Read the first four pages of The Sandman/Locke & Key comic crossover in exclusive preview

What do The Sandman and Locke & Key have in common? Well, in addition to both being critically-acclaimed dark fantasy comics, both sagas are currently being adapted as Netflix TV shows (Locke & Key finished one season and is working on its second, while The Sandman recently announced casting for its major characters). But the biggest connection between the two will soon be the special crossover miniseries, Locke & Key / The Sandman Universe: Hell & Gone, set to launch next month. EW has an exclusive preview of the first four pages of issue #1.

EW first broke the news of Locke & Key coming together with The Sandman last August. Although the publication date has been pushed back a couple times since then, it's now set to kick off in April. A major protagonist in Locke & Key: Hell & Gone #1 is Mary Locke, an ancestor to Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode from the main series. Mary's brother Jack has been dead for 10 years, but he still sends letters home from Hell. Her quest to rescue him from The Pit will bring her up against some of the scariest figures from The Sandman, like occult mystic Roderick Burgess and the walking nightmare known as The Corinthian. This story will be set during the time that Burgess had imprisoned Morpheus, and as a result the Kingdom of Dreams is disintegrating.

Below, you can read the first four pages, in which Mary uses the Anywhere Key to go from Keyhouse in America to Burgess' mansion in England, where she finds someone (likely Burgess himself) wearing Morpheus' dream helm.

Locke & Key was created by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodríguez, who will also be handling creative duties on Hell and Gone (edited by IDW's Chris Ryall). The Sandman was created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg.

"Without Sandman, I don't know if there ever would've been a Locke & Key," Hill said in a statement. "Neil Gaiman's stories taught Gabriel and me how to tell ours. The Sandman series is to comics what J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was to fantasy and maybe what Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was to rock & roll: it's the Alpha & Omega of dark fantasy in this format. Neil dreamt up all the best toys, and what a thrill it's been to play with them. Maybe the biggest surprise is how well, how naturally, these series lace together. It's like they've always been waiting for each other."

Locke & Key / The Sandman Universe: Hell & Gone #1 is set for release on April 14. Read the first four pages exclusively below.

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