History ComicBook / LockeAndKey

* IncrediblyLamePun: [[spooiler:"Black-currents" jelly. Dodge instantly figures it out.]]

* CastingAShadow: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Shadow Crown]] allows the wearer to [[SummonMagic summon an army of shadow-creatures to do their bidding]]. Dodge also uses it to transform himself into an [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever enormous wolf-monster]].

A miniseries {{CrossOver{{ with ''ComicBook/TheSandman’’ entitled ''[[ComicBook/LockeAndKeySandmanHellAndGone Locke & Key/Sandman: Hell & Gone]]'' began publication in 2021. This, as well as a few other side stories.

The original series takes place in the early 2010s (when the series began publication) revolves around the three Locke children: Tyler (eldest brother), Kinsey (his sister, a year younger than him) and Bode, by far the youngest.

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: The demons behind the Black Door. People possessed by them start calling out to [[Creator/HPLovecraft Shub-Niggurauth]].]]

* ExactWords: When Dodge asks Tyler [[spoiler:where the Omega Key is, while using the music box to guarantee a truthful answer, all Tyler says is that he "used his head on that one." Turns out it's literally locked inside his skull.]]
** In 1988 Dodge makes Duncan promise [[spoiler:to not follow Dodge and Rendell and their friends to the Black Door. Duncan says, "I promise with all my heart. I will not walk down those steps into the drowning cave again for the rest of the day." And he doesn't. He uses the Anywhere Key to go into the drowning cave.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath: Dodge at the beginning of the story. [[spoiler:Erin Voss, later.]]
** Also, what awaits all of mankind if Dodge succeeds [[spoiler: in opening the Black Door]].

** In the first issue of ''Keys to the Kingdom,'' Bode briefly pretends that his head has been utterly emptied of all contents by the Head Key and he is unable to move, think, or care for himself. [[spoiler: The second issue features a woman who actually had that done to her]].

* ImagineSpot: Tyler does this every now and then, usually imagining himself in outrageously badass costumes. Also, Jordan Gates lying on a school desk in her underwear.
** Dodge does this in ''Keys to the Kingdom'', and his imagination is a bit more... ''disturbing''.

* IncrediblyLamePun: "Black-currents" jelly. Dodge instantly figures it out.

* IntangibleTimeTravel: The Timeshift Key allows the user to visit the day set on the clock as an invisible, intangible observer.

** In ‘'Head Games,'' it is implied that [[spoiler:[[BigBad Dodge]] rapes Ellie. She is [[ShowerOfAngst sitting in the shower in her underwear]] when he enters, says some creepy lines, and removes her bra. The scene ends there.]]

** The Lovecraft hockey team plays against [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Voorhees High]]. If it wasn't obvious enough, the opposing players can be seen at the beginning and end of the issue wearing old-style goalie masks, even though they are not playing goalie, while Tyler is barefaced. The Lovecraft goalie is wearing a far more modern "cage" helmet.

''Locke & Key'' is a six volume long[[note]]plus a number of one-shots[[/note]] series of [[ComicBooks Graphic Novels]] written by Creator/JoeHill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez.

The series revolves around the three Locke children: Tyler, who's in high school; Kinsey, his sister who's just a year younger; and Bode, the youngest and most imaginative. Their father, Rendell Locke, is murdered by Tyler's psychopathic classmate Sam Lesser, forcing the kids' mom to move them to the Locke family home called Keyhouse for a fresh start. The Locke children soon learn something unusual about their new home: it is filled with special keys with many unusual powers. There are a large number of magical keys, including one that changes your sex from male to female and vice-versa, one that can open a door to anywhere in the world, and one that can open your head and let you take out memories and character traits - or even put things in. While playing around with the new keys, Bode discovers the ghost of a lady in a well. The ghost manipulates Bode and Sam Lesser into releasing her, then uses the keys to switch her gender and create a physical body. The ghost takes the alias "Dodge" and befriends the Locke children, pretending to be another new student. Dodge wants to find something in the Locke household and uses the friendship as an excuse to look around the house, while using his ability to change appearance to attack the Locke children whenever they find a new key.

