Locke & Key: Volume 5: Clockworks

Locke & Key: Volume 5: Clockworks
Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, 2012 (issues originally 2011)

Premise: Sequel to Keys to the Kingdom. All the players take their places as we hurtle towards the final struggle with Dodge. First though, Kinsey and Tyler will discover one more key, and this one will show them the dark history of Keyhouse, the secrets of their father's past and finally, what the Omega Key does and why Dodge wants it so badly...

For an arc that is largely exposition, this was extremely gripping. We finally get many the answers that have been teased the whole time: how all the minor characters fit together and the history and origin of the keys of Keyhouse.

Now that I have that history, I want to go back and read the whole thing again from the start, because I'm sure I'll catch new wrinkles and more pieces of the mystery will make sense. I loved how well everything fits together, all these seemingly disconnected bits of magic and history and various parts of Dodge's motivation. I wasn't expecting his story to take the turn that it did, but I enjoyed it.

Small spoiler: I'm not sure whether I like Lovecraft Massachusetts being quite so literal a name, but at least it was planned from the start, and I guess makes the name of the first arc less silly in hindsight. End small spoiler.

There's only so many ways to say this: Read Locke & Key. Well, not if you don't like gore and nudity in your comics. But so long as you like paranormal horror more, I'll still say: Read Locke & Key.

The series is ending soon, and the final issues will be collected in Volume 6: Omega & Alpha.

4 Stars - A Great Book