#spectre Lucien is wonderful though

[thedisc0panda]

Lucien LaChance deserved better thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[daggerfall]

Hi! I'm wondering if you could talk a bit, if you want, about the Night Mother not being Mephala? Because where I am as a lore-beginner-ish, it seems not wholly implausible that she could have been Mephala at some points? I know she's a corpse with a voice in Skyrim, and she's depicted as a probs-living person in 2920 (though idk what that author's source is), so it seems like her ID varies. And given that the M. Tong worships Meph and the DB broke off the MT, could she never have been Mephala?

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that @the-greymarch wrote most of this word for word and I’m posting that instead of my own research since it’s so much better written and researched than what I could have come up with.

The TL/DR is that there’s only one book that says the Night Mother is Mephala, and it’s written by someone with an agenda against the Brotherhood. That’s the whole point of TES lore, that the narrators are unreliable and typically have biases. Looking an in game evidence, we still don’t come to the conclusion that the Night Mother is really just Mephala in a trenchcoat, even ultimately we don’t come to ANY singular conclusion on who the Night Mother is. 

Anyway here we go. 

The book that offers the explanation of the DarkBrotherhood’s Night Mother being Mephala is Fireand Darkness: The Brotherhoods of Death. This in-game text – written by aMorag Tong assassin - says that before the Morag Tong worshipped Mephala, theyrevered Sithis. The author claims that the Morag Tong STILL revere Sithis, inthe same way that the Brotherhood does. They claim that the schism lies in theNight Mother – when the False Gods of the Tribunal took over, the Morag Tongceased to worship Mephala and turned their sights to Vivec in order to continueoperating as they were.

“TheNight Mother, my dear friend, is Mephala. The Dark Brotherhood of the west,unfettered by the orders of the Tribunal, continue to worship Mephala. They maynot call her by her name, but the daedra of murder, sex, and secrets is theirleader still. And they did not, and still do not, to this day, forgive theirbrethren for casting her aside.”

So Fire and Darkness implies that Mephala is the NightMother and the split between the Tong and the Brotherhood was due to the Tong’sexchange of Mephala worship to Vivec, who was said to be her Anticipation.

One other crucial piece of information we get from Fire andDarkness is that 2920: The Last Year ofthe First Era is a piece of historical fiction. Well researched, accordingto the author, but still fiction.

2920 is a seriesof 12 books, one for each month of the year 1E 2920. In this series, the NightMother is shown as a living woman – a leader in the Morag Tong. Fire and Darkness disputes thisdirectly, saying that the Night Mother has never historically been associatedwith the Tong, only the Brotherhood.

There is on other text that claims that leaders of the MoragTong were known as a/the Night Mother is TheBrothers of Darkness. It claims that all leaders of the Tong, and thenafter that the Brotherhood, have been called Night Mother, as a title. Whetherit’s the same woman they’ve been commanded by since the second era is claimedto be unknown.

“What isbelieved is that the original Night Mother developed an important doctrine ofthe Morag Tong-the belief that, while Mephala does grow stronger with everymurder committed in her name, certain murders were better than others.”

However from my reading of this text, it seems to besuggesting that the Tong no longer exist.

“It is more difficult to date theEra when the Morag Tong re-emerged as the Dark Brotherhood, especially as otherguilds of assassins have sporadically appeared throughout the history ofTamriel.”

One other book that mentions the Night Mother is Sacred Witness, a supposedly trueaccount of the author meeting with someone who calls herself the Night Mother.In this one, the Night Mother supposedly claims she was a thief at the verybeginning of the thieves guild, and she claimed that she suggested a part ofthe guild be dedicated to “the arts and sciences of murder”.

“TheMorag Tong was around long before my time. I know I'm old, but I'm not thatold. I merely hired on some of their assassins when they began to fall apartafter the murder of the last Potentate. They did not want to be members of theTong anymore, and since I was the only other murder syndicate of any note, theyjust joined on.”

