Death: At Death's Door

This comic, Death at Death's Door, is penned and inked in the manga-style, by Jill Thompson, author of the Little Endless. It seems to take a more child-friendly and humorous approach through the eyes of one of the more popular Endless characters, Death.

It begins with brief profiles of each of the Endless, another reference to manga where brief character bios are often displayed in the margins, and then seguoys right into Destiny's council. At the family meeting, Desire taunts Dream about Nada, the former lover he banned to hell ten thousand years past. Shortly afterward, Death gives him a sound scolding and Dream feels convinced he must go to Lucifer and recover Nada.

Dream arrives just in time to be handed the key to Hell, hardly what he had in mind.

And where might everyone in hell end up, since they've been evicted? Death's realm. Shortly after being swamped with the first batch of dead people, Delirium comes in, shortly followed by Despair. They soon realize the problem and Death resolves to gather all the damned in one place until Morpheus gets everything sorted out, endowing her sisters with two ankhs to help her accomplish the mission.

Behind schedule on her collections, Death runs out to collect souls, leaving Delirium in charge. She returns to find a racaus party with her little sister serving "Horse Doovers" or hors d'oeuvres, of very interesting varities, such as pencils on crackers or green mouse and telephone ice cream. As Death leaves again, the party is rudely interrupted by demons from hell trying to cause chaos. Upon her return again, this time with some dead mall rats, Death prepares to battle them, only to have them disappear as Dream finishes his negotiations in hell and hands of the Key to the angels, Remiel and Duma.

This story takes a light-hearted stance, showing the Endless in a less morbid light and a humorous one. Death is impecabbly dressed and perky, Delirium is adorable, and Despair gets embroiled in a brief crush on Edgar Allen Poe.