The third and last character spotted in The Sandman episode six is also one of my personal favorites. In The Sound of Her Wings, we learn that Dream and Death have been strolling around together for quite a while, and that in 1389 they met a man who had no intention of dying: Hob Gadling, portrayed by Ferdinand Kingsley. In a weird bet that turned into an even weirder friendship, Dream convinced Death to make Hob immortal, and they have been meeting once every century ever since, with Dream waiting for the moment Gadling got tired of life, and Gadling instead enjoying every minute of it. In the comics, Hob Gadling has pretty much the same role, and is quite a memorable fellow. Let’s see together.
Hob Gadling was born in a small English village in the middle of the XIV Century. When the Black Death came, it took away half his village, and Hob decided to move away, becoming a soldier and following the Earl of Buckingham in Burgundy, during the Caroline War. It was while on the battlefield that he had an illumination: people died just because it was customary, because everybody else did it, but he didn’t accept anything like it, he refused to believe such a rubbish. That became his life philosophy, and some time after, as he was with some friends at the Tavern of the White Horse in London, he tried to convince them of his idea, with the obvious result of making 
them laugh. As he spoke, Hob was overheard by a mysterious pale stranger who, intrigued by his ideas, promised him that he indeed he wouldn’t have died if he didn’t want to, and arranged an appointment with him, same tavern one century later. Hob soon forgot his meeting with the stranger, as he resumed his life as a soldier, fighting as a mercenary for both sides in the War of the Roses… but time passed, and he didn’t grow old. In one hundred years, he stopped fighting and invested in a new technology, printing, opening a production with William Caxton. When 1489 came, he met the stranger again, as he was waiting for him at the White Horse as promised. Hob was quite scared, as he believed he had made a deal with the Devil, but he was reassured on this point. He renewed the deal with the stranger: they would have met once every century, always at the White Horse, and he would have told him the changes and progresses in his life, sharing a drink together. The following century was one of great luck for Hob, who started changing names and identities, disappearing and coming back as his own son not to gather suspicions: known as Robert Gadlen, he was knighted after investing his fortune in Henry VIII‘s ships, funding John Hawkins in the first slave trade. He also met vampires as they killed his friend Jack Constantine, leaving him emotionally scarred for a while, but he also knew love, as he married fair Eleanor and had a son, Robyn.
When he met his mysterious friend, Hob was at the apex of his fortune, but things didn’t last: Eleanor died young, and Robyn was killed as little more than a boy during a bar brawl. In his grief, Hob forgot to move, and people tried to drown him believing him to be a warlock. He made another poor choice as he sided with James II during the Glorious Revolution, and he lost all his fortune becoming a beggar. He barely made it to his appointment, as the owner of the White Horse didn’t want to let him in, but despite his tragedies and misfortunes, he confirmed he still wished to live. When he met 
again his friend, in 1789, he was back on his feet, as his old investments with Hawkins’ company had paid off and he had become wealthy with slave trade, an activity his friend strongly suggested to abandon. In this occasion, they were also ambushed by an occultist, Johanna Constantine, who believed them to be the Devil and the Wandering Jew, but they escaped easily. In the following century, things kept going well for Hob, and he started thinking about his relationship with the pale man: he realized that he had nothing to learn nor earn from their meetings, and that the only possible explanation for their continuous appointments was the simplest one, that his immortal benefactor needed a friend. When he tried to share this discovery with the interested party, in 1889, he didn’t take it well: he told him that believing that “one of his kind” was in need of something as trivial as friendship was preposterous, and stormed away. Hob didn’t have to wait much for a true answer to his theory, barely another century: in 1989, he was waiting in the same place, now a modern bar, and was starting to believe he would have remained alone when the pale man returned, telling him it would have been impolite to keep a friend waiting. Now, finally, the two could live a true relationship, and Hob learnt that his companion was Dream, one of the Endless, ruler of everything that would have never been. Their following meeting came earlier, as Dream visited Hob in his dreams, with a bottle of Chateau Lafitte 1828 as a gift, that materialized in the Waking World. Somehow, Hob knew that this visit of courtesy didn’t anticipate anything good for his friend…
Hob Gadling is a formidable man, always enthusiastic about life, always intrigued by anything new humanity comes up with. He is immortal, at least as long as he says so, and despite everything he’s seen and lived through he still finds many reasons to live, with a curiosity and a joie de vivre that never abandon him, not even in the moments of pure desperation. A living history book, Hob Gadling has seen it all and heard it all, but everything is still new to him, and he never gets tired of a world with so many surprises in store.
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