The assassination of the last potentate was in 2E 324 when Versidue-Shaiewas assassinated by a Morag Tong in its infancy and his position taken over byhis son who was assassinated along with all of his potential heirs in 2E 430[which ended the Second Empire].

Yet ANOTHER book, The Night Mother’s Truth, claims that theNight Mother was once a Dunmer woman who was a member of the Tong. Supposedly,after the murder of the Last Potentate, Sithis itself spoke to her and shebecame pregnant with five children, and two years later she killed her childrenas Sithis ordered. The townspeople were so horrified by her act that theykilled her one night. Then 30 years later she spoke to a man passing by and shenamed herself Night Mother and named him Listener.

“And sothe Unholy Matron set her servant on his path - he would found a neworganization, a guild of assassins known as the Dark Brotherhood, in servicenot to Mephala, but to the Dread Lord Sithis.”

So as you can see, the in-game books are extremelycontradictory to each other! And it’s no wonder – the series relies prettyheavily on the concept of “unreliable narrators” – that is, you can’tnecessarily trust what people are telling you in game OR reading in thesebooks! Think Holden Caulfield in Catcherin the Rye; you really shouldn’t believe much of what he’s saying.

So if the books aren’t reliable, where do we turn? Let’slook at the Night Mother(s) in the games!

There has been a character with the title of Night Mother inevery main series game since Daggerfall, where the title belonged to a Khajiitwoman (according to the game files). In Morrowind, the “Night Mother” title wasgiven to Severa Magia, the local Dark Brotherhood leader who became anassassination target for the Tong [who the Nerevarine must kill if they jointhe Tong]. In Oblivion she appears as a spectre who speaks only to theListener, which is similar to her appearance in Skyrim where she is a corpse ina sarcophagus and speaks only the Listener.

In ESO, the Night Mother is mentioned a few times – once byElam Drals, who gives you minor contracts in the brotherhood. He brings her upa couple of times in dialogue [“I'm sure the Night Mother feels the same way.You don't see us marching armies out for slaughter, after all." And “Aslave dies slowly, one arduous task at a time. It's enough to make the NightMother Weep!"] and there is also a book in ESO called The Black Hand that states the confusion around whether the NightMother/Dark Mother is a person or a deity or what. The author of this bookclaims that the leaders of the Brotherhood sanctuaries are called Matron ratherthan Night Mother themselves, as several other books claim and is true for Oblivion,Skyrim, and ESO.

Additionally, Speaker Terenus, who recruited you, brings herup at least 29 times based on UESP control-f “night mother”. The way he talksabout her is very similar to how Lucien Lachance, speaker who recruited you in Oblivion, did; Bride ofSithis, mother of all us assassins, being who whispers contracts to theListener, all that. And despite ESO taking place an entire era before all otherTES games, it is more similar in its representation of the Night Mother toSkyrim and Oblivion than Morrowind and Daggerfall. Probably a consequence of itbeing release more recently, but the point still stands. We don’t ever meet theNight Mother or Listener, since we only advance to Silencer, but all of thesigns point in that direction.

So! With all of this conflicting information, where do weend up? There isn’t really an overarching answer to be found on the identity ofthe Night Mother. In Daggerfall and Morrowind the title belongs to the leaderof a sanctuary, and in Oblivion, Skyrim, and (implied) ESO, she is a spirit ofsome kind that speaks only to the Listener.

I think at least one conclusion we can draw is that NightMother is not Mephala. There is exactly one piece of evidence in favor, and itis a book by a Morag Tong member who likely has a vested interest in saying so.Other accounts, though contradictory to one another, at least have more thanone confirmatory piece of evidence elsewhere.

I’m sure buried somewhere in this mess is the truth! But Ican’t tell you what it is, just a little of what it is really, really unlikelyto be.

Maybe we’ll get even more different info in TES6! Who knows?

