, the best-selling and fan-favorite IDW horror series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, will be wrapping up in August with two oversized one-shots titled Locke & Key: Alpha.The Alpha stories take the place of the final issue of the final (and currently ongoing) miniseries, Locke & Key: Omega. Originally scheduled for six issues, the tale has been shortened to five, with the Alpha issues providing an “intense, macabre” finale.”We hadn’t wanted to reveal the direction this finale was going to take until now in order to maintain necessary secrecy over how Locke & Key wraps up,” said series editor and IDW’s Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall. “But after Omega, there can only be Alpha. And the series will end much the way it began, in the form of an extra-length issue. Two, in this case. Hard to fit this much death and destruction into just a regular-sized issue…”Of course, it’s hard not to notice that, when discussing “alpha and omega,” it’s traditionally omega which is the end and alpha which is the beginning (their respective positions in the Greek alphabet). Whether this title implies that Locke & Key will build to a “new beginning,” setting the stage for future stories down the line, isn’t clear but it wouldn’t be surprising.Ryall said, “It’s been an incredible rewarding six years of Locke & Key, and we’ve loved seeing Locke & Key build a larger and more rabid audience with each volume of the series. Add to that the fans who’ve liked the series enough to tattoo it on their bodies, the actual keys built by Israel Skelton’s Skelton Crew Studios, the Fox pilot, the Eisner Awards and everything else we’ve experienced, and it’s been one of the more rewarding series IDW has ever published. And now it’s time to close this storyline in a way that will be as equally memorable as everything we’ve seen over nearly 40 issues from Hill, Rodriguez and colorist Jay Fotos.”Locke & Key has enjoyed a massively successful critical and commercial run and found a die-hard group of passionate fans. Though all good things must come to an end, Locke & Key: Alpha promises to cap things off in the kind of legendary, eye-popping fashion that can only come from the minds of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez.
