Locke & Key: Alpha & Omega

I don’t usually put spoiler warnings here but I’m making an exception with this. Locke & Key is a series that is at its best when it has the ability to shock and surprise. As such I’d firmly suggest reading the first five volumes before checking out what I have to say below. I won’t mention anything specific that happens in this collection, but I can’t make the same promise about the first five. You’ve been warned.

Alpha and Omega had a lot to achieve. As Locke & Key’s final (regular) arc it had to provide fitting resolutions for the main cast, explain the origins of the otherworldly Lovecraftian soul-stealers, give the dastardly Dodge his comeuppance, and dish out a few more facts about the mythology of the series. It also had to live up to the high standard set by volumes one to five and be generally compelling.

It was a tall order but the series did at least have seven issues to tell its story in. That was one more than normal.

Happily Locke & Key here gets the ending it deserved. Joe Hill’s inventive streak is alive and well, firing out revelations and one or two final keys. His knack for writing empathetic characters is as apparent as ever, something easily overlooked with a series with such a wonderfully inventive central concept. Tyler and Bode-Dodge are particular highlights. The oldest Locke child has been taken from an impulsive, angry teenager grieving over his father’s death into a young man who thinks about and considers his actions across the course of the series. The way he’s written here shows how good a job Hill’s done at progressing him, and it was so natural that it wasn’t immediately noticeable.

Dodge, still wearing the body of Bode, is impressive for an entirely different reason. As the character in the know he’s the one who gets all the infodumps and monologues. It’s information most readers will have been waiting to get for a long time and so needed to be included. It could have been forced and unnatural but Hill manages to make it compelling and natural dialogue. It’s an impressive accomplishment.

Gabriel Rodriguez is just as on form as his creative partner. The page which shows Dodge talking about bringing armies through the black gate, surrounded by at first dozens and then just a few possessed humans, is particularly good. It hints at the key powers we’ve never seen at the same time as creating an interesting visual for what would otherwise be a boring bit of prattle. Rodriguez is just as important when it comes to making those moments worthwhile as Hill.

It was the final additions to the mythology I was looking forward to most, being someone more interested in ideas than plot when reading comics. I wasn’t disappointed. Every plot gap you could want filled in is and the motives of the horrors from beyond are satisfyingly single-minded and depraved. Hill does his creation justice.

But with all of this said it was in many ways the story that mattered the most here. In addition to a fantastic concept Locke & key had given us a great story told in perfectly judged instalments across its previous five volumes. It all could have fallen apart in this volume had the story not delivered the proverbial goods. But it does. There’s a climactic battle with a logical reason for happening, Dodge meets an unpleasant end, and Ty gets one last farewell with his dad. What happens to Bode makes sense but it’s not something I’ll comment on here. The series needs to have some surprises for you to discover yourselves.

All in all Alpha & Omega is a great end to a great series. Thank you Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez for giving us one of the best written series comicdom has ever had. What could have been a wonderful idea milked endlessly was instead something to look forward to and savour. It’s something that can be returned to again and again. It’s a fantastic accomplishment.

Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows

What immediately leapt out at me when I first read the third volume of Locke & Key was Gabriel Rodriguez’s great work drawing shadows. A good comic book artist will give extra depth and life to their artwork with a clever use of shadowing. A better one will bring those shadows to life and give them a personality all their own.

That’s exactly what Rodriguez achieves in Crown of Shadows. The eponymous crown, when worn with the key inserted into it, allows the wearer to create and control shadows. The darkness is brought to life, fluid and bursting with character despite being stock foot soldiers for the sinister Dodge. It’s a wonderful idea executed perfectly by one of the greatest creative teams the industry has ever seen.

Elsewhere mopey, psychotic ghost Sam Lesser is revealed to still be hanging around Keyhouse after his demise in the closing pages of Welcome to Lovecraft. While he’s not exactly what you’d describe as balanced he has gained a bit of perspective since having his life ended and makes it clear his goal is to take the body of anybody foolish enough to use the ghost door.

As ever a great deal is packed into the six issues. Kinsey’s blossoming friendship with three of her peers at Lovecraft Academy lead to a tense stay underground and hints at a hidden past.  There’s a wonderfully large scale fight scene to enjoy in chapter five. Plus a mystery is introduced that casts a new light on Dodge’s motives and becomes a central part of the title’s mythology.

Joe Hill continues to prove himself as a first class writer, tackling pseudo-cool teens and drunken, depressed adults struggling with life with equal skill. The epilogue is a particular highlight for Hill’s wonderful characterisation. It’s a character piece centring on Nina Locke’s discovery of a lock and a small cabinet that fixes broken objects. It’s a well told tale that allows you to sympathise with each character in turn.

