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.

All These Channels and Nothing Worth Watching

To some people “adaption” is a dirty word. The idea of a story told in one medium being transferred to another is seen as a slight on the original. To an extent I can understand this view. Ironically it’s adaptions that slavishly adhere to their source material that tend to fare worse. This tends to be because the people working on the adaption are trying to recreate something using a different set of tools. They want to do the original justice but don’t have the means to do so. A good adaption will take the core concept and story points from their source and rework them in their new medium. Finding new ways to show what makes the original so enjoyable is the sort of approach I think suits adaptions best.

 

While I can understand this feeling it’s not one I tend to agree with. I think if something is adapted well then there’s a point to doing it. It can find new things to say or new ways of saying things the original already said. It can lead to a better understanding of the original. Most importantly no adaption takes anything away from its source material. If it fails the original is still around to be enjoyed.

 

The reason I mention all of this is that I thought it would be a nice change to write about something other than a good or bad comic book. There are loads of comics out there that I think would work well as television shows. Twenty-odd pages a month is rarely enough space for a writer and artist to fit in plot, character development, interesting ideas, and a bit of mystery (all those things that are so important to something being enjoyable). Television adaptions would create opportunities for exploration that comics deny, and would also make more people aware of some very good series.

 

I’ve picked out ten comics, as much because I like round numbers as for anything else, that I think would be interesting TV shows. They are listed below.

 

Fables

Read a review here.

I’m not keen on the comic book but the general idea of it, characters from fables, myths and nursery rhymes are all real, is incredibly strong. Certainly strong enough to support a TV series for a few series. The original plot is a meandering mess though. That would be best left behind. A show showing how Humpty Dumpty gets by living on a farm in North Carolina is what I want, not an attempt at a modern epic.

 

Sandman

Read a review here.

A straight adaption of Sandman could work but it would need a pretty beefy budget. A vaguer adaption would work better, taking the general concept and more interesting characters of the book and doing a show more about dreams and reality than the machinations of Morpheus. The Sandman is often only a bystander in the comic. There’s no reason he couldn’t be someone who appears in a minor role in every episode of a TV series, having his own plot (based on Gaiman’s original) revealed over time.

 

Powers

Superheroes have been popular with moviegoers for over a decade now. There have been successes, like Smallville, and failures, like Heroes from series two onwards, on TV screens during this time. Right now there are no superhero themed shows that mean much to anybody and Powers could change that. It blends superpeople thrills and spills with the police procedural genre and does it well. It works very nicely as a noir flavoured comic but a different tone would probably be needed for television. The basic idea of a police department that focuses on superpeople, and the main characters of Walker and Pilgrim, seem ideal.

 

American Vampire

A new strain of vampire (an American vampire, obvs) is created in nineteenth century America. The comic follows that strain, in the form of first-of-the-new-breed Skinner Sweet, through the following decades. It might sound a little True Blood but it needn’t be. The focus being on a new kind of vampire, rather than the love lives of vamps that must adhere to the rules we’ve all become familiar with from fiction, would set it apart, as would the historical setting.

 

Ignition City

Read a review here.

I noted when I wrote about this that it felt as though Warren Ellis had treated it like a TV show. At only five issues long there are loads of things about this world that aren’t explored in enough detail. The book is set on a steampunk island that used to be a rocket base, an interesting location for a TV show (it strikes me as very BBC Three). In just five issues Ellis created a cast of characters that you could easily imagine interacting for a dozen episodes before newbies were required. Plus there are aliens. It’s a very broad canvas for a TV adaption.

 

DMZ

This is a comic series set in New York City during a civil war between the United States of America and the secessionist Free States of America. The central figure is a reporter named Matty Roth, who’d make an ideal lead character in an adaption with an ensemble cast. Or an entirely new cast could be created, because what makes Roth ideal as a lead character is that he is suitably bland and uninteresting. It’s the general idea of America going through a civil war that would make this an interesting adaption, not any particular character. An ideal adaption would just use the broad premise and focus on the mayor’s office, the police, the army, and the secessionists struggling for control of the city, with only hints as to the wider picture.

 

Y: The Last Man

Read a review here.

