When Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez launched Locke & Key in 2008 through IDW Publishing, few readers were prepared for the dark tale they were unleashing on the world. The series is an epic, generational saga about the Locke family of Lovecraft, MA and their ties to keys fashioned of an otherworldly substance which each have their own power.
Locke & Key is the first major exposure to American comic book readers to the art of Gabriel Rodriguez, which is a fine balance between cute and creepy. To say that Rodriguez, who is listed as co-creator, has made a splash with this art is an understatement – one of his first major projects/assignments upon the conclusion of Locke & Key is a Superman story. His art has a depth and an almost liquid, mercury-like feel to it, especially when he flexes his muscles and brings forth the ghostly and spiritual images.
The series is published in 6 storylines, with assorted shorter stories focusing on the Locke family throughout the years. Each of the six “chapters” (or each graphic novel, if you will) is comprised of six issues, with the exception of the final installment, Alpha and Omega, which is comprised of 7 total issues (5 of “Alpha” and 2 of “Omega”).
The series begins, in Welcome to Lovecraft, as eldest brother Tyler, his sister Kinsey, youngest boy Bode and their mother Nina. They return to the familial estate following the brutal murder of the family patriarch Rendell by one of Rendell’s students, Sam Lesser. The Lockes are initially joined by Duncan, Rendell’s younger brother to help with the move as they settle into the expansive, Keyhouse Manor on the family grounds. Unbeknownst to the family, or rather, unremembered by the family, Keyhouse holds many dark and supernatural secrets and is much more than it seems. Magical keys can open doors to altered states of being, as young Bode learns in the first volume when he uses the Ghost Key to leave his body and wander the grounds of the land as a spirit. I won’t reveal more than this because the journey of discovery through this story is enchanting.
However, one thing becomes quite clear by the end of Welcome to Lovecraft, as uttered by the mysterious being first known as Dodge:
“No. You can’t understand. Because you’re reading the last chapter of something without having read the first chapter. You’re a little guy, Bode. Kids always think they’re coming into a story at the beginning, when they’re usually coming in at the end.”
Book 2, Head Games picks up very closely on the heels of the first installment. The Locke family has survived a second attack from Sam. Kinsey is starting to fit in with her fellow classmates, Bode is still the curious young boy he’s supposed to be and Tyler has befriended new student Zack Wells. Zack bears a more than striking resemblance to Lucas Carvaggio, former friend of Rendell Lock, because he is Lucas, except that Lucas died under (thus far) unknown circumstances in 1988. Professor Joe Ridgeway, one of the teachers at Lovecraft Academy can’t shake the resemblance because he taught Lucas, Rendell and their group of friends when they attended Lovecraft. One of the more interesting keys introduced in Head Games is the Head Key. When Bode shows it off to his siblings, they are rightfully horrified since the key opens up the bearer’s head and people can look inside and see the person’s memories, symbolic memories. Even creepier than that is how the person whose head is open, is able to peer into their own head.
We learn a little bit more about Dodge/Lucas as he uses the Anywhere Key (which amounts to granting the bearer powers of teleportation) to steal a gun and kill Ridgeway. Zack claims Ellie Whedon (Kinsey’s track coach at Lovecraft Academy) is his aunt, and the shock of seeing the face of a thought-to-be-dead friend shakes her reality. Ellie lives alone with her mentally handicapped son Rufus before Zack “moves in” with his “aunt.” She is very much a zombie in her home, she’s afraid of Zack / Lucas because she thinks he should be dead. As a result of this fear, she helps him make the murder of Professor Ridgeway look to be a suicide.
Head Games steps slightly away from the standard slasher/horror storyline introduced in the first installment. Hill & Rodriguez begin to reveal a greater backstory to the families involved and in doing so, ignite many more questions about the Keys, the history of the Locke family, Keyhouse Manor, the true nature of the many-named being known as Dodge and the long-game Dodge is playing.
Crown of Shadows is the third volume, with the Locke family still a mess. Hill and Rodriguez continue to give equal time to Dodge and the Lockes making Dodge’s search for all of the keys as compelling a plot thread as the Locke children’s adjustment to life in Lovecraft. As Crown of Shadows moves on, the children come to realize they have only themselves to trust as their mother is spiraling drastically. To that end, Tyler begins to assume a fatherly role to his two younger siblings, showing more responsibility than his own mother to the point of being the most responsible Locke in the family. His distrust of Zack grows, and Kinsey begins distancing herself from Zack as well. This does not sit well with Dodge-as-Zack. Kinsey’s removal of her emotions has great effect in this third act of the Locke & Key storyline, it almost gets her and her friends killed.
The Shadow Key, first revealed in “Crown of Shadows” is indeed quite powerful, and like all of the keys it has a finite, yet vast power. So far, the Shadow Key is the first key which has two additional elements, as opposed to a singular additional element like a door/lock in order to manipulate its magical powers. The Shadow Key opens the door to the sub-basement, and also works in concert with the Crown.
Crown of Shadows is the exact midpoint of the series and it is here in the final panel of this storyline that we see the most-sought-after key of them all – the key to the black door: The Omega Key. It is not yet revealed exactly what is behind the black door, but with the deaths that have taken place leading to Dodge’s acquisition of the Omega Key, we can only speculate that it is far from good.
In volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom, Hill and Rodriguez pick up the Locke family virtually where we last saw them in Crown of Shadows discovering the Mending Key and the Omega Key in the final pages. The first issue, “Sparrow,” is a wonderful tribute to Bill Watterson, creator of the great Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. In it, we see the story from two perspectives on a snowy day: one from the young Bode drawn in homage to Watterson’s style with Bode looking very much like Calvin, while the other perspective follows the remaining Locke children. However, by the end of Keys to the Kingdom, a sense of overbearing dread drapes itself over the tale, to a greater degree than before as the closing scene of the Dodge-possessed Bode serves to increase the level of dread and tension that will hang over Tyler and Kinsey in the future. The monster the Lockes thought they destroyed is now inhabiting one of their own. A brilliant plan by Dodge and beautifully executed by Hill and Rodriguez.
The fifth “chapter,’ Clockworks, serves as the penultimate storyline in the series and is a step back but for all the right reasons. We join Kinsey and Tyler on a trip through time as they observe the history of their family and those magical keys which led to the events that have been unfolding in the series. Hill and Rodriguez focus the majority of the story entirely in the past of the Locke family; how the keys came to be created and how Lucas Carvaggio, Rendell Locke’s best friend, came to be the antagonist of the series, the creature known as Dodge. In other words, after learning about the Locke children of the present in the previous four volumes, we get the origin story of why things are going bad for them now. This step back is a masterstroke here in Clockworks. That quote from Dodge at the top of the review is an illustration of why Hill and Rodriguez’s choice to begin the story in-media-res is so brilliant. Empathy for the Locke children is built up in the previous volumes, providing a great foundation for not only them, but for the character of Dodge. Dodge’s actions make him a very hate-able character, mainly from the actions themselves. By revealing Dodge’s past, an empathy factor is added for the character once known as Luke Carvaggio. For as much tragedy as the 21st Century Locke children have experienced, the tragedy of Luke’s plight is nearly as high. By all accounts and depictions of the young man, he was as likeable and affable as a character can be without being too saccharine of a character. In short, “Clockworks” gives us everything to set the stage for the final act that will be “Alpha & Omega.”
Book 6 Alpha & Omega is the finale; where the excrement hits the fan and is spreads across the room. It is everything Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez have prepared readers for and more. Dodge enacts his plan of revenge on the Locke family with the goal of opening the Black Door in the Drowning Cave. Now that he has the Omega Key very little stands in his way. It isn’t always the case that storytellers can promise something in the early stages of a story and not only deliver on that promise, but surpass the hopes of what may come. Hill and Rodriguez, for me, far surpassed my expectations.
Some might say that it was a little too neat of an ending. However, if there’s anything that rises to the surface despite the dark events, it is the presence of hope. Despite Rendell being murdered, despite the shit Tyler dealt with, despite Nina’s alcoholism, Bode being possessed by Dodge, sparks of hope peppered the storyline. That hope began to grow as the story progressed, from the moments in Keys to the Kingdom when Tyler plants his proverbial feet in the ground and tells his siblings Lovecraft is their home.
If I could pin the hope that shone through the series most brightly it would be the one character who acted the most heroically from the moment we met him; the one who through his more simple understanding of the world saw Zack for what he was: Rufus Whedon. Poor Rufus grew up in a house where his father abandoned him because of his mental handicap, his grandmother was verbally abusive to him and his mother, physically abusive to him and he was forced to live with an actual demon. By all accounts, the boy could have bottled up his emotions and shut the world out. He was an outgoing and friendly boy. He befriended Bode, which is possibly the most important relationship in the entire storyline. Nina realizes Rufus was trying to help the Lockes when he was strangling the Dodge-possessed-Bode and his heroic gambit at the end pulling Bode into the Wellhouse was the coup de grâce. She forgives him and realizes he is a true friend to the family.
The battles in the Drowning Cave located near Keyhouse Manor were another chance for Gabriel Rodriguez to unfurl his imaginative brush and create great shadow monsters to terrorize the kids. It was also interesting to see some of the other kids under the power of the keys. When Tyler arrives with the Alpha Key, he thinks he’ll be able to save all of his friends. While he does, in a sense because the Alpha Key forces the demons out of the kids’ bodies, the process is not something the body can survive.
The final issue, as mentioned, is a coda. Hill and Rodriguez aren’t letting readers go without some more tugging of the heart strings. So, with Locke & Key complete, Hill and Rodriguez have finished taking readers on a journey over five years in the travelling. It had highs and lows, we saw the maturation and redemption of many of the characters. Strike that, Kinsey, Tyler, and Nina were all redeemed by story’s end; Lucas’s soul was saved, Tyler’s conflicted thoughts and feelings with his father were resolved, and Bode was returned to the boy we first met.
Bravo to all those involved in producing Locke & Key; a superb literary achievement and an absolute modern classic. Part epic family drama, part fantasy, part horror, the story hits so many beats correctly. Audible adapted the comics to an amazing full cast “audio drama” back in 2015. Regardless of format, Locke & Key is a masterpiece of a story.
The above is an extremely truncated version of the Locke & Key Reread I did for Tor.com in 2014.