The story covers the Locke's investigation of the house and the keys, and how they tie into the Locke family history. It is a complex, highly interwoven horror drama, complete with complicated and powerful relationships between the many characters, and quite an extensive amount of backstory. Like ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'', ''Locke & Key'' is published as a number of limited-series volumes. Each volume consists of six issues, and tells the story of different magical keys, while bringing a little more of the overall mystery surrounding the keys, the Keyhouse, and thus linking into the larger narrative.

A television pilot of ''Locke & Key'' was made in 2011 for Creator/{{Fox}}, but that network passed on it and no other network picked it up. A trailer can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_KmKC5K8QU here]].

Another adaptation, [[https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/17/15984090/hulu-locke-key-tv-series-new-director-andy-muschietti directed by Andy Muschietti]] was picked up by Creator/{{Netflix}} and premiered in 2020 - see ''Series/LockeAndKey2020''.

A crossover with ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' called ''[[ComicBook/LockeAndKeySandmanHellAndGone Locke & Key/Sandman: Hell & Gone]]'' began publication in 2021.

* AcademyOfAdventure: The Lovecraft Academy, attended by Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, was the same school at which their father and his group of friends discovered the magic keys. Subverted in that there's nothing particularly unusual about the school, and while things occasionally happen there that affect the plot, almost all of the true "adventures" take place at Keyhouse.

* RapeAsDrama: In the very first issue, Nina is raped by Al Grubb. This is hinted to be one of the reasons she is having such a hard time recovering emotionally.

** Even though the series has no qualms about showing violence, there is one easy-to-miss moment that was intentionally done discreetly: In the first issue, during the murder of Rendell Locke, there is a panel showing Al Grubb in Nina's bedroom - he's holding up his unbuttoned pants and Nina herself is nowhere to be seen. There are clear signs of a struggle that took place on the bed, including streaks of blood on the wall next to it. When next we see Nina, her clothes are severely torn, and there are four long parallel wounds in her hand as though someone grabbed her violently, scratching her hand with his fingernails in the process. This is clearer if you read the script book for the issue, and we see some definite hints that Nina Locke was raped off-panel. This is later confirmed in ''Crown Of Shadows #6''.
** In ''Headgames,'' it is ''strongly'' implied that [[BigBad Dodge]] rapes Ellie. She is [[ShowerOfAngst sitting in the shower in her underwear]] when he enters, says some definitively creepy lines, and removes her bra. The scene ends there, but it's pretty clear what happens.
* RecursiveCanon: Among other books, ''Locke and Key'' can be seen on a shelf in the first issue of ''Crown of Shadows'' when Nina finds the Echo Key.
* RevealingHug: [[spoiler: Dodge in Bode's body]] at the end of ''Keys to the Kingdom''.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler: Sam's ultimate fate at the end of ''Keys to the Kingdom'' make his story an example of this.]]

** In a scene after the aforementioned Bill Watterson style ArtShift, Bode is seen reading a ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' book.

* LoopholeAbuse: The keys work the way they're designed to with limits discovered after the fact
but there is still some wiggle room to these limits:

* LivingShadow: The Crown of Shadows.

* BigBrotherInstinct / BigSisterInstinct: Both Tyler and Kinsey are ''very'' protective of their younger brother Bode. Threatening him in any way is a bad idea if you're not prepared to deal with both of them.

* ImportantHaircut: Kinsey gets two in first volume.

* GhostInTheMachine: The Head Key opens up people's heads into a MentalWorld populated by manifestations of their thoughts, memories and feelings. Kinsey uses it to remove her fear and sorrow and stores them into an empty soda bottle.

In 2020, a crossover with ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' began publication.

* AdultsAreUseless: Interesting variation: like in ''Literature/PeterPan'', adults will forget about magic as they grow up; hence why Rendell Locke doesn't remember about the keys. In ''Clockworks'' this is revealed to be because the key to the front door is actually the last key forged, which prevents any adults from realizing or noticing the keys or their effects ("adult" being here defined as "person who has graduated high school"). This trope is deconstructed as, though it was invoked to keep adults from abusing the keys, it also leaves the responsibility of keeping them and guarding the [[{{Hellgate}} Black Door]] entirely in the hands of minors, which leads to a ''lot'' of trauma. Furthermore, as the entire plot shows, it leaves each generation scrambling to even discover that they even have this responsibility in the first place.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The chapters set in Rendell Locke's childhood show a lot more prejudices racism, homophobia, ableism and sexism than the present, including between friends.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The chapters set in Rendell Locke's childhood show a lot more racism, homophobia and sexism than the present, including between friends.

