Loche and Key

"Loche & Key" is the name of a special multidimensional law firm that specializes in defending the rights and dignities of heroes.

All heroes, everywhere.

Loche & Key defend heroes when their secret identities are threatened, when personal information is about to be leaked through some malicious blogger, when some overzealous prosecutor threatens to arrest them, when some shyster lawyer threatens to drive them into bankruptcy.

They don't advertise their services. You won't find them in phone books. There are no "sales" people promoting the firm. They somehow know.

Firm Partners

The firm has two partners. George Loche and William Key were the original founding partners. These were seasoned attorneys with plenty of experience handling tough cases. But then George died, and his only daughter, Abbey Loche, soon took over.

Abbey Loche

Anna-Belle "Abbey" Loche is a young woman just a few years out of law school. She inherited her partnership when her father died. Most people make the mistake of thinking she is a novice attorney, but she actually has numerous legal victories under her young tech-belt. They also don't know that she is a mutant with powers over time manipulation. That gave her the edge she needed to achieve so much in so little time.

Abbey drinks tea (hot or iced) and sometimes soda. She is into the "new-age" stuff. She loves computers and the Internet and the latest-greatest devices.

Everyone calls her Abbey except for the "Old Man", who still calls her Anna-Belle.

William Key

William "Bill" Key is the "old man" of the firm. As the surviving founding partner, he has the knowledge and experience that made the firm the hidden success story that it has been.

William is very old school. He drinks old-fashioned coffee. He carries old service revolvers. His office is a throwback to the 1950's in terms of cathode-ray television sets and mountains of books and papers and files. He sends packets of paperwork through couriers. His only "modern" device is a cellphone, and he uses that with plenty of protest.

Very few people call him "Bill". George was one of them. Abbey simply calls him "Old Man".

Their Secret

There is a reason why there are only two partners in this "secret" law firm. That reason had to do with a curse that was placed on the original founding partners.

George and Bill were cursed by a deity in another dimension. Because of their success as a team, the two were forced to be divided by dimensions. They could not be in the same dimension as each other. They could change places if they need be, but they could not travel to any dimension where the other one is already located.

If one of them died, there had to be a replacement or else the other would die soon afterward.

Abbey did not know that her father named her as his successor. She was just out of law school when her father died, and suddenly she had his half of the law firm, and also his curse. She also did not know that with this curse came a link that existed between herself and the "old man". They each had some knowledge of what the other was doing at any given time. This allowed them the means to communicate with each other, as well as give each other essential information so that they would not be left unaware of what the other was doing.

What this also means is that Abbey suddenly had no social life, because, as she so eloquently puts it, "old man in my head". She couldn't see herself having any kind of romantic life with Bill knowing what she was doing at all times.

Related Information

Loche and Key first appeared in "Furia and the Guardians" #21.