Locke and Key V2

 

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Locke & Key is written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez, and published by IDW Publishing. I read the Master Editions which was published in 2017 and includes Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft issues 1-6 and Locke & Key: Head Games issues 1-6.  Hill has also written novels including Heart-Shaped Box (winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel), Horns—which was made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe—and NOS4A2 and The Fireman.  Rodriguez is an artist and illustrator working with IDW Publishing. He has worked on The Great and Secret Show, Beowulf, and Land of the Dead to name a few.

Locke & Key won the Eisner Award for Best Writer.

IDW Publishing was founded in 1999. It now includes IDW Games, IDW Entertainment, Top Shelf Productions and the Sand Diego Comic Art Gallery. It is considered one of the top four comic book publishers in the US with over 80 titles on the New York Best Sellers list and has a diverse collection of titles ranging from My Little Pony to Locke & Key and 30 Days of Night.

Locke & Key is a dark fantasy comic that follows three kids after their father’s murder as they deal with their grief, try to fit into a new school, and explore the old family house that has ancient evils and strange magical keys. Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke have to solve the mystery of the keys and stop the woman in the well from collecting all of them; but sometimes using a little magic is too hard to resist.

Trigger warnings for murder, rape, abusive relationships, and substance abuse. This is a serious, mature-audience type story that isn’t afraid to show the killing blow though it’s never overly grotesque.

The story continues as Bode, Kinsey, and Tyler begin to learn more about the keys and start to use them to fight back against the lady in the well. There’s a sequence were we get to see specific days and moments during their battles without going into great detail about each one. This helps to keep the story flowing without slowing things down too much.  I was a little disappointed that the keys didn’t really play as big a role as the others we saw in volume one. 

 

We get the first hint of what Dodge. He tells Sam’s ghost that he’s “an echo of who he once was.” Sam also points out that the thing connected to Dodge’s spirit—some alien creature with a single gold eye—is the thing controlling him. There is a chance that Dodge is not the one in control of the situation or all of his actions and perhaps there’s a chance to save him at some point in the future.  

 

Most of this volume is told through Kinsey and Tyler’s perspectives, with a focus on Kinsey. She has removed her fear and sorrow, so she no longer has a sense of danger and completely disregards social cues, like hints of Zack’s temper, possessiveness, and possibly abusive personality, and the feelings of her friends Scott and Jamal.  We get to see her explore both the freedom of being without fear but also dealing with the consiquences of not having a voice tell her when to be wary of others, their feelings, and her own actions.  She also gets to experience racism first hand, due to one of the keys. I thought this sequence was interesting because it does explore a real topic but I wasn’t sure it was necessary to the plot. Kinsey is trying to find out what Erin Voss—an old friend of her father’s who went crazy after an accident in high school—remembers about Rendell, the keys, and the woman in the well. That should be the focus, but instead, it’s framed as white person’s chance to experience racism. This is a topic that definitely needs discussed and explored, I’m just not sure why it’s here since it’s never brought up again.It’s clear Hill and Rodriguez are having a little more fun with this volume. When we do get to see Bode’s perspective as he discovers a key that allows him to turn into an animal and convinces a flock of sparrows to help him fight off the wild dogs that have attacked his siblings, everything is in a more comical style that reminds me of Calvin and Hobbs. This is in shocking contrast to the grotesque violence as seen by Kinsey and Tyler as they fend of the dogs. 

 

There’s another style shift when we see Rufus’ perspective. He sees the world like normal but his internal world is depicted like a GI Joe comic with battle scenes and soldiers. It’s fun seeing both and knowing that he’s aware of both but has found a way to move between the two. It is interesting that he is able to see the ghosts who wander around the house. Again, I want to know why. His explanation is he’s mentally handicapped and no one would believe him about what he sees so maybe that’s why. I’m not sure I buy that, but I guess it’s the best explanation we’re going to get.I liked seeing Tyler figure out that Zack is Dodge is the woman in the well. And then everything goes to hell. Dodge reveals himself to the kids, he murders multiple people, and kidnaps Bode in a final attempt to get the omega key—which he knows Tyler has found and re-hidden.  This all ends with Sam taking over Dodge’s body while Dodge takes possession of Bode’s body, and Kinsey murders Sam/Zack. All of this leaves Bode as a ghost in his own house with no way of signaling his siblings that Dodge is now the one hanging around them and searching for the keys.

 

Volume two is good. It explores the concepts suggested in the first volume and then leads everything to a climax that also sets everything up for the last volume. If you enjoyed the first book and need to know the ending—like I did—then you’ll need to pick this one up as soon as you finish volume one. Everything is connected. Everything serves a purpose. 

 

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