Locke & Key: The Golden Age

The story of Keyhouse and the current generation of the Locke family wrapped up quite well in “Locke & Key’s” sixth volume “Alpha & Omega.”  That hasn’t stopped writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez from creating new stories set in the same universe.  They’ve just been doing it whenever they have a good idea for one.  Which is why it’s taken so long for a collection like “The Golden Age” to arrive.  This collects the stories relating to the Keyhouse family two generations before the original series and they show that the creators haven’t lost a step in the years since the original series’ conclusion.  Which is a good thing, because this volume also collects the crossover story with “The Sandman Universe.”

It’s worth noting that some of the stories in this volume have been either published as graphic novellas, or in single issue form and collected elsewhere.  This is just to let you know that I’ve read the story that kicks off this collection, “Small World,” before and had no problems buying it again here.  It may not be the first published story to feature this generation of Lockes, but it’s a good introduction to them and their personalities.

Heading up the family is Chamberlain Locke, a good-natured fellow who seeks to embolden his children’s learning about the world and the keys, while also firmly instilling proper responsibility and respect towards him.  There’s his less-stern, but more curious wife Fiona, good-natured formerly-white-but-now-African-American uncle Harland Locke, frail and seizure-prone son Ian, rambunctious and fight-prone younger son John, strong-willed and clever older daughter Mary, and reputedly feral younger daughter Jean.  They’re a close-knit, loving family and if you think that the stories in this volume are going to be all about testing the closeness of these bonds then you’d be right.

“Small World” does this by putting the family through a horror-movie crisis.  It starts off innocently enough with Chamberlain gifting Mary and Jean a dollhouse that takes on a fantastic property when it’s unlocked by the proper key.  Interacting with the objects and dolls in the dollhouse has real-life consequences for their counterparts in the Keyhouse.  While this involves hijinks like Jean reaching in and taking her father’s bathtub, with him in it, for a ride down the hall one night, no one in the family seemed to notice the spiderweb above the dollhouse…

Hill and Rodriguez indicate in the credits that this story is for John Bellairs and Edward Gorey, though I think that Richard Matheson deserves some thanks here as well.  Inspiration aside, “Small World” is a good example of the wonder and horror inherent in magic that makes “Locke & Key” work so well.  Yes it’s a lot of fun to mess around with a magical dollhouse, but it’s going to be a bad time for everyone who doesn’t mind the rules.  Especially arachnophobes, who will be well advised to just glance through this story rather than linger on Rodriguez’s appreciably detailed art and the nightmares it’ll inspire for them.

“Open the Moon” is next and it’s a shorter story, focusing on Ian and his medical condition.  While the family does have a healing cupboard that will address any injury, it doesn’t do a thing for the tumor that’s causing the boy’s seizures.  With little recourse in the matter, Chamberlain sees no other option than to undertake the title action to give his son some peace.

This is the rare “Locke & Key” story that focuses explicitly on the wonder that the keys provide.  Ian gets to see many things that he never thought he would otherwise and they’re all impressively rendered by Rodriguez, who shifts his style to an impressive approximation of Windsor McKay’s over the course of the story.  That being said, there’s an inescapable sense of sadness that exists alongside all this and it only fully manifests towards the end of the story.  Hill doesn’t beat us over the head with it, as he presents these things in a way that shows us a father trying to do the best thing he can for his dying son.

Following that up is a three-page-goof called “Face the Music.”  This short involves Chamberlain unlocking a gramophone to play some music for his family one evening, and the little orchestra that comes out to play it.  Everything goes smoothly at first, until their cat gets close to it and… well, leaves Chamberlain fishing bad memories out of Jean’s head for the rest of the evening.  It’s cute for what it is and I appreciate it being included here for completeness’ sake.

Now we come to the stories that I haven’t read in this collection, starting with “… In Pale Battalions Go.”  It’s been a couple years since the events of the previous stories and John hasn’t lost any of the fighting spirit from them.  In fact, he’s determined to enlist in WWI and make a difference in the War to End All Wars.  This is something that Chamberlain is adamantly against, and he thinks that the problem has been solved after he pulls his son out of a Canadian recruiting office back into Keyhouse.  The family head is sorely mistaken, as his actions have only given his son a chance to rethink his strategy and make the keys part of his plan.

While John’s actions can be written off as youthful arrogance, they also serve as a way to raise the idea of what the keys and the powers they represent should be used for.  Does the Locke family have a responsibility to use the keys to preserve life by ending WWI as soon as they can?  Hill doesn’t seem interested in answering this question as Fiona provides a blanket response about the keys wanting to be used as weapons due to their evil origins, so they’re going to stay right here.  If anything, the whole experience is an excuse to show why that’s a bad thing and to show the keys being used in setting we haven’t seen before.