While the keys introduced aren’t as inventive as the Head Key seen in the previous volume the issues do a great job of adding layers of mystery to the overall plot arc. An excellent entry that asks more questions than it answers and ensures Locke & Key remains one of the most infectiously fun comics you’ll ever read.

 

Critical information:

Writer: Joe Hill

Artist: Gabriel Rodriguez

ISBN: 9781600109539

Locke & Key: Head Games

One of the central aspects of Locke & Key's second volumes is so brilliant that other creative teams would milk it and force it to last far longer than six issues. In Head Games Bode Locke tinkers with the key he fished from the pond of Keyhouse at the end of volume one, eventually discovering that it grants access to people's minds. Memories can be looked at or removed completely, and gaining knowledge becomes as easy as stuffing a book into your head.

The concept is approached in a fun manner that makes use of the visual aspects a comic book provides. Every person’s mind is depicted as an assortment of miniature people living inside their minds, acting out the memories they represent. It gives artist Gabriel Rodriguez the chance to give us some memorable splash pages and have some fun. Young Bode’s mind is a colourful and eclectic mix of superheroes, dinosaurs, and monsters, while Tyler’s is a sombre grey landscape of guilt, angst and teenage lust.
 
Easy to imagine a 70 issue Vertigo series centred on this concept isn't it?
 
Joe Hill shows great restraint, refusing to wear the idea out. Instead he focuses his attention on his cast. Bode is as infectiously carefree as he was in Welcome to Lovecraft, behaving just as we'd all want to if we discovered the magic of Keyhouse for ourselves. Tyler remains stoic, but we get a little of his playful side too. It's a welcome change and keeps the book feeling fresh.
 
It’s Kinsey that gets the most to do of the three Locke children. She is the most affected by the key gimmick and grows the most as a character. We can identify with all the players, but her most of all. Her decision in issue three when it’s realised that things can be taken out of the mind is a pivotal moment for the series.
 
Rodriguez remains as reliable as he was during the title’s first volume but is given more moments to shine thanks to the more fantastical nature of the new key. In addition to the splash pages mentioned above we also get a brief glimpse of a stage play that turns out to be very important in a later volume, some worryingly cute evil memories and emotions, and a highly inventive way of crediting those who worked on the book at the start of issue four. The quiet moments are handled delicately, with the mostly black-and-white epilogue issue being a moving affair.

Head Games showed that Hill and Rodriguez hadn’t been lucky first time round and that Locke & Key was a consistently enjoyable title. More to the point it showed that the series was going somewhere. This is a second outing that doesn’t disappoint.

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft

Welcome to Lovecraft, the first volume of Locke & Key is an astonishingly good piece of work on so many different levels. In just six issues a vivid world ripe with possibility is introduced to us. It never feels contrived or forced, and there's a genuine feeling of magic as you stumble across the book's many secrets.

After the grisly death of their father the Locke children, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, relocate with their mother from the sunny west coast to Lovecraft, Massachusetts. There they find themselves living in Keyhouse, an eerie mansion that has a door that lets people leave their bodies when opened with a certain key and a well house that nobody must go near.

They don’t get to enjoy their new surroundings for too long though. The social misfit that killed their father escapes from the juvenile detention centre he was being held in. He doesn’t necessarily want revenge on the already traumatised family for his incarceration, but he does want a black key.
 
What makes this a particularly impressive read is that it is the first comics work writer Joe Hill has produced. He is the son of Stephen King (he wisely took a pen name to avoid daunting comparisons) and has clearly picked up his dad's knack for success.
 
Aiding and abetting Hill is artist Gabriel Rodriguez, whose quirky and innovative artwork is a perfect fit for the series. He captures moments of tenderness just as well as moments of maniacal bloodletting (and there are plenty of both). It's surprising, given how good he is, that we haven't seen him drawing the Avengers latest clash with the X Men or contributing to DC's Watchmen prequels. The guy doesn’t draw a single bad panel throughout the whole volume.
 
Unlike most comics Locke & Key has not been published monthly since its first issue, instead finding itself separated into various miniseries. There will be thirty-six issues in total, spread across six volumes. There are currently five trades available, with the sixth series due to begin later in the year.

This approach has given each volume its own self-contained plot arc while also allowing it to contribute to the larger story that has unfolded across the first thirty issues (and will conclude in the last six). It's a nice approach that has benefited the title, the gaps in production leaving fans eager for answers and allowing intrigue to build regarding series’ mythos.
 
While volume one is very much an opening act that sets the scene for the tale to come it can still be enjoyed in its own right. As a mysterious person who lives in a well points out in issue six "You can’t understand because you’re reading the last chapter of something, without having read the first chapters."

There are answers here. You’ll just have to read more to fully comprehend them all. Considering the quality of the work that’s no bad thing.

 

Critical information:

Writer: Joe Hill

Artist: Gabriel Rodriguez

ISBN: thing.