The world of superhero comics is an unending one; it’s the big thing that separates comics from other sprawling narratives. They have no endings. Though references and timelines often need to be condensed to make everything make sense, the baseline foundation for comics like The Amazing Spider-Man is that everything that has happened since issue #1 is still in canon with what’s going on in this week’s issue #993. Reboots do happen, of course, and some comics get cancelled and come to a conclusion, but it’s very seldom that a series not only delivers an ending but gets to do so on its own terms.
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This week marks the anniversary of a distinct ending in DC Comics history, as the conclusion of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ iconic series Sleeper will turn 21 in just a few days. Set in the continuity of the WildStorm universe, Sleeper stood alongside the likes of Grifter and The Authority, living in a different world from the one with Superman and Batman. The ending to Sleeper is one that shocked readers with its final page reveals, and though its bittersweet conclusion was clearly in the tone of Brubaker’s other work, it leaves things ambiguous about what would happen next.
Sleeper’s Tragic Ending Turns 21
Sleeper tells the story of Holden Carver, a secret agent for IO who has a distinct set of superpowers: he can no longer feel pain, and any pain he would experience is absorbed and can be transferred to the next person he touches. It’s a power that comes in handy when you’re working undercover in a supervillain’s organization (WildStorm’s Tao), but one that is perhaps dicey when you start to form a romance with a fellow supervillain. As the story evolves, though, Holden’s allegiance becomes unclear with time, especially when the one person who could really help him wakes up from a coma.
Unlike other comics at the time, Sleeper was told in a slightly non-traditional way, with the twenty-four issues split up into two “Seasons” like a television show. The first season ends on a distinct cliffhanger of its own, with the reveal that John Lynch, Holden’s mentor and handler, has woken up from his coma. Season Two has Holden finally get the offer he’s wanted all along, with Lynch offering him the chance to get rid of his powers. By the time Lynch has woken up, though, Carver wants something else entirely, to put his work with both IO and Tao’s organization behind him and to run away with Miss Misery.
As one might expect with a series heavily influenced by the noir genre, a Brubaker favorite, things never went as Carver planned them. In the final issue, published on May 25, 2005, the hero seems poised to not only get some sweet revenge but to get his ultimate goal: freedom from his powers. Even as the issue seems to indicate that a happy ending is in store, one last turn of the page reveals the real ending of the series. Holden Carver is stuck in a permanent vegetative state and is stuck in a mass hallucination where he believes he’s living the good life with his love.
In a way, the ending to Sleeper Season Two acts as a mirror to the ending of the first season, only with a character stuck in a coma instead of waking up from one. That said, the conclusion is a true gut punch of an ending, one that, while certainly in keeping with the genre it was bound to, feels like it could easily be the bridge for another story…but as we know, that didn’t happen.
Sleeper Has Been on Ice Ever Since
Holden Carver’s permanent vegetative state is one of the few elements of comics that actually stuck after it happened. Even in the context of the larger WildStorm universe after Sleeper Season Two, the other characters continued to pop up in stories. That includes Tao, the character who had his tongue cut out by Carver in the last issue, who would not only remain a staple antagonist of the universe, but also regrow his tongue and continue to be a villain. Even John Lynch would maintain his status as a major espionage figure in the world, but Holden Carver never woke up and was never heard from again.
What’s especially interesting about this conclusion is that it appears to be what Brubaker had planned all along. Though a fan-favorite series in the years that would follow, Sleeper was never a best seller for the publisher. In an interview with CBR back in 2004, before Sleeper Season Two had even been released, Brubaker teased that he had “two or three” endings in mind for the series, but added: “Part of it depends on whether there’ll be a Season Three. If sales suck again, we’ll have to end it with this run, so I have the perfect ending in mind for that occasion, which I hope doesn’t come to pass, yet.”
In another interview ten years later, in 2014, Brubaker revealed to CBR that the ending of Sleeper had always been his plan, and he even changed it from being the ending found in Issue #12 to the ending of Season Two. It’s been over twenty years since Holden Carver went into his permanent vegetative state, and even though characters like Grifter (an ally of Carver’s) have gone on to become parts of the proper DCU, he never has. He’s just been stuck in that ending, and even though it’s one that makes us wish he could wake up and have more stories, it’s also something that very few comic book characters get to have.
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Image courtesy of Netflix -
Image Courtesy of Netflix
