Locke & Key: The Golden Age

Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez. Idea and Design Works. (264p) ISBN 9781684057856

As a big fan of the Locke & Key television series I thought it was about time that I went to the source material, and I thought that starting with The Golden Age would be a great way to get into them.

I was also overjoyed when I found out that there was an official Sandman crossover story, Hell & Gone.

Overall solid writing from Joe Hill and great art from Gabriel Rodriguez.

This acts as a prequel to the main storyline of the Locke & Key world as portrayed in the comics from Welcome to Lovecraft onward.

The collection introduces us to many of the familiar keys and to one especially that we hadn’t realised that the Lockes had made, and all build up to the Sandman crossover.

Small World sees the introduction of the small world key and the dangers and interactions that can come about through it’s use, as well as a foreshadowing for a later story. Well written and quite brief it still packs a punch.

Open the Moon the saddest of all the issues in this collection, wasn’t quite sure what was happening to begin with but the outcome was sad and sweet.

Face the Music a hilarious short interlude, and of course cats will be cats, and introduces us to the Head Key.

In Pale Battalions Go John Locke wants to use the keys as weapons in WWI and manipulates and sneaks to get what he needs and in the process there are a lot of unexpected consequences.

Hell and Gone This is brilliant, what a crossover. It also explains a lot of things that happened in future Sandman issues, and twists and turns in on itself. The best of a really good collection of stories.