Season of Mists is the fourth collection in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series of comics, collecting comics 21 through 28. This volume tells the story of how Morpheus inherits Hell after deciding to travel there to release a former lover from there, those who want him to give them Hell, and what he does decide to do with it.

After a meeting with most of his family, Morpheus decides he needs to head into Hell to free Nada, a mortal woman he had fallen in love with, but sentenced to Hell when she refused to become his queen. When Lucifer hears that Morpheus is coming to Hell, he sees an opportunity for himself and closes Hell completely – meaning that all of those demons and people being punished in Hell no longer have a home – and gives the key to Morpheus. When other gods, goddesses, fey, demons, etc., hear that Morpheus has the key to Hell, they all try to bribe, cajole and threaten Morpheus in order to get the key to Hell for themselves. Of course, things come to an interesting and yet unexpected conclusion, which I totally loved and yet found a bit concerning.

I particularly liked story in Chapter 4 (what was originally issue 25 of the series) – it is the story of one boy who is the only student at a boarding school over the holidays. Now that hell has been closed, all of the people who were being tortured in Hell have nowhere to go, so they return to either the place they died, or a place that meant a lot to them in their life. This boy, Rowland, has to deal with ghosts of old headmasters, other students, bullies, even a child that was murdered at the school. Except, they’re not really ghosts – ghosts can’t really harm you, but these people had an actual physical presence and some of them were even able to torture Rowland until he, too, dies.

I also really liked how Gaiman wove different mythologies into this story. It’s similar, in that way, to his American Gods – he’s able to take different gods and goddesses from different mythologies around the world, and make it so that it wouldn’t be unusual that they all exist and that they could all interact with each other – including figures from Christianity. It was very cool, and any mythology geek would enjoy it.

As far as the ending being surprising and a little concerning… I don’t want to give anything away for those who might want to read it. But, the people who DID end up getting Hell, well they had good intentions, but sometimes good intentions can result in the worst possible thing ever. And that’s definitely what ended up happening in this case. Good intentions, but ones that made Hell a worse place to be in than before.

The Bottom Line: Definitely enjoyed this more than the previous collection. Perhaps one of my favourites so far. Can’t wait to read the rest in this series.