Dead Boy Detectives: This Ghostly New Series Is Coming To Netflix This Week

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Here’s a new supernatural series to binge

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Dead Boy Detectives: This Ghostly New Series Is Coming To Netflix This Week

Did you ever tune into Lockwood & Co., Netflix’s teenage ghost hunters/retro future series based on Jonathan Stroud’s novels? It debuted in January 2023, and was almost immediately cancelled by the streaming giant, devastating its committed fans. But this week, a new series is ready to fill the hole it left in your heart: Dead Boy Detectives. Based on Neil Gaiman’s beloved comic series, here’s everything you need to know before you tune in.

Dead Boy Detectives, Netflix’s Latest Series

(L-R) George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne and Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland in episode 101 in DEAD BOY DETECTIVES

What Is Dead Boy Detectives About?

Dead Boy Detectives centres on Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), teenagers who are best friends – and ghosts. Born decades apart, the duo found each other only in death, and will now do anything to stick together, including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. They are the brains and the brawn behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency, joining forces with a clairvoyant named Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) to crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.

(L-R) George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne, Kassius Nelson as Crystal Palace, Yuyu Kitamura as Niko Sasaki, and Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland in episode 4 of DEAD BOY DETECTIVES. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2023)

Each episode will follow a different case as follows:

The Case of Crystal Palace: After coming to the aid of a teen medium with a demonic dilemma, Edwin and Charles head to America to find a missing girl with an unexpected ally.
The Case of the Dandelion Shrine: Trapped in a sleepy Washington town, the detectives take on a local case: helping Crystal’s quirky housemate Niko get rid of her paranormal parasites.
The Case of the Devlin House: The group tries to free a family of spirits from a nightmarish loop inside a haunted house, but it triggers an extreme case of déjà vu for one detective.
The Case of the Lighthouse Leapers: The gang looks into a disturbing trend of deaths at a lighthouse. Crystal hears a distinct voice while piecing together clues about the seaside mystery.
The Case of the Two Dead Dragons: While Crystal, Edwin, and Charles investigate the tragic murders of two popular jocks, Niko sets up Jenny (Briana Cuoco) and her secret admirers on a butcher shop date.
The Case of the Creeping Forest: A crisis forces Crystal to improvise on the job as Monty (Joshua Colley) recruits the boys to locate his missing friend – but the eerie case isn’t what it seems.
The Case of the Very Long Stairway: When Edwin gets caught in a frightening situation, Charles relies on his best mate’s meticulous notes to find him. A determined Crystal confronts her ex.
The Case of the Hungry Snake: Crystal reckons with the past after memories come rushing back. With Esther’s (Jennifer Lyon) evil scheme underway, the group is forced to face their deadliest foe yet.

The Trailer

Is It Based On A Book?

Dead Boy Detectives is based on a fictional duo featured in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman universe of comic books. However, they have been borrowed and revived by various authors over time.

Edwin and Charles first appeared in The Sandman #25 in 1991, before they returned in Children’s Crusade (1993–94). They were then borrowed by Peter Gross for the Winter’s Edge edition of The Books of Magic (2000), before Ed Brubaker and Bryan Talbot dedicated a mini-series to the duo titled Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives in 2001. In 2005, Jill Thompson produced a manga graphic novel starring the characters, titled The Dead Boy Detectives, before they faded away for a while. In 2012, however, Edwin and Charles returned in the Vertigo Anthology series, a trio of one-shots published in 2012. Along with a renewed interest in Gaiman’s Sandman series thanks to the 2013 prequel The Sandman: Overture, this prompted Vertigo to publish an ongoing Dead Boy Detectives series, this time written by Toby Litt and Mark Buckingham with art by Buckingham and Gary Erskine; it ran for 12 issues in 2014. Then, in December 2022, they appeared in a new six-issue series as part of The Sandman Universe initiative, written by Pornsak Pichetshote with art by Jeff Stokley. This ended in May 2023, with the last issue showing Edwin develop romantic feelings for Charles.

If none of this is ringing a bell but you still feel like you’ve heard of Charles and Edwin, you might recognise them from HBO’s Doom Patrol, a superhero series set in the DC Universe, in which the characters guest star in season three, with Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper) and Ty Tennant (House of the Dragon) playing Charles and Edwin.

(L-R) George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne, Kassius Nelson as Crystal Palace and Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland in episode 1 of DEAD BOY DETECTIVES

Is It A Spin Off From The Sandman?

Netflix released The Sandman in 2022, based on Neil Gaimain’s comics – and it has been confirmed that Dead Boy Detectives exists in the same universe. Following a powerful cosmic being who controls all of our dreams, The Sandman centres on Sandman aka Dream (Tom Sturridge), who must journey across different worlds and timelines, after being unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for over a century, to fix the chaos his absence has caused. It’s absolutely star studded – Gwendoline Christie, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman and Stephen Fry all appear, with Sandra Oh and David Tennant in voice roles (along with many more) – and a second season is on the way after SAG-AFTRA disruptions. Dead Boy Detectives will have to tide us over until then.