Two things would make Y worth turning into a TV show. The first is the relationships between the characters. Brian K Vaughan did a good job of writing friendships that grew over time and natural dialogue. The other would be the central mystery of how Yorick survived the plague that should have killed every male on the planet. A TV adaption would be the ideal opportunity to create a new ending that does the series as a whole justice. The one we have is too confusing and at odds with what’s gone before to be completely satisfying.

 

Also in Y’s favour is that it’s a story that has affected the whole world. It can be as big or as small as people writing it want it to be. A big budget could see parts filmed in Israel and Europe (like the book) while a smaller adaption could simply focus on the trek across America. The entire plot of the original could be scrapped and the idea could be reworked to focus on a small town harbouring the last surviving man.

 

Preacher

Read a review here. 

Preacher is a very rounded comic book, making it one of the better suggestions on this list. It’s known for being humorous, violent and having a cast full of grotesques. What it’s less noted for is being a love story, which it is, and for being pretty heavy on action in places, which it is. Jesse Custer is a genuinely likeable protagonist (or at least he is when written, careful casting would be needed to retain that), something that I find pretty rare in TV shows. Cassidy, Assface, the Saint of Killers and Herr Starr are a supporting cast who feel like they were created to be seen on TV.

 

The central plot is something that would probably need to stay. Without it Preacher doesn’t work. But the journey that’s taken and the interactions between the central characters could be altered to make something new and interesting. Preacher is one of the best comics out there for TV adapters.

 

There’s been talk of putting Preacher on TV for years. The latest news on that is that it’s happening and Seth Rogen is involved. Personally I’d cast WWE star The Undertaker as the Saint of Killers. But that’s me.

 

100 Bullets

Read a review here.

Crime dramas and ongoing mysteries have become big parts of TV schedules over the last several years. So have mobsters. 100 Bullets has all of this (obviously, I wouldn’t mention it otherwise). None of the shows mentioned here could run indefinitely but 100 Bullets would come the closest. The basic idea of a shadowy cabal having secretly controlled the United States for centuries is easy enough to understand but complex enough to spend time gradually revealing. And of course the Minutemen are the sort of thing modern television viewers seem to love.

 

There are so many stories from the series that would be great on screen and there are lots of original things that could be done with the idea of people being made the offer of the untraceable gun. In fact all new offers and how they play out would make nice to or three minute pre-title sequences.

 

Locke & Key

Read a review of the first volume here.

A feature length pilot was made years ago but nothing came of it. Apparently Fox didn’t think it would work as a series. They’re wrong. Locke & Key is perfect for a TV show, so much so that I’m amazed a series doesn’t already exist. There’s a worthwhile plot that runs across the book’s six volumes that would be ideal as a programme’s central focus, with each volume having its own arc that could be used for either an entire series or multiple episodes. There’s a great template waiting to be used.

 

But what would really make a TV version of Locke & Key worth it would be the ability to do something new with such a great concept. It was always very clear in the comic that there were other keys that hadn’t been used or even seen. Filler episodes or new arcs could be created to make the most of that fact. There’s so much that could be done with the idea of the keys.

Locke & Key: Clockworks

If Keys to the Kingdom was where Joe Hill started playing around with the potential of the Locke & Key world then Clockworks is where he begins to look at what makes that world work. Clockworks is the most revealing volume of the series. It delves into the mythology of the title, the history of the Locke family and the nature and origins of the titular keys. These are the six issues where we start getting answers to the big questions.

The volume begins with a story set in 1775. This sets the revelatory tone. In just one issue we discover how the keys are made, gets hints as to why, teases of where the series could end up, and some interesting information about the Locke family of the time. It’s a wonderfully written opening instalment, all the more impressive for the fact that we’ve never come across any of the characters in it before.

Issue two is the only one of the six to have a primarily contemporary setting. It exists partly to introduce the key that is central to this volume, the timeshift key. As you can probably guess this key allows those using it to travel through time. There are some limitations placed on it, introduced in a nifty way, and the key instantly becomes one of the most intriguing of the series.

