Golden Age 9

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Hell & Gone #2
Information
Release date	September 28, 2021
Writer	Joe Hill
Art	Gabriel Rodriguez
Colors	Jay Fotos
Chronology
← Previous	Locke & Key: Hell & Gone #1

Locke & Key: Hell & Gone #2 is the ninth and final issue of the Golden Age series, and the final issue of the Hell & Gone miniseries.

Summary

"To win back her brother's soul from Hell, Mary Locke has done the unthinkable—she's seized control of the imprisoned Dream Lord's artifacts of power and crossed over into his place of power, the Dreaming! Unfortunately, she's managed to find herself in the middle of a war for the future of the kingdom, led by none other than the monstrous Corinthian. And even if Mary survives her encounter, the road to Hell ends in locked gates guarded by Etrigan the Demon and the all-powerful Lucifer himself!

Of course, the Locke family has always had a knack for making keys…"

Plot

In the Dreaming, the scarf of Lucien, still suspended in a cage impaled, blows into the Library of Dream where the Corinthian is closing the door to the Library with Mary Locke inside. The Corinthian tells her that if Mary wants to gain John's soul back from Hell, she must protect Dream's sigils of power at all costs. The Corinthian offers Mary a guide to the demons of Hell, passing himself as Lucien (which Mary remarks of how familiar it is). The Corinthian suggests she might have heard it from a dream, while discreetly reaching into his waistcoat for weapons.

Outside, Fiddler's Green, following Mary's trail, approaches the library he spotted her enter. After he inspects Lucien is missing his eyes, he uses his powers to remove the spear from Lucien before he heads into the library to investigate.

Back in the tour, Mary surprises the Corinthian with Lucien's scarf and binds him, suspecting the Corinthian was bluffing when he claimed to be Lucien, but the Corinthian bangs her against the shelves. He begins to pursue her with his knives, intending to take Dream's items for himself and take over the Dreaming.

Mary escapes to the library's courtyard, where Fiddler's Green is. Fiddler's Green tells Mary to get behind him before the Corinthian catches up, and the nightmare thrusts his cleaver into Fiddler's Green as Mary runs to safety. The blind Lucien, helped over by the guardian lions, identifies the Corinthian while he holds Fiddler's Green in an arm lock. However, he fails to notice Mary activating the power of the helm, the ruby, and the sand. Channeling the magic sand, Mary commands the renegade nightmare to disappear; the Corinthian tries to strike her as the sand wraps around him, but he is banished to a place unknown.

Mary heals the cleaver wound on Fiddler's Green as instructed by Lucien, then uses the sand to restore Lucien's eyes. After inviting the two in for tea, Lucien inquires if Mary was sent by Dream. Mary denies this; she almost considers helping free Dream from captivity, until Fiddler's Green and Lucien note that Dream may not take his capture well, and may even seek to harm Mary like he did with the last woman who rebuffed his affections. Deciding not to aid the Dream Lord, Mary instead asks how to put John's soul to rest. Lucien shows her a book, titled "Laws and Statutes of Hell-1472-Revised Edition" on various ways to enter Hell; but Mary notice a key on the book's cover. Lucien explains it is the Key to Hell, which can grant one sovereignty over Hell. Mary opts to craft a similar key, though both Lucien and Fiddler's Green warn her two keys of Hell will culminate in a challenge for the throne.

Lucien lends Mary the book to summon an escort to Hell. Mary accepts it, fondly recollecting Lucien as her mother's close friend. Mary then wakes up back in Alex's room alongside Fiddler's Green, who has somehow entered the real world through the Dreamstone. Alex then returns from his glove-trotting trips through the trunk, whereupon he keeps his promise and returns the Anywhere Key to Mary while she returns Dream's items to him. Thanking Alex, Mary opens the trunk and returns to Lovecraft with Fiddler's Green.

Arriving in Keyhouse Manor at night, Mary and Fiddler's Green quietly move through to avoid Jean and Chamberlin. She uses the Harlequin Key to open the Harlequin Wardrobe, Chamberlin's current repository for hiding the Keys and their associated weaponry, to gather items for the journey. Fiddler's Green stands ready to accompany Mary on her quest to protect her, since she reminds him of someone he has not met yet. After she lends Fiddler's Green the Sword Key and its sword, Mary then takes a cache of Whispering Iron out of the Wardrobe, and starts to forge a new key in the Lockes' foundry. As the metal cools, Mary begins reciting an incantation from Lucien's book that summons a flame, from which emerges the demon Etrigan. Mary, breaking open the iron to reveal the newly-forged replica of the Key to Hell, orders Etrigan to take them to Hell, and in exchange for his loyalty, she promises to give him what he craves, such as promoting him to a rhyming demon, as soon as she leaves Hell with John. Etrigan accepts these conditions, with Mary and Fiddler's Green entering his portal to the other side.

The three are transported to Hell's front gates. Mary turns the door using her key, which opens and allows the three passage. As they traverse the treacherous landscape, they eventually find the German soldier Mary killed years ago, who is now deaf and writing down every sin he performed with the same pencil he was impaled with. Mary passingly apologizes to the soldier, Haacker, before they continue on, unaware of a demonic vulture flying above them.

Soon, Mary, Fiddler's Green, and Etrigan are confronted by the Triumvirate of Hell—Lucifer Morningstar, Azazel, and Beelzebub—alerted by the vulture and Beelzebub's minion, Mr. Oldbeef. Lucifer musingly wonders how the three of them managed to enter. Etrigan announces Mary has come for John's soul, with Mary presenting Hell's key to claim the right. Lucifer extracts an identical, albeit withered, Key to Hell, and confirms both keys are the true Key to Hell. To settle the debate for John's soul, Mary selects a battle in combat: if she wins, John's soul is hers, but if Lucifer wins, she stays with John forever in Hell. Lucifer accepts, then gives her one hour to prepare herself before he orders Etrigan to take her to John.

