Warning! This article contains spoilers for Dead Boy Detectives season 1.
Dead Boy Detectives is the latest story from the mind of Neil Gaiman to be adapted into a Netflix series, but there are some changes between the show and the comics that inspired it. The Dead Boy Detectives, Edwin Paine, and Charles Rowland first appeared in the Sandman comics in issue #25, released in April 1991. It was not until a few years later that the boys appeared again and received the title, Dead Boy Detectives, when they reappeared in 1993.
However, their most popular and largest run of their own independent stories came over 20 years later, with a 12 issue run written by Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham with art by Buckingham and Gary Erskine. Now, with streaming platforms like Netflix looking to comics and novels for inspiration, Neil Gaiman’s Dead Boy Detectives have found their way back to the limelight once again. However, the Netflix series has altered the story and brought it up to date for a more mature audience with several significant changes.
One of the most significant changes comes from the way that Crystal Palace, played by Kassius Nelson in the series, is first introduced. In the comics, she is almost blown up by a bomb which was intended to end the life of her parents. Young Crystal was directly in the path of where the bomb would explode, but fortunately, Charles and Edwin were also present, and Charles acted quickly to save her.
In the TV series, Crystal is not nearly so young, and she first appears as a person who has been possessed by a powerful demon. Edwin and Charles also save Crystal, expelling the demon from her body, but the demon escapes with large parts of her memory. Crystal has no recollection of her past, or her family, and so she chooses to stay with Charles and Edwin in the hopes of uncovering her past.
As briefly mentioned above, Crystal in the comics is very young, potentially just beginning her teenage years. Likewise, both Edwin and Charles are also roughly 13 or so in terms of their appearance, despite having been dead for decades. This detail is significant as it changes the perspective and experience of the characters to make them much younger, and by extension, a much darker tale of their deaths.
In the show, each of the characters is significantly older, likely in their late teens, which impacts how the story plays out. While the boys’ deaths are tragic, they are more capable of standing up to adults without being looked down on, or disregarded. The children who feature in the comics are clearly not given the same respect or recognition as adults due to their apparent youth.
In the comics, the story largely follows the boys around parts of the UK, where St. Hilarion’s, the boarding school, and spots around London feature prominently. This is a reflection of the creators, who chose to write about what they know best, and place the story in a familiar environment. However, the Netflix series does alter this significantly.
In the show, the story starts in the UK, but one of the first cases the boys embark on takes them to America, and a quaint little town known as Port Townsend. While there, the boys and Crystal bump into a few unsavory characters that ultimately force them to extend their visit and uncover the mysteries in the town. While the ghosts of Edwin and Charles have an enhanced capacity to travel long distances through mirrors, Edwin is also trapped in the town by a powerful being known as the Cat King.
In the comics, Charles had a challenging relationship with his dad in life, and his mother died when he was young. However, there is also a whole other side to his family that is revealed after he died, including a half-sister monk named Clementine. This family connection plays a huge part in the story of the comics as they played out and Charles cracked the case of his family history.
The Dead Boy Detectives series, however, has a very different and more minor representation of Charles’ family. Charles routinely checks in on his family to ensure that his mother and father are well and happy, and when he does this, he is pleased to see that they are. Both are still alive, and everything appears to be at peace. However, Charles also reveals a strained relationship with his father in the series.
Ghosts don’t tend to travel around like humans, as they are able to employ a number of magical methods of travel. The most popular of which is known as ‘Sqwooshing.’ This is the act of disappearing in one place and reappearing somewhere else. However, it can also make some ghosts feel unwell, and this appears to be the case for Charles. They can also travel on ghost bridges, and through mirrors.
In the series, Edwin and Charles’ powers to travel appear to be much more restricted, but neither one suffers adverse affects from supernatural travel. The pair rely on mirrors and reflections to travel over long distances, such as from Port Townsend back to their office in the UK, while Sqwooshing appears to be largely absent.
In the final episode of the series, Crystal regains her memories and the knowledge of her true identity, but the character portrayed on the screen is vastly different to her comic book counterpart. Comic’s Crystal is kind, determined, and keen to help others, similar to the Crystal who is seen without her memories. She is also not a psychic or a supernaturally powered being in the comics.
In the series, Crystal spends most of her time as the sweet and compassionate young woman who helps Edwin and Charles, but when she remembers her identity, she realizes she was kind of a terrible person. The on-screen Crystal also has incredible powers and psychic abilities which appear to stem from her deceased female ancestors and allow her to play a vital role in uncovering mysteries and fighting off demons or other threats.
In the comics, Edwin and Charles are clearly close friends who have bonded over decades of shared history. Together, the boys have formed a detective agency, solved countless cases, and overcome the trauma of their violent deaths at St. Hilarion’s. Their relationship is strong, and they have faced a lot of challenges together, but it is also entirely platonic.
The series shows a different side to Edwin, however, as he has grown to have a sincere and more romantic love for his dear friend Charles. In the comics, Charles and Crystal also become close and romantically involved, which Edwin teases the pair about, but seems genuinely happy for them. In the series, Edwin is plagued by jealous feelings, which he is eventually able to identify and overcome when he shares his feelings with his friend and gets an honest and loving response, although not necessarily a reciprocation of his romantic feelings.
In Dead Boy Detectives comics, cats play an important role. Edwin was always thought to acknowledge that cats have mystical power, and in death, he had come to see the truth of this in an even greater way. The Detectives are also always joined by cats on their adventures, who play an important part in helping to resolve cases. One of these cats is even split in two to become two parts of the same cat who contains the spirit of a philosopher.
The series also features cats prominently, but the show handles them very differently. The boys run into some cats in Port Townsend, and Crystal is shocked to learn that the cats are able to speak. However, when Edwin tricks the cats into helping him, he angers the Cat King. The Cat King then appears prominently throughout the rest of the season, as he is the person who puts an enchanted bracelet on Edwin which prevents him from leaving the town, and sets him the task of counting all of the cats in the town.
Tragic Mike is a character who appears in both the comics and the series, but the representation is quite different. Tragic Mike in the comics has a pawn shop based in London, and is a source of useful information for the Detectives. However, he also has a very different physical appearance, as a walrus human hybrid. This is not explained in the comics, but with a name like Tragic Mike, it makes sense that he has a dark past.