Contributed by Ronald Byrd
Shortly after moving to New York to become a chef, Hazel McNamara was introduced to Donna (Foxglove) Cavanagh by Hazel’s brother, Johnny, who met Donna in a writer’s workshop. Hazel fell in love at first sight (“It was utterly like, Hi, whoever you are, I want to be with you for ever.”) with Donna, who was in a depression over the death of Judy, her abusive ex-girlfriend. Some time after this, Donna, wanting to set her old life with Judy behind her, changes her name to Foxglove, and she and Hazel become lovers. Little else is known about their past save that Hazel is originally from Vermont and that Foxglove came out to her “psycho mom” when she was sixteen; Foxglove is apparently a Pagan, since she has stated that she worships a Goddess.
Comic book readers first meet the pair when they are drawn into a mystic drama surrounding a woman named Barbie, who lives in their apartment building and whose spirit is drawn into a magical dreamland. Although they accompany another fellow tenant, the centuries-old sorceress Thessaly, into Barbie’s dream, where the situation is ultimately resolved by the mystic entity known as the Sandman, Hazel and Foxglove play no real role in the unfolding conflict, instead experiencing a more personal crisis when Foxglove learns that Hazel is pregnant from a one-night stand with a male co-worker; Foxglove is furious but does not reject Hazel for the infidelity. When a mystic storm destroys their apartment building (killing Barbie’s best friend, transvestite Wanda (nee Alvin) Mann, who was guarding Barbara’s mortal body) in the adventure’s aftermath, the couple move in with Hazel’s mother, and (as seen in Death: The High Cost of Living) Foxglove begins a singing career that results in a record contract shortly after Hazel gives birth to a son, Alvie (evidently named after their deceased friend). The three move to Los Angeles, where Fox’s rising success, during which she is advised not to come out to her audience but has several flings with other women, creates a rift between her and Hazel, but the two are reconciled and reaffirm their love after an encounter with the Sandman’s sibling, Death (in Death: The Time of Your Life). Foxglove is outed by her French paramour Veronique talking to Damsels Magazine, and her career briefly peaks, but she withdraws from the music world. Her disappearance is so notable that The World Weekly News later reports her doing gigs with Buddy Holly, which Foxglove claims makes her “more a legend. Or a dream” than a celebrity. She relocates to suburbia with her spouse and their child, where they are at last report living happily ever after.
Hazel and Foxglove first appear in Sandman #32 (A Game of You arc) and reprinted in Sandman: A Game of You TPB. Created by Neil Gaiman and Shawn McManus. Art by Mark Buckingham, Mark Pennington, and Matt Hollingsworth from the Death: The Time of Your Life mini series.
All rights reserved DC Comics. Used without permission.