In another part of Hell, the soul of John is in a recreation of the Battle of Ypres, fighting and killing the enemy soldiers who are all apparitions of Fiona bemoaning to John that he killed her. In tears and surrounded with bodies of his mother, John is about to kill himself when Mary approaches him; John calms down and embraces his sister. After being brought up to speed, John tells Mary that he deserves to be in Hell for his ambitions getting Fiona killed, Mary tells him it was not his fault, but the grief has left their father broken, and it is time that he stop punishing both himself and their father and find peace.

Just then, the assembled forces of Hell arrive. Mary quickly lends John the Crown of Shadows, summoning angelic shadows of the demons en masse as their first offensive. Over the battlefield with the Angel wings, Mary then plays the Music Box and entrances the demons to attacking themselves, some like Azazel even cannibalizing each other. Haacker resists the spell with his deafness only to be swiftly cut in half, permanently, by Fiddler's Green and the Locke sword. However, Lucifer summons light and dispels the shadows with his pitchfork, brings forth a grotesque flesh wave to pin John down. With the Crown out of his reach, another demon is about to crush John, but Etrigan leaps in and scratches its eyes. Escaping the flesh wave to a barren region, Mary has Fiddler's Green become a garden in order to summon a moon; she flies back to pick up John and Etrigan bids them farewell, now able to rhyme. Together, they reach the moon of Fiddler's Green with Lucifer, assuming a more demonic form to pursue Mary, attempting to stop them from entering; and in the nick of time, Mary and John escape through the door with the Moon Key and shut the demon lord out.

John, Mary, and Fiddler's Green encounter the spirit of Ian Locke on the platform of Chamberlin's Moon; and with him is Fiona, whom John tearfully embraces. Ian and Fiona inform Mary the angels have been waiting for her, expecting her to have a key. The spirits escort Mary down a staircase to a different set of stairs that leads to the Silver City. After leaving John with her family in the afterlife, she and Fiddler's Green move up the stairs, where the angels Duma and Remiel greet her. Remiel leads her to another platform, one with the angels clustered around Lucifer, back in time to the moment when he was cast out from Heaven for rebelling. Duma takes the Key to Hell from Mary, places it around Lucifer's neck, and sends the former angel to Hell. Before Mary can process the repercussion of the time loop, the angels teleport her away.

Mary is back in Keyhouse with the Lockes' items; while outside, Fiddler's Green leaves the Locke sword near the open window before he sets off on his own. Jean has shaken her awake to inform her that Chamberlin is on his deathbed. Once she enters, Mary sees her father right when he passes, but next to him is Death, ready to depart with Chamberlin. Mary, recognizing Death from Dream's garden stained-glass, suddenly manifests as a spirit herself from residual sand from Dream's pouch. Chamberlin's spirit appears next to Death, alongside a hot air balloon, allowing Mary to say goodbye to her father. Her spirit returns to her and Jean as they mourn, although when Mary looks to the window, she spots Chamberlin and Death in the hot air balloon flying toward the moon.

Variant Covers

Cover Art variant by J.H. Williams III

Cover Art variant by J.H. Williams III without the Logo

Cover Art variant by J.H. Williams III. B&W variation.

Cover Art variant by Kelley Jones

UNUSED Cover Art variant by Freddie Williams II

Trivia

• Gabriel Rodriguez's cover art features the following characters:
  • Mary Locke
  • Lucifer Morningstar
  • Azazel
  • Beelzebub
  • Etrigan the Demon
  • Mr. Oldbeef
  • The German soldier killed by Mary from Locke & Key: ...In Pale Battalions Go... #3, Haacker.
• The issue's original publication date was January 2021 before being pushed back to August, and then September 2021.
• This issue was printed by co-publisher DC Comics under its Sandman Universe line in January 2021.
  • Although the issue was first announced as The Sandman Universe – Locke & Key: Hell & Gone #1, it is, in fact, the second part of the Hell & Gone storyline according to Joe Hill.
• Gabriel Rodriguez revealed via Twitter that Hell & Gone #2 would be 48 pages long.
• Several demons from the Sandman series make cameos in Hell: Choronzon, the Squatterbloat, the Merkin, and Breschau. Grubb, one of the German soldiers from Locke & Key: ...In Pale Battalions Go... #3, can also be seen.
• The symbol Mary uses to summon Etrigan the demon is composed of an Omega letter encompassing an Alpha letter that resembles the bow of the Alpha Key. Furthermore, the ring-like runes that the angel etches to transport Mary back match the rings on the Anywhere Key.
• There are several nods to the Sandman series:
  • The Corinthian mentions the library contains all books that were never written, which is same thing Lucien said in Season of Mists, Chapter 1.
  • John refers to Fiddler's Green as "Gil" after Fiddler's Green takes offense to being called "Gus". "Gilbert" is the alias Fiddler's Green uses when he is first introduced in The Doll's House #3.
  • Alex expresses a wish to sleep forever and keep waking up in a dream. This is a direct reference to his tragic fate at the end of the first issue of Sandman, when an older Alex is trapped in a never-ending nightmare as revenge by Morpheus.
  • Fiddler's Green remarks that he imagines Mary has the fragrance of a rose, a reference to his future encounter with Rose Walker.
  • Azazel turning on Choronzon by eating him also happened in the Season of Mists arc.

Continuity

• Mary references the scarf Fiona promised to knit for Lucien in Locke & Key: ...In Pale Battalions Go... #1.
  • John circumventing the Great Lock in the same issue is mentioned. It also reveals the Harlequin Wardrobe was crafted in response to the Great Lock's failure to protect the keys.