Once upon a time in Keyhouse – review of the comic book “Locke & Key: The Golden Age”

Locke & Key is undoubtedly one of the most interesting comic horror films available on the market. Joe Hill has created an intriguing story in six volumes about all-powerful keys and kids who have to protect them from unauthorized hands. In the meantime, an adaptation from Netflix appeared, but this one, in a manner typical for the producer, was simply exhausting the bun. That is why I am delighted that the title is coming back in the form of a prequel comic.

The golden age takes the action about a hundred years back. The key family includes Harland Locke and his nephew Chamberlain with his wife and four children. The volume contains five notebooks, each focusing on a different character. At the same time, the common denominator of almost every story is that the keys, despite their power, are more a burden than a miraculous creation. Interestingly, the youngest daughter of the Locke is the only one deprived of her own story. This is due to the fact that she is the heroine of … spin-offs. I wonder if Taurus will ever have the opportunity to publish them in Poland?

Keys, wrenches, wrenches

In The Little World , you can observe what will happen when the uninvited guest is treated with a magnifying key. Open the Moon , the most interesting and touching episode, describes an unusual journey to a satellite on Earth – one of the keys is able to turn the Moon into a door to the underworld. The Sounds of Music , on the other hand, is only a three-page cut-scene, showing perhaps the strangest of the keys to date – evoking the orchestra. Returning to the plot of the Golden Age , the Pale Battalion finally shows what can happen when the keys are used on a large scale – in this case during World War I.

The most ambitious crossover since…

Finally, the finale, Hell’s End , boldly called on the cover “a hit crossover”, and for me it is by far the weakest element. In the comic, Locke & Key meet Sandman . Unfortunately, most of the plot focuses on cheap nostalgic stunts – every now and then a character from the Neil Gaiman series appears in the frame. Only it resembles fanfiction with its structure , in which characters from the former Vertigo flagship title were crammed to the limit – on the basis of “people like what they already know”. Better let the crossovers stay in the superhero regions.

Prequel unequal to prequel

That’s not the only problem I have with the Hill and Rodriguez comic. While for the most part the title is more than decent, it’s a poor prequel. Golden Age plots have virtually no impact on the plot of the original series. Of course, the references are easy to overwrite, and many prequels often go wrong with explaining almost every element (I’m looking at you, Solo ). However, Hill’s comic is on the other side of the spectrum. Yes, there is a known location, there are keys, but it’s just using the same scenery and props. Reaching for the Golden Age , the reader will not discover any new mystery, nor will he get a new context for the events taking place several decades later.

The line is captivated

In the Golden Age , Gabriel Rodriguez’s style has changed quite a bit. I have to admit that the angularity, thick outline and quite specific looking faces rejected me initially in the original Locke & Key . In the prequel, everything has been softened (except for sometimes the strange facial expressions of the characters) and makes a much more aesthetic impression, although it is at the expense of originality. Nevertheless, Rodriguez’s cadres can look great and harmonize very well with the concepts invented by Hill.

Golden comic?

It was a pleasure for me to return to the world created by Hill. I even want more. And although I say that this is a better standalone comic than a real prequel (especially since the scriptwriter is sometimes sparing in displaying and delineating relations between the characters), a small degree of connection with the original can also be treated as an advantage. I think that the Golden Age may also be reached by readers unfamiliar with Hill’s earlier stories.