Number 31 - Locke and Key the Golden Age - Hill & Rodriguez

 

Since the original series came to a natural end, Hill and Rodriguez have been filling in some of the blanks from the history of Key House in a number of smaller stories.

In this collection, all those smaller stories are brought together, culminating in the crossover story with Neil Gaiman's Sandman - Hell and Gone.

I already have the Small World and the Heaven and Earth volumes (I believe I may have reviewed both of them on here a few years back, but I don't have the energy at the moment to check). 

I'd forgotten how moving heaven and Earth was.  Once again it brought a small tear to my eye. That was nothing compared to the impact that the previously unread stories had. 

Face the music is an amusing and gruesome little short short story.

To Pale Battalions Go is one of the best storylines in the L&K history. Young John Locke decides he wants to join the army and use the keys to fight the Germans. He tricks his way into the army and wreaks havoc for a while on the enemy forces.  Of course, things don't go his way for too long and tragedy strikes. 

If I was wiping a small tear at the end of Open the Moon, I had a little cry at the end of this one.  It was heart rending, and led beautifully into Hell and Gone. As previously mentioned, this is a crossover with Neil Gaiman's Sandman.  It's a long time since I read any Sandman (I think I may need to collect that set of graphic novels next) but it didn't matter.  The characters are just as engaging or terrifying as they were under Neil's auspicious penmanship and no prior knowledge is necessary to follow the story.

The artwork is spot on throughout without even one subpar panel. You can spend ages looking at the detail in the full page spreads. This may well be the best of the L&K titles so far and that is high praise indeed.