The result eventually leads to a more action-packed “Locke & Key” story than we’re used to seeing as the war quite literally comes to the Keyhouse.  There’s a lot of imaginatively graphic violence on display, that’s also tempered by tragedy.  While the story makes for an impressive showcase of the horrors of war, it’s the ending that hits the hardest.  It’s one thing to see a family member try to make amends for the harm their actions have done, but it’s something more to find out where their efforts have landed them.  Had the story ended there it would’ve made for one of the most depressively effective horror stories I’ve read.

Except it doesn’t and that’s how we come to “Hell & Gone,” the final and longest story in this volume.  It picks up a decade after the events of “…In Pale Battalions Go” and Chamberlain is facing the end of his days, with one great regret weighing on his soul.  As he’s no longer able to do anything about it due to age and infirmity, Mary takes it upon herself to right this wrong.  Her actions take her to Roderick Burgess, hailed as The Most Wicked Man in England, and his vast knowledge of and artifacts relating to the supernatural.  Mary’s only interest, however, is in the pale, dark-haired, eternal being that Roderick keeps in his basement.

It’s no spoiler to say that the “pale, dark-haired, eternal being” in Roderick Burgess’ basement is none other than Morpheus, The Sandman, from the classic Neil Gaiman-written series of the same name.  This is the first intercompany crossover that Morpheus and the other inhabitants of The Dreaming have taken part in and I’m happy to say that it’s an event worthy of the series’ history.  Hill and Rodriguez have certainly done their homework in finding a way for these two series to interact together seamlessly, though I’m sure that having Gaiman on board as a consultant didn’t hurt.

This is primarily Mary’s story, and she cuts quite a figure as the capable, driven protagonist who isn’t afraid to take risks, but also knows how to be smart about them in the process.  From her shrewd dealings with Roderick and his son, Alex, to her realization that something is up with the Dreaming’s librarian, it’s clear that she’s the right person for the task at hand.  Which is good because the stakes of the story are certainly higher than any seen before in a “Locke & Key” story and I can assure you that there’s plenty of entertainment to be had in seeing Mary try to face them down.

“Hell & Gone” also works as a crossover for a couple reasons.  The biggest being that the worlds of “The Sandman Universe” and “Locke & Key” feel relatively similar with their approaches to horror and magic.  Both treat magic as a source of horror and wonder, and as something that has clear, concrete rules that it operates by for even the most fantastic things.  There’s also the iconography they share as a certain key from the “Sandman” mythos turns out to have significant relevance to the Keyhouse.  

That leads to a blending of the mythos between the two series, which can lead one to infer a certain fanboyishness regarding Hill’s work here.  It’s clear that he has great reverence for “The Sandman” and if you’ve read that series then you’ll observe a lot of little gaps being filled in here.  Most of this is harmless fun, as you’ll find out how The Corinthian and Fiddler’s Green wound up in the waking world, or close to thrilling as characters like Lucifer come off as imposing as they ever were, here.

Then there’s the actually fanboyish stuff, which I’m inclined to let slide.  This includes things like Fiddler’s Green saying he’s reminded of a “Rose” upon meeting Mary or him being referred to as a “Gloomy ‘Gil’” later on.  These nods would be deeply annoying if the storytelling of the crossover wasn’t handled as well as it was.  Though, I’ll admit that bits like Alex expressing how his greatest joy would be to continually wake from one dream to another did make me chuckle, so it all evens out in the end.

I do want to add that while the art from Rodriguez is uniformly strong throughout this volume, it’s at its best during “Hell & Gone.”  That’s simply because he’s given some incredibly tricky stuff to draw here and he pulls it off magnificently.  The surrealism of The Dreaming looks as appealing as ever under his pen, while the hellscapes of, well, Hell, are every bit as frightening and monstrous as you’d expect.  It’s frankly stunning work that does justice to the high artistic standards the artist delivered in “Locke & Key” and of “The Sandman’s” artistic history as well.

“The Golden Age” is, without question, a worthy successor to the shared legacies of “Locke & Key” and “The Sandman.”  The additional stories help to flesh out the histories of both series with new stories and characters that are almost as memorable as the ones from the original stories.  It also lets us know that Hill and Rodriguez are capable of expanding upon the mythology of their signature series without diminishing it, which is a good sign for any future returns the two might make to the Keyhouse.  Or rather, in any future stories that they may decide to tell together.