* AdultsAreUseless: Interesting variation: like in ''Literature/PeterPan'', adults will forget about magic as they grow up; hence why Rendell Locke doesn't remember about the keys. In ''Clockworks'' this is revealed to be because the key to the front door is actually the last key forged, which prevents any adults from realizing or noticing the keys or their effects ("adult" being here defined as "person who has graduated high school"). This trope is deconstructed as, though it was invoked to keep adults from abusing the keys, it also leaves the responsibility of keeping them and guarding the [[{{Hellgate}} Black Door]] entirely in the hands of minors, which leads to a ''lot'' of trauma.

* AdultsAreUseless: Interesting variation: like in ''Literature/PeterPan'', adults will forget about magic as they grow up; hence why Rendell Locke doesn't remember about the keys. In ''Clockworks'' this is revealed to be because the key to the front door is actually the last key forged, which prevents any adults from realizing or noticing the keys or their effects ("adult" being here defined as "person who has graduated high school")

* YourCheatingHeart: [[spoiler:Jordan cheats on Tyler with Martin.]]

* RecursiveCanon: Among other books, "Locke and Key" can be seen on a shelf in the first issue of Crown of Shadows when Nina finds the echo key.

** In Keys to the Kingdom #2, the patient directory at [=McClellan=] Hospital is made up almost entirely of comic authors/artists including, but not limited to, G. Ennis, K. Smith, and G. Jones.
** In a scene after the aforementioned Bill Watterson style ArtShift, Bode is seen reading a ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes book.

* WhamEpisode: At least one issue in each volume so far, and possibly the entirety of Keys to the Kingdom.

** Dodge does this in "Keys To The Kingdom", and his imagination is a bit more... ''disturbing''.

** Another one-shot "Dog Days" is this as well: it features children playing with their dog-turned-child thanks to the Animal Key.

* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler: Tyler and co save those who were possessed in the final volume by using a new key they forge that separates the demons from their hosts.]] There's one central drawback however: [[spoiler: The demons immediately turn into Whispering Iron, killing their hosts.]] This is the only option, however, as [[spoiler: possessed people who die any other way are still possessed in the afterlife, kept from the peace and bliss that awaits them, as it terrifies the demons for some reason. Tyler uses the wellhouse key to bring Dodge back one more time and kill the demon. Dodge, finally back to his original self, thanks him and begs Tyler for forgiveness.]]

* AllThereInTheManual: The author's [[http://joehillfiction.com/ website and blog]] provided background information on the magical keys during the release of the ''Welcome To Lovecraft'' TPB book. Guide To Known Keys also provides bits of backstory.

The series revolves around the three Locke children: Tyler, who's in high school; Kinsey, his sister who's just a year younger; and Bode, the youngest and most imaginative. Their father, Rendell Locke, is murdered by Tyler's psychopathic classmate Sam Lesser, forcing the kids' mom to move them to the Locke family home called Keyhouse for a fresh start. The Locke children soon learn something unusual about their new home: it is filled with special keys with many unusual powers. There are a large number of magical keys, including one that changes your sex from male to female and vice-versa, one that can open a door to anywhere in the world, one that can open your head and let you take out memories and character traits - or even put things in. While playing around with the new keys, Bode discovers the ghost of a lady in a well. The ghost manipulates Bode and Sam Lesser into releasing her, then uses the keys to switch her gender and create a physical body. The ghost takes the alias "Dodge" and befriends the Locke children, pretending to be another new student. Dodge wants to find something in the Locke household and uses the friendship as an excuse to look around the house, while using his ability to change appearance to attack the Locke children whenever they find a new key.

* CatScare: The beginning of ''Crown Of Shadows'' #3 is somewhere between this and ScareChord; though this being a comic there's no music to accompany the scene.

''Locke & Key'' is a six volume long[[note]]plus two one-shots[[/note]] series of [[ComicBooks Graphic Novels]] written by Creator/JoeHill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez.