Roll over Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, there’s a new SSU in town — the Sandman Streaming Universe. Following the success of Netflix’s The Sandman (a second season is already in the works), a wildly ambitious adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s sprawling dark fantasy comic series, the streamer is now bringing fans a spin-off centred around Gaiman’s Dead Boys Detectives agency. Check out the first full trailer for the new horror-mystery series below:
My Chemical Romance needledrop? Check! Anachronistic Dickens-meets-Punk aesthetic? Check! Demonic possession and The Sandman’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste as the physical embodiment of Death itself? Check! Early indications suggest we may have a bit of a banger on our hands here. This first proper look at Dead Boy Detectives — which follows two ghost-boy besties who use their ability to communicate with the living and the dead to solve supernatural mysteries — is giving Lockwood & Co-meets-Pushing Daisies.
Since their introduction in The Sandman #25 in 1991, the Dead Boy Detectives — teens Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) — have been recurring features in the wider Sandman comics universe, with their most recent appearances in print coming in a six-part limited series written by Pornsak Pichetshote in 2022. The boys also showed up in HBO's Doom Patrol, there played by Ty Tennant and Charles Rowland.
This new eight part show — originally conceived for Warner Bros.’ Max — comes courtesy of co-showrunners Steve Yockey (The Flight Attendant) and Beth Schwartz (Sweet Tooth), alongside Greg Berlanti. And whilst plot specifics remain scarce in keeping with the series’ mystery-of-the-week style, here’s the official synopsis to help clue you in: “Meet Edwin Payne (Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Revri), "the brains" and "the brawn" behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts... who solve mysteries. They will do anything to stick together – including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), they are able to crack some of the mortal realm's most mystifying paranormal cases.”
Forget bustin’ – with Edwin and Charles on the case, we ain’t afraid of no ghosts. But the zombies, witches, and soul-sucking demons on the other hand? Well that remains to be seen. Dead Boy Detectives arrives on Netflix on 25 April.