere and latched on to this TARDIS-esque aspect of it (as that is the nature of The Doctor’s ship, The TARDIS, in Doctor Who).  But they seemed to have no love for Cain the caretaker or The House of Mystery’s spooky ambiance...  The House of Mystery became the base of operation for Justice League Dark, and home of Constantine and Zatanna.  

Cain the Caretaker was nowhere to be found but a new Cain, the supposed “real” Cain and “Sire of all vampires” became the main antagonist of the 2012 reboot attempt at I, Vampire... (it only ran for twelve issues and if not for DC Universe Online MMORPG name dropping him, that vampire version would probably mercifully be forgotten by now.)  I usually like vampires in fiction but I hated this.

 At one point those who were unhappy with the New 52 changes to The House of Mystery were told “Oh, this is a different House of Mystery from the one in The Dreaming.  There are multiple Houses of Mystery.” but readers were, needless to say, skeptical, especially considering Cain’s pet gargoyle, Gregory, was IN the House of Mystery that was being used for Justice League: Dark in New 52!  Did Gregory just randomly wander into the wrong House of Mystery?!   No!  Because we were told he “came with the house.”   That means it IS Cain’s House of Mystery.  Nice try to save your asses there, DC.

DC, through their Vertigo imprint, tried to placate fans of the original Cain and Abel and House of Mystery by having Cain and Abel appear briefly in the 2016 Lucifer comics (Now no longer canon) with their own House of Mystery and House of Secrets in the realm of The Dreaming but this only served to confuse readers further...

Especially since, at the time, Hellblazer was referencing a very different Lucifer (New 52-ified and based on the old and generic idea of The Devil) and a very different Cain.  

Finally Scott Snyder decided to fix things.  Scott Snyder discretely brought Cain and Abel with The House of Secrets and House of Mystery (as well as all of Sandman lore) back to mainstream DC continuity during the event known as Dark Nights: Metal.  

That’s Cain in the bottom left.   And that’s Abel in the upper right.  Separated so Cain cannot commit casual and compulsive fratricide (Abel always recovers) during the meeting of the immortals.

In late 2016 Cain The Caretaker made his very first appearance in television animation.   He appeared in the show Justice League: Action for the episode Trick or Threat.   The episode merged the classic Cain’s House of Mystery with the continuity of Constantine owning the House from New 52 by having Cain giving Constantine a key to The House of Mystery by the end of the episode.  Letting Cain essentially be Constantine’s roommate / landlord, It was a fair compromise of merging the lore.  And it was done expertly by the great Paul Dini, with love and respect for both The House of Mystery and Sandman. 

In February of 2017 The House of Mystery would also appear in the direct-to-video animated movie Justice League: Dark.  Though a decent animated feature, unfortunately this was the version from New 52 so no sign of Cain and the house was a little less... spooky.  

The downplaying of the Gothic ambiance of The House of Mystery is a crime against the history of this comic and what it stood for in the 60s when it was used an act of spooky rebellion against the comics code and irrational persecution and censorship.  It was an act of defiance that should be allowed to stand.  

Abel’s House of Secrets made a brief appearance in an episode of Young Justice as a magick shoppe.  It was likely the last thing a little girl ghost saw before she died as her spirit seemed only able to utter the word “Secret.”   (Secret is a heavily modified ghostly character from DC comics.)

In 2019 the Justice League: Dark event was added to DC Universe online MMORPG.  And though the game has Dark Nights: Metal content the game is more heavily based on DC’s New 52 so the House of Mystery in The Justice League: Dark raids does not have Cain The Caretaker and it looks more like the Plaza Hotel in Home Alone 2 rather than anything truly gothic or spooky...

It was very disappointing to me.

In 2018 Cain, Abel, and The House of Mystery and House of Secrets yet again became regular entities in DC comics with the Sandman Universe comics.  The House of Mystery is back to being a creepy old haunted house with a small graveyard separating it from it’s companion, The House of Secrets.  Both are still kept by Cain and Abel respectively within the realm of The Dreaming.  

May The House of Mystery always revert to the spooky old house where Cain will tell spooky stories to frighten his guests!