Cain and Abel (comics)

Cain and Abel are a pair of

Cain and Abel are based on the

Cain and Abel are respectively portrayed by Tom Welling and Lauren Lapkus in the television series Lucifer, and by Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry in The Sandman. Cain is voiced by Trevor Devall in the animated series Justice League Action.

Publication history

Cain

In 1968, Cain was created to "host" the

The House of Mystery was cancelled in 1983. The final issue showed Cain in front of the House for sale, with his bags packed, and Gregory, his pet gargoyle, behind him. In the mid-1980s, Cain became a supporting character in Blue Devil (as caretaker of the "House of Weirdness"), with Abel and Gregory making occasional appearances as well.^[10]

Abel

In 1969, Abel was created to "host" the companion EC-style horror anthology The House of Secrets (which in its Silver Age run, was published from 1956 to 1966). In 1969, DC editor Joe Orlando created the design for Abel, based on his assistant, Mark Hanerfeld:^{[6][7][11][9]}

I started out basing it on the biblical Cain and Abel but then I turned to the people that were around me. It's just a writer's trick to take people's personalities and inject them into your characters. Mark stuttered when he got nervous. He was short and heavy so Abel was short and heavy. Abel was a good counterpoint to Cain who was tall and thin.^[12]

Abel's first comics appearance was in DC Special #4 (July–September 1969), ironically written by Hanerfeld and illustrated by Bill Draut. The House of Secrets was revived with #81 (August–September 1969)^[13] and Abel began hosting immediately.

In 1978, The House of Secrets (along with another horror title, The Witching Hour) was merged into The Unexpected (which itself was canceled in 1982).

Together

During the 1970s, Cain and Abel (along with

The cover of Vertigo's mostly-reprint Welcome Back to the House of Mystery (July 1998) showed Cain returning to the House with Abel and Gregory. Both of the anthologies that Cain and Abel debuted in are cited as one of the comic books that Neil Gaiman grew up with which helped pave the way for Cain and Abel revival within The Sandman comic books.^[14][15]

On the

were introduced to the DC Universe.

Fictional character biography

House of Mystery/Secrets

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Cain told tales about people who boarded the House of Mystery. Abel stammeringly took abuse from Cain and the House of Secrets, and had an "imaginary" (always in quotes) girlfriend named Goldie who berated him too.^[1] Goldie was the imaginary friend of Dick Giordano's son.^[16] Abel told the stories directly to Goldie in the early issues, although he always appeared to be alone. He said that she was a ghost.

Cain is a thin, long-limbed man with an angular, drawn face, glasses, a tufty beard, and hair drawn into two points above his ears. He is often cruel to Abel, but he is jovial and a friendly storyteller to children and does everything he can to help

Abel moves in with Cain in the House of Mystery shortly before DC Special #4. Cain calls it a temporary situation until the House of Secrets is transported, which occurred in House of Secrets #81 one month later. Their ages are vague, but Abel tells a story he claims to have heard from Cain (who frightened him with it as a child in 1957);^[19] the story originally appeared in Tales of the Unexpected #17 (September 1957).

In the final issue of The House of Mystery, Karen Berger (whom Cain met in issue #292, the first issue she edited for DC) is an unexpected guest at Cain's birthday party, takes him through a secret door that leads to the DC offices, and tells him that his series has been canceled and he is too old-fashioned. The house is torn down, and Cain metafictionally analyzes his own existence as a character in a comic book.^[20]

The characters were revived in 1985 by Alan Moore, who introduced them into his Swamp Thing series in issue #33 by retelling the Swamp Thing's origin story as depicted in a 1971 issue of House of Secrets. Cain kills Abel for revealing a secret and tells Abby Holland, "I invented murder!" In Blue Devil #20 (January 1986), Cain is the caretaker of the House of Weirdness until Blue Devil moves in and discovers that Abel is there too. He says that the California mansion is owned by "a publishing company back east".

