Auberon (comics)

Auberon
Auberon in his first appearance, with Puck at his feet
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Sandman #19 (Sept. 1990)
Created by	Neil Gaiman (writer) Charles Vess (artist)
In-story information
Species	Fae
Place of origin	Faerie
Team affiliations	Seelie Court
Notable aliases	Selwyn
Abilities	Vast magical abilities

Auberon, is a character who appears primarily in DC Comics' adult-oriented Vertigo line. He is inspired by (and implied to be the same character as) the faerie king Oberon from William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As part of his comic The Sandman, writer Neil Gaiman planned a small arc involving William Shakespeare entering a deal with the Dream King to write plays that would live on after him. Having introduced Shakespeare, Gaiman then decided to tell the story of the first play that the writer wrote for Dream in payment of the bargain. He turned to his favourite of Shakespeare's plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream creating analogues of the play's main otherworldly characters and inventing the fiction that Shakespeare wrote the play to Dream's instructions to ensure that humans never forgot Faerie and its rulers, Auberon of Dom-Daniel and Lady Titania.

Whilst Gaiman used Titania as a recurring character throughout the series, Auberon never appeared again. However, due to his wife's key role in The Books of Magic, Auberon returned when John Ney Rieber used Gaiman's characters in an ongoing The Books of Magic series. From his first appearance in the ongoing series, Auberon was a major character and remained until the final issues even though his wife was phased out when Peter Gross took over as writer. Such was the importance of Auberon to the ongoing The Books of Magic series that when its spin-off miniseries The Books of Faerie proved popular, a second miniseries was published featuring Auberon as a child ascending to the throne of Faerie.

Auberon was born into the Faerie royal family, its only member with a direct line of succession to the throne if the current King Magnus was to die. To protect him from possible assassination and Court intrigues, Auberon's cousin Dymphna and the brownie nursemaid Bridie took him to a far-flung corner of Faerie to raise him, where they used powerful wards and spells to protect him from any harm. However, Auberon could not be protected forever: when King Magnus died, an old admirer of Dymphna called Lord Obrey of Windan came to the child's house to take him back to the Court and the Throne.