[glowinggunmetal]

#1: Spectre

Lucien almost missed the Shroud, watching the shadows progress through the trees as slowly as time spun across Hydaelyn.    The darkened shadows of the woods were soothing, the deep silvers of the faded moonlight reflective, contemplative, comforting.  His work was important to him, though, and the world of the Shroud, of Gridania, of every place was sometimes beyond comprehension of depth and breadth.  He’d carefully packed up his schematics, the scraps of his work, and removed himself from one part of the Shroud.

His boots kicked up a bit of dirt in Gridania, the engineer adjusting the goggles strapped across his forehead, as he sat and watched.  Fingers loosely curled towards the palms of his hands and darkness crept upon the Twelveswood, and the man sitting at the base of the tree watching it.  It didn’t creep like a lover, spreading a blanket across the foliage and grass but instead of wound through every nook and cranny of the wood like a ghost that stole the breath from your lungs.

Whatever glimmers of awareness aether might have imparted to the man were lost - the disconnect from himself and aether was as sure as the sun and the moon being polar twins to one another.  He knew the Hearers had whispered that the night was frightening to the wood tonight - something crawled in it like a rot, one had said - and it was that feeling, that rot, that dissent, that fracture in the compartmentalized calm of the wood that he had gone to observe.

Lucien had been in the Twelveswood more than once, even late at night when the good Gridanians were locked in their homes, when the Hedge had been strong and protective and concealing.  Lucien had felt the woods then, and he felt them now - a call, a sorrowful song, wound like a wisp through the boughs of the trees and he pulled himself to his feet.

A lesser man might have worried at the bobbing pale light that seemed a beacon.

A smarter man might have drawn a sword as he walked through the woods.

A different man would not have wanted to test the remainder of the Twelveswood’s strength, see what it could still try against him, as if the wood were capable of even telling him apart from any other denzien any longer.

The clearing finally broke, gloved hands pushing it apart for his passage, and in the small gap of tree and grass and brush Lucien watched the light shift and dance.  It strained as if it were speaking, a rustle of leaves and wind and cracked twigs, before it expanded, hollowed out, more faded then it’d been.

The light was faintly humanoid then, the shape that was some unholy and unwelcome cross of the child-like elemental and a proper humanoid and the only distinctive part of it, aside from a voice that grasped at words and forming them the way a drowning man grasped at a plank of wood to pull himself up, were the eyes.  So bright, pockets of embers, floating in the indistinct body.

“Come again, have you?  Smelling of steel and blood and death, like you did before.  Where’s the fire in your heart, where’s the song that once wove across your limbs?  Where’s the determination, this time?”  It paused, waiting, watching, gasping as if every breath were a torture.

“I wonder,” Lucien said softly, watching the form twist and fade then try to return, a few steps closer to it.  “I wonder... if I found the impish center of your being, and touched it - you’d break, you’d shatter, wouldn’t you? Not strong enough for your tricks any longer, not powerful enough.” His voice was wondering and then clipped coldly.  “The rotting bones inside your branches, you can’t add to them still.  It’s been cycles since the Project’s force ripped your world asunder and yet... you’re still weak.”

With a snarl the thing moved - not in motion, but a vanishment of its form like a departed mist before it was there again, snarling at his face with features that were suddenly defined - teeth, mouth wide, a thunderous voice that echoed in the hollowed trunks and rotting wood as the area lost the vigor it seemed to have had.  “YOU WERE THERE,” it screamed.  “YOU- YOU and the metal ones before, you coaxed them, burned, burned, everything on fire and rage, the rage you wanted-” Its voice fell off into a cackle, a chuckle, a laugh that taunted Lucien’s face.  “And here you are again... alone, powerless, mine...”

Lucien stood and waited.  One breath drew in, and the next was let out.  And the spectre floated, shrieking finally as it watched Lucien’s face break into a slow smile.  “How sad it must be,” Lucien’s hand reached up, out, drawing a finger against the fog-fading face that flickered away at his touch.  “How sad... to want to exact something you no longer are capable of getting.  And not a soul able to Hear you for it, either... or I’d see the Wailers about, hear them, and the Twelveswood is as empty as a barren womb.”