During the Crisis (not mentioned in that series), Elvira stumbles onto the House of Mystery. The house charges her with finding Cain, who had disappeared. Metropolis is seen through a window in the garage of the House of Weirdness.^[21] Cain and Blue Devil are seen peering at Elvira in Elvira's House of Mystery.^[22] Cain and Abel reappear in Swamp Thing #49–50, where they are observers and commentators on a fierce battle in hell.

They are depicted together in Abel's first appearance and they go to their respective houses at the end of the story (the House of Secrets having been recently moved), with Cain promising that things would not go the way they did before. Although Cain abuses Abel, he does not kill him until Swamp Thing vol. 2 #33. They usually do not appear together; Cain directs more of his taunts at the reader, and Abel tries to reassure Goldie or the reader. In The House of Mystery #257 (April 1978), asylum escapee "Killer" Cowan kills six people on

The Sandman and The Dreaming

The second volume of The Sandman, written by

Cain frequently kills Abel in a kind of macabre form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, re-enacting the first murder.^[1] In the Dreaming, Abel's death is impermanent, and he seems to recover after a few hours. Cain seems unable to control his frequent murders of Abel, and occasionally expresses remorse over them; there is a genuine bond between the two, beneath the surface contempt. Abel remains dedicated to Cain, and frequently dreams of a more harmonious relationship between the two.

In turn, in the graphic novel The Sandman: The Wake, Cain is so distraught when Abel is murdered permanently by the Kindly Ones, he sinks into a rambling mess when asking the new Dream to restore him. In preparation for the funeral services for the deceased Dream, Cain's anger boils over yet again when Abel reveals a secret, but he is calmed by a reprimand and restrained from murdering Abel. He displays a contract, renewed in 1989 (the year The Sandman began) that states that only he is allowed to kill Abel, because Abel can resurrect only when Cain kills him.

In the first appearance of the characters in The Sandman vol. 2 #2, Cain gives Abel an egg that soon hatches into another gargoyle, a small golden one. Abel is delighted and names the gargoyle "Irving", but Cain forcefully insists that the names of gargoyles must always begin with a "G". When Abel resists, Cain murders him, and after Abel revives he renames the gargoyle "

The main function of Cain and Abel throughout The Sandman is comic relief. However, the two play significant (though not key) roles at several points in the series; it is they who take Morpheus in until his strength is restored following his 72-year-long imprisonment. In the fourth

Cain and Abel also aid

Recently, both Cain and Abel have appeared in the new House of Mystery title. Abel appeared in the missing House of Mystery with Goldie, claiming to be on a secret mission to retrieve the various nightmares that were still in the house when it vanished. Meanwhile, Cain, under the guise of a mysterious coachman, plotted with various groups to retake the House of Mystery, which he saw as his rightful property. Eventually, Cain was able to broker a deal to become the co-manager of the House of Mystery's current incarnation as a bar, and both he and Abel have become regular members of the series' cast.

Other characters

Gregory

Gregory is a large green gargoyle and the pet of Cain. He communicates in "grunts", which the inhabitants of the Dreaming appear to understand. He helps Goldie re-assemble Abel when Cain kills him. He first appeared as the child of two stone gargoyles in The House of Mystery #175, wherein his parents perched on the House of Mystery until they were able to kill their sculptor, a boarder in the house who had murdered their designer, and left without their egg. He later appears during the Blackest Night crossover event, defending Scandal Savage, the new owner of the House of Mystery, from the members of the Suicide Squad.