The rest of issue two has the tough job of cramming in the lion’s share of the character development for the volume. The cliffhanger volume four ended on is acknowledged and looked at but surprisingly not resolved, a clever decision that allows Hill to carry it over into the concluding sixth volume. That’s what the second issue is largely about, nudging things into place for the series’ final stretch and conclusion.

Which leaves issues three to six. Those four issues see the timeshift key put to use allowing Tyler and Kinsey to see the lives of their father and his childhood chums play out. The four issues are written just as impressively as anything else in the Locke & Key series, with Hill doing a wonderful job of making his almost entirely new cast likeable and interesting. The story of these issues plays out like a conclusion in its own right, just one we’ve not seen the build up to and don’t fully understand. It’s perfectly accessible and any questions we’re left asking are clearly ones that will be addressed when the series wraps up.

Clockworks is all about expanding the Locke & Key mythology at the same time as explaining certain aspects of it. It’s a peculiar volume in that respect as it doesn’t really have a story of its own to tell as previous volumes have. The things that hold it together are the timeshift key, the various revelations, and the sense that the story is heading towards a satisfying, mythic conclusion.

It should be noted that this volume ends on a powerful cliffhanger in its own right, involving the much sought after omega key and the character who was involved in the conclusion of volume four. Sounds vague and irritatingly non-informative? I apologise. Locke & Key is one of those rare comics that urge you not to spoil them. To get the most out of it you have to read it without knowing too many of the specifics in advance. I urge anyone reading this to read the entire series, in order. It’s one of the greatest books, comic or otherwise, of the century.

Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom

After three six issue series readers were still keen for more Locke & Key. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez were happy to give it to them. But they altered their approach a little to keep it fresh.

Keys to the Kingdom is far more experimental with what Locke & Key can be than any of the first three volumes, both in terms of writing and artwork. The first issue sees Rodriguez channelling Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson for a story that plays with the idea of how we view things differently as we age. Youngest Locke child Bode gets the Watterson treatment as he feels left out by his siblings and unable to connect with children his own age. It’s a nice self-contained story that contributes to the whole as well as serving as a reminder for the main characters of the series. The different approach to the artwork is a welcome change and shows how talented an artist Rodriguez is.

The third issue also presents a non-traditional script. We follow the Locke kids’ adventures throughout a calendar month, each day getting anywhere from a panel to a page dedicated to it. Hill uses this as a chance to show the passage of time in a way that only comics can, and subtly moves his story and characters along too. It’s not a mind-blowing approach, but it’s something different and something that Hill utilises to full effect.

Hill is also far more willing to play around with the concept of the keys than he has been before. Previously he introduced keys almost reluctantly, always making sure they weren’t used frivolously and ensuring he looked at the full scope of all the powers a new key introduced. With Keys to the Kingdom he introduces half a dozen new keys, many of which have powers that could support a mini-series in their own right. A mirror key allows people to change their ethnicity while a Mr T style medallion (naturally featuring a tell-tale keyhole) imbues wearers with incredible strength and we get a tantalising glimpse of Kinsey gliding around with wings sprouted from her back.

In addition to those Hill also throws in some throwaway keys clearly intended to be humorous. We see a monster made from thorns and another made from chains, the latter being battled by a muscular Bode, an acorn key that has a strange effect on squirrels, and a teddy bear with an intriguing lock in the back of its neck. There’s a sense of fun to it all and you get the feeling that Hill finally feels comfortable to play around with his creation after getting his characters and the rest of the book’s mythology established. It was worth waiting for.

Previous volumes are not ignored and there’s no sense of this being the volume where Hill and Rodriguez slow down and decide to milk their creation. Along with the fun and interesting keys we also get more developments and revelations regarding the main story than we have in any previous volume. Dodge reveals his true nature in the closing moments of the sixth issue and the volume ends on a cliffhanger that plays on everything that’s gone before it beautifully. I shan’t spoil what it is here.

With its fourth volume Locke & Key continues to prove why it is one of the greatest comic books of the century. It’s a ceaseless parade of captivating ideas blended with a gripping story and really natural dialogue. It’s so well written that it almost makes you hope Hill and Rodriguez will renege on their promise to wrap the main story up after the sixth volume.

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.