Lucien’s face broke into a smile, almost bright, with something lurking there at the edges of his eyes.  His finger traced the opposite side of its face, watching it break and reform and break again with the movement.  “How much does it gall, I wonder...?”

Like foxfire, faeriefire, the thing screamed rage - it flared as bright as a star for a moment before it was weaker, softer, dimmer.  “Someday you’ll break, someday you’ll bend, someday someday and then you will fall and I... I will sing over your rotting body, drag your spirit out and make you watch as everything you want falls and burns and then I will remind you you dared me to,” it swore.  “I will hold your spirit here until everything is dust and every one you wanted is battered and broken and I will make you suffer, the way your existence makes me.”

Teeth glittered in the dim light as Lucien smiled.  “You will only try, and fail.  But try.  Try and see if you can even touch me.”

[valamerys]

New Constellations, A Rhys/Lucien AU Prequel fic

When Lucien flees the Autumn Court, it's not Tamlin he seeks.

[in the same continuity as my fic Insufferable] [on ao3]

***

Lucien Vanserra is dead.

They say he stumbled north, drenched in his lover’s blood and mad with grief. They say it was suicide, technically: no one would approach the Night Court alone and unprotected like that if they didn’t want to die. They say his brothers’ murderous pursuit turned to a search for a corpse but they never found the body, that the beasts must have eaten him whole.

They do not say that Lucien collapsed, ragged and half-delirious ten miles from the border, a name, a summoning, in his mouth, and that the forest trembled with the beat of answering wings.

***

“You’re dead.”

Lucien slowly blinks awake. The motion hurts his eyes. His entire being feels like a scar torn open, ragged and raw and pulsing, and as he shifts he feels the pull of bandages.

“Congratulations.” Rhysand sits across from him in the sunlit room, stirring what looks to be tea, his feet propped up. “Or should I say, you’re welcome.”

“What?” It comes out as a croak, Lucien’s throat like sand.

“I had my spymaster encourage the rumors,” Rhys says with a shrug, conversing as though Lucien is not being crushed under the wreckage of his entire life. “I probably should have planted a lock of your hair at the mouth of some Wyvern’s cave to really eliminate any doubt, but I admit seeing you half-conscious and covered in old blood didn’t put me in a terribly strategic mindset.”

Lucien is comprehending roughly every other word, squinting helplessly at his surroundings. “Where…”

Rhys mercifully does not make him articulate a full sentence. “My house. Well, one of them. My court, like my personality, is not as dark and dreadful as I make it out to be.” Lucien can barely keep up, much less formulate a response to this. Rhys goes on. “You’ve been in and out for four days. The healer said you likely hadn’t eaten or rested for almost a week when you fainted at my feet; she did what she could for that and your other various injuries.”

Rhys brings his teacup to his mouth and sips. There are bags beneath his eyes. If Lucien’s been in bed for four days, how many of those days has Rhys been here, with him?

All at once Lucien’s mind is fully awake, memories slamming back to him with the force of a kick to the chest. He has a dozen things to say— thank you, what happened to my brothers, why are you doing this for me, does my mother know, but the only thing that comes out is the only one that matters.

“She’s dead.”

Even to Lucien’s ears, it sounds broken. Numb. He feels outside of his own body, not in control of his own speech. Rhys sets his teacup down on its saucer with a porcelain clack.

“Jes. She’s dead,” Lucien repeats.

Rhys’ brows draw together. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Something in Lucien’s chest cracks, the force thunderous, like a mountain breaking apart, and a low, unearthly wail crawls from it. Tears blur Lucien’s vision and the sound fractures into a sob because she’s gone, she’s dead, he watched her die, he watched Beron kill her and didn’t stop it, wasn’t strong enough to stop it—

At some point he registers that Rhys is gone, leaving him to sink into his despair.