Eve

Eve, a minor fixture of the

Eve originally appeared in Secrets of Sinister House #6 (August–September 1972); she was the series' principal host, often in stock images, usually with her raven.^[30] After issue #15, in which Eve reveals in the letter column that her raven, Edgar Allen [sic], is an enchanted deceased human, editor Joe Orlando departed from the series and so did she, the series focusing on "sinister houses".^[31] That month (December 1973), she started hosting one story per month in Weird Mystery Tales.^[15][32]

She became the principal host of Weird Mystery Tales with issue #15, replacing

In her early appearances, she appears only as a crone, is often identified as a witch, and has a tendency to sharp her speech. In her first appearance, she scares Cain and Abel and shouts at them, "Get out of the kitchen when it gets too hot, you cowardly mortals! Old Eve doesn't care..." Her letter column, which was answered in character, was called "Witch's Tales". She appeared as a principal character in stories in Secrets of Sinister House #9 and 11 and Weird Mystery Tales #18. In issue #9, she stays in an apartment building under an assumed name (she denies it is her in the letters column of issue #13), where the smell of her cooking causes her neighbor to report her to the superintendent, so she curses the neighbor to repeat a day – which begins wonderfully and ends in two deaths – over and over again.

Eve lives in a cave in the Dreaming and is often accompanied by Dream's raven. The first raven, Lucien, taught her how to bury Abel after Cain murdered him and she has been accompanied by a raven ever since. She is kind and has a maternal nature, though she retains her sharp language. Most of the time she appears as a black-haired woman of indeterminate age, but sometimes appears as a young, attractive maiden, a middle-aged mother, or an elderly crone. When she is first seen in The Sandman #2, she looks a little different from her original appearances. Next, in issue #24, she has put on much weight, has a friendlier face and shows her ability to de-age as she embraces Matthew. Her largest appearance is in issue #40, wherein she appears young and beautiful for the first time.

An incarnation of Eve appears as a major character in Lucifer portrayed by Inbar Lavi,^[35][36][37] depicted as an antagonist and one of the love interests of the titular character.^[38] The original release described her as "the original sinner herself" and "the first love" of Lucifer.^[39] Lavi talked about her role as the character: "I think personally the most interesting thing about Eve was the concept of sin and how she's considered to be the original sinner. But I don't really see it that way. Eve is brave enough to go after her curiosity and her passion and to me, that's very courageous. I wasn't playing her as someone who made a mistake. I was playing her as someone who is very curious and excited to learn".^[40]

Reception and analysis

Both Cain and Abel were listed by Comic Book Resources as among the top 10 characters from the Sandman comics that were hoped to be seen in Netflix's adaptation.^[3] Bibek Bhattacharya of Mint felt that the backstories of DC's major Biblically adapted characters (Cain, Abel and Eve) from The Sandman were well-told, and opined that they were even more interesting than the original Biblical tales told in the Book of Genesis itself.^[41]

Within the comics, Abel is depicted as a more meek man who is commonly a victim of Cain’s murders in various gruesome ways, much like a recurring

The relationship between Hilda Spellman and Zelda Spellman within Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has been compared to the dynamic of Gaiman's portrayal of both Cain and Abel by writers such as Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly and David Opie of Digital Spy.^[43][42]

In other media

Television

• Cain appears in the Justice League Action episode "Trick or Threat", voiced by Trevor Devall, and acts as the narrator of the episode.
• Both Cain and Abel appear in the TV series Lucifer:
  • Tom Welling portrays Cain. At the start of season 3, he goes by Lt. Marcus Pierce, but is later revealed to be Cain.^[44] Lucifer, looking to help him find a way to die, assists Cain throughout the season, but eventually kills him after his mark is removed.
  • Abel appears in the episode "Infernal Guinea Pig", portrayed by Lauren Lapkus.^[45]
• Cain and Abel appear in The Sandman, respectively portrayed by Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry.^[46]

Miscellaneous

• Cain and Abel make non-speaking cameo appearances in The Batman Adventures #5 as wardens of Arkham Asylum.
• Cain and Abel appear in All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12, based on the TV show.
• Cain and Abel appear in the Audible adaptation of The Sandman, respectively voiced by Michael Roberts and Kerry Shale.^[47][48]

References