***

Lucien truly does not know how much time passes in that room, in a haze of pain and fitful sleep. Food is left for him by unseen servants; sometimes he can bring himself to eat, sometimes not. He tries not to see himself in the mirror, not wanting to meet the eyes of the haggard, greasy-haired spectre there. His mind is a whirlpool of hateful blame: for himself, for his family, for the culture that fostered their evil. Some hours he wants to die, thinks he should have let his brothers catch him, and some hours he wants to stay alive with a passionate fury, plots feverish retributions and revolutions, future plans grand and impossible and mad and always crumbling the moment Lucien remembers her blood spurting from her neck.

He hopes someone buried her.

***

Even for immortals, nothing lasts forever. Not even the endless swirling abyss of grief.

The day does come where Lucien hauls himself from the bed and into the oversized bathtub, mind having exhausted itself to the point, finally, of blankness. The bathwater is a little cold. He doesn’t care enough to heat it.

A knock sounds at the bathroom door. Lucien doesn’t respond but Rhys lets himself in anyway; maybe the invisible servants told him Lucien’s finally gotten out of bed.

If it’s weird for them to talk while Lucien is in the bath, neither of them make any effort to care. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time—Lucien could hardly have picked someone with who he has less interpersonal boundaries to take shelter with. Rhys leans casually against the bathroom wall and for once in his life, does not speak.

A protracted silence grows between them. Lucien is the one to break it.

“Now what.”

Rhys shrugs. “Whatever you like. Dead men don’t have any obligations.”

Lucien still can’t muster any emotion, but he can lift his eyes to Rhys’ face. The Night Court may not be a pit of nightmares, its High Lord no sadistic dictator, but there must still be a catch. Lucien’s no fool. There is always a catch.

“That said.” Rhys puts his hands in his pockets. “I do have a job opening for someone with political experience, if you’re interested.”

Lucien leans back in the bathtub. “And what’s that?”

“I need an internal ambassador to communicate between the different Night Court city-states. They largely have my blessing to self-govern, which makes my job both very easy and very hard; the laws are becoming too fragmented, the governors consolidating too much power. I need someone who can balance charm and force to politely remind them that they still belong to a larger court.” Rhys inclines his head for emphasis. “My court.”

Lucien drags a hand through the water, watching it lap against his skin. “That sounds like something you could do yourself.”

“I’m a High Lord now,” Rhys says arily. “I don’t do things, I make other people do things.”

A Lucien of mere weeks ago would have answered with something witty, but this Lucien doesn’t respond, just stares into the bathwater. He supposes he could hardly expect anything else— Rhys is not evil, but he is practical to the point of ruthlessness, making sure every asset at his disposal is working in his favor. And in throwing himself at Rhys’ mercy, Lucien has made himself an asset.

He wonders if it would be any different, if he’d gone to Tamlin, instead. Perhaps he should have. But Rhys had won his trust, all those years ago, however much he frustrated Lucien, and his was the name to come to Lucien when his only thought was sanctuary.

“I don’t know the court,” Lucien says.

“Of course not. I’ll teach you everything you need to know, make introductions to the right people.” Rhys’ gaze appraises him. “Cauldrons knows I won’t be sending you out any time soon, unless there’s someone I want cried on.”

Again, Lucien can’t summon a response.

Concern flickers across Rhys’ face, but it’s fleeting. He pushes himself upright from the wall, heads for the door. “Consider it. In the meantime, if you need anything, ask the servants.”

Lucien expects to hear the door close, but Rhys lingers.

“Something else?” Lucien asks.

Rhys’s hand rests on the brass handle. “I’d like you to meet my friends tomorrow night, if you’re feeling up for it.”

The way he says it is odd, heavy. Lucien does not know what it means, but clearly Rhys is offering him something important.

“I didn’t think you had friends.” He says finally.

A lopsided smile cracks Rhys’ face.

I missed you, you know, he says, and it takes Lucien a moment to realize Rhys spoke directly into his mind rather than aloud, the door closing behind him.

***

Rhys has exactly four friends, as it turns out, and they’re a strange group. Lucien does not know what to make of the way they tease and taunt each other, asking Lucien questions that avoid any reference to his family or… her, politely pretending Lucien is not conversationally near-comatose at the dinner table.

The blonde left early on account of some business or other, and the Illyrians followed shortly. Lucien got the impression Amren wasn’t terribly enthralled by his presence, and so excused himself thereafter.

But, embarrassingly, he can’t find his way back to his room.

Rhys had led them here originally, through the labyrinthine marble halls of this place, past eight hundred balconies overlooking the mountains, and so Lucien finds himself wandering aimlessly, marking progress by the spare potted plants he passes.

He freezes at a faint voice down the hall.

“Not…….. went well, I……”

It’s Rhys’ voice: Lucien has made it full circle. It’s almost a relief; at least now Lucien can ask Rhys to take him back to his room. He walks towards the dining room, opening his mouth to call out, but some instinct stops him. He peers into the cracked open door.

The sun is going down, throwing a long orange light and dark shadows across the table. Rhys’ back is to him, but he can just make out Amren in profile, swirling her glass.

“I don’t know whether to chide you for thinking with your dick, or for bringing another stray dog home. Somehow this is both.”

“More of a fox than a dog,” Rhys says quietly.

“That’s worse. You can’t tame a fox.” Amren sips her drink. Lucien doesn’t know what’s in the iron goblet; he has a sneaking suspicion it’s not wine but was too afraid to ask at dinner.

“He’s a talented politician,” Rhys insists, “Or at least he could be. He has a temper, but he’s smart and capable and—”

“You’re High Lord now, boy.” Amren cuts him off coldly. “Don’t justify yourself. If you want to take in refugees, you don’t need my approval to do it.”

“No, but I’d like it.”

There is a shade of vulnerability in it— Lucien can count on one hand the number of times he heard that from Rhys, in their years of secret meetings. It’s almost shocking to hear it now; to realize that for all Rhys’ bluster when they were princes together, he’s been High Lord of the Night court for less than a decade, and he’s still unsure.

“You like him,” Amren corrects, and Lucien’s chest tightens.

Rhys heaves a long, labored sigh. “His fiancé was murdered a matter of weeks ago, his hellspawn family tried to kill him too, and he came to me for help. What do you want from me, Amren?”

She stands. “I want you to stop acting like a spoiled little prince and start acting like a High Lord.” Before Rhys makes to respond, she strides from the table, goblet abandoned. “In the future, if you want my advice, ask for my advice. Not my validation for a decision you’ve clearly already made.”

She leaves Lucien’s limited vision of the room, but he hears a door slam shut on the other side.

There’s the creak of Rhys leaning back in his chair, and Lucien waits half a minute before clearing his throat.

Rhys swivels to look at him.

“I, um, can’t find my room,” Lucien says lamely.

Rhys blinks at him for a moment, clearly troubled. “Oh, yes, of course.” He gestures, "Down that hall, turn right, third door on the left. You’ll see it.”

Lucien half wants to do the opposite, wants to go sit with Rhys and—he doesn’t know, brood together, perhaps, but he just nods. “Right. Thanks.”

“And— thank you for coming tonight,” Rhys adds softly.

Lucien does not care to decipher why it even matters. “Of course,” he just says instead, awkwardly, before backing away from the door.

But he doesn’t make it through all the instructions before being intercepted. The blonde woman— Morrigan, he reminds himself— is back, and loitering outside his room.

“Lucien,” she says, brightening when she sees him, her voice clear as a bell. It exhausts Lucien just to hear. “I was hoping to chat with you a little more. Do you have time for a walk?”

Lucien doesn’t particularly want to talk to her, but in the moment it would require more effort to be rude than to merely acquiesce. “Where to?”

“I thought I’d show you around the city a bit,” She slips her arm through his like an old friend and leads them, her stride confident. “If you don’t have a strong objection to stairs, that is.”

“Not at all.” It’s a rote response, no feeling behind it.

“Good.” Mor gives him a winning smile as they round a corner into the main foyer. “I’m sure you’ll love Velaris. Our relative separation from the rest of Prythian has allowed us to foster cultural liberties frowned upon elsewhere, in addition to our economy.” she pauses to flick her wrist, and the massive double front doors of the House open noiselessly. “Of course, I’ve only been in charge since Rhys took over, so we’re still solidifying our plans for the future. But we’re quite pleased with the progress so far.”

Beneath a sharp drop in the mountain lies a clear view of the city below, coming alive in the twilight, sloping roofs and winding stone streets bound together like a sparkling heart of the Night Court itself. Mor’s face glows with almost a hunger as they survey it.

His impression of Mor is of diamond-like charm, sparkling and lovely and deceptively hard. Nothing about her is not deliberate; he imagines this interaction is not either, but he can’t imagine why she would be trying to sell him on a city, however proud of it she is.

“Is there something specific you wanted to discuss?” He asks, as she releases him to start down the stairs, holding her long dress up delicately.

“Not particularly, no.” She stops and turns back to look up at him, smiling sweetly. “But my family tried to kill me for fucking the wrong person too, so I thought we’d have a lot to talk about.”

***

Lucien Vanserra is dead.

But a courtier calling himself Reynard, with long hair glamoured black and a smile as bleak as a late-autumn landscape makes his debut some months later in the Court of Nightmares, and never looks back.

[houseofmystery]

House of Mystery #292 (May 1981)

Script: Karen Berger

Pencils: Romeo Tanghal

Inks: Romeo Tanghal

Edited: silly typos fixed. Still a poorly written, tangential mess of a draft. 

From a meta-fictional perspective, this is just the coolest. Karen Berger comes in and takes the reigns and we can basically draw a straight line from here to Sandman to present day Berger Books. 

Before this:

EC Comics legend, Joe Orlando, revamps House of Mystery in 1968 and introduces the world to Cain the Caretaker. DC’s mystery line flourishes with The Witches Three/Three Witches/Weird Sisters in The Witching Hour, Cain’s brother, Abel, in House of Secrets, and occasionally the Mad Mod Witch or Judge Gallows in The Unexpected. Phantom Stranger began in a somewhat similar format around the same time, but the Stranger quickly began to lead his own stories and leaned more toward the super-hero-y side of the DC Universe. Nevertheless, PS would remain a linking character between the JLA and DC’s mystery titles/Proto-Vertigo books/Vertigo books.

In 1971, House of Secrets features the Swamp Thing and the book reportedly outsells everything on the stands that month. Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson quickly spin Swamp Thing off into his own book (with Orlando as editor) and the book is a critical smash. 

The mystery books go on for years, reaching something like 9 books by the mid 70s. Notably, in in-house advertisements, Orlando-edited books like Swamp Thing along with other spooky DC characters, just a little left of center. These include Mystery Books spin-off graduate, the Phantom Stranger, but also Neal Adams’ legendary Deadman, as well as Jack Kirby’s Etrigan the Demon.

Other characters incorporated into the Mystery line were Eve, Destiny, Lucien the Librarian (for a three issue stint as host of Tales of Ghost Castle) and Madame Xanadu, who was a refuge from the recently canceled Doorway to Nightmare.

Now:

Karen Berger takes over as editor for House of Mystery and if the letters pages are to be believed fans are immediately receptive to her. The serialized I, Vampire continues and the great writing team of Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn produce several great stories. Unfortunately, the Mystery line had been dying slowly for years and House of Mystery finally closed its doors with issue #321, cover date October (of course) 1983. Mishkin and Cohn would bring back Cain for a few appearances in their Blue Devil.

Meanwhile:

Swamp Thing was relaunched in 1982. Phantom Stranger back-ups were featured in the first several issues. A young Alan Moore, took over as writer with issue #20. Karen Berger became editor of the book with #25. A ton has been written about Moore’s run on Swamp Thing. Suffice to say, it’s a fantastic read, and anyone with an ounce of interest in this shit has probably read it years ago, or really owes it to their self to pick up the TPBs.

Swamp Thing

Moore’s Swamp Thing is really responsible for codifying the Magic and Mystery side of the DC Universe. Etrigan the Demon, Deadman, and the Phantom Stranger became regularly featured allies. Golden Age of Comics veteran, the Spectre, as well. The Spectre’s last solo series, notably, was very much a Joe Orlando book. The JLA’s Zatanna had some screen time in this run, and for years after - much like PS - she would be sort of a link between the more mainstream DCU and the Berger edited books. John Constantine premieres as a character in this run, and he is shortly spun off into his own book, Hellblazer. 

Post-Moore/Pre-Vertigo

Moore left a profound and permanent mark on American comics due to his work in the mid 1980s. A slue of Mature Readers Only books came out from DC in the late 80s/early 90s, mostly under the editorial stewardship of Karen Berger. Swamp Thing continued its creative heights under former Moore collaborator, Richard Veitch. Jamie Delano was handpicked by Moore to write John Constantine in Hellblazer, and the series would bring a gritty realism and move the character even further away from his super hero-ish roots. A very green Neil Gaiman put out Black Orchid, another wonderful comic that continued in Moore’s tradition of gritty remake of forgotten DC character. Grant Morison put out groundbreaking work on Animal Man and Doom Patrol, but these have less of a direct link from Swamp Thing, at least as far as the actual characters go. 

Sandman

A popular bit of advice, when recommending Sandman to new readers is to either be patient while reading the first volume (#1-8) or just start with Death’s first appearance in #8. The reasoning being, the first volume is in many ways a different genre than what follows. Or at least fewer genres. Before becoming the grand story about stories we know and love, Sandman was very much in the Gothic Horror/Fantasy genre and not much else. Another barrier to new readers, perhaps, is just how deeply it is ingrained the fabric of the DC Universe. The early volumes of Sandman feature multiple revamped DC characters of yesteryear, as well as direct appearances from mainstream super hero characters. 

Sandman’s roster was deep and included almost all of the hosts of DC’s Mystery books from the 70s. Destiny was revamped as one the seven Endless, along with main character Dream and fan favorite Death. Cain, Abel, (and a much younger looking Eve) were supporting cast members throughout the series. They served as a reminder of The Sandman’s comic book roots, and demonstrate the direct line that can be traced from the time Berger first arrived at the House of Mystery,

Vertigo

In 1993, Vertigo Comics was officially launched as an imprint of DC, with Karen Berger at the helm. While Vertigo was essentially a continuation of the Berger-edited books that had preceded it, there were some differences. DC’s Mature Readers books had previously featured a dark corner of the DCU, that was, nevertheless, part of the DCU. With the success of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Vertigo began putting out more and more creator owned original properties - usually completely disconnected from the world of Batman and Superman. Books that were decidedly of the DCU in origin, like Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Hellblazer seemed to now occupy their own little universes. Sandman retained its DC Universe ties until its end but was clearly so much more than that by the end. Sandman’s great success guaranteed it multiple spin-offs. Of these, The Dreaming and Michael Carey’s Lucifer were easily the longest-lived. Though ostensibly a spin-off of Sandman, Lucifer, was really a beast of its own. It lasted 75 issues and came to an end in 2006.

The true legacies of Vertigo, though, are the creator owned books which line at least one bookshelf in bookstores across the county today. Vertigo books were some of the first to really pioneer “waiting for the trade”... and...

Honestly, guy, I’m really tired. I didn’t set out to write an essay now.I just thought it was really neat that Karen Berger made a cameo appearance when she took over as editor in House of Mystery. I kind of want to come back and edit this at some point, though.

...something, something, Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Fables, DMZ, 100 Bullets... iZombie, Vikings...

Something about Hellblazer ending with #300 and an era coming to an end,

something about how in recent years Image really has replaced Vertigo as far as the forward thinking creative juggernaut in comics, and how Vertigo’s mini-revamp last year didn’t really change anyone’s mind.

something about the poor treatment  of Shelly Bond.

something about Young Animal

something about Berger leaving DC (that was earlier)

But now Berger’s back, baby! http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/vertigo-editor-karen-bergers-launching-a-new-line-of-comics.html

So excited for this! Collect them all! What a legend!