Fables #136 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Mark Buckingham (layouts), Russ Braun (finishes), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Rose begins to regret all those times she ever dozed off during history lessons.

The Review: A few months ago, back when Rose started this new Camelot business, I questioned the wisdom of modeling her enterprise after a fable that so clearly went wrong in the end.  And considering the nature of these characters, you could guess that they’d be more susceptible to foreordained endings than most.  But that’s the nature of Rose’s virtue, isn’t it?  Always hoping that things might turn out differently this time around?

Not to disparage hope, but it’s clearly going to take a lot more than positive thinking to get over the doom of Camelot.  Rose would be wise to take to heart the wisdom and knowledge of no less than the original Lady of the Lake herself.  Although Lake states that fate itself—or should I say, the Fates themselves—poses the biggest danger to Rose’s plans, such forces require instruments to come to pass.  A lot of our interest in this storyline, therefore, is speculating who will take on the roles Guinevere, Lancelot, Morgan le Fey, and Mordred played in the first Camelot’s fall.

Fables #131 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: It’s pretty hard to do an autopsy when the cadaver keeps interrupting you.

The Review: The best thing I can say about this title is that even on its worst months, it always has something worth coming back for.  Mostly this comes from his ability to constantly juggle multiple plotlines featuring various characters at once, frequently setting one aside and then picking it up again later without breaking his flowing pace.  You suspect that he can probably continue in this fashion for another hundred issues at this rate.

This issue makes the perfect example.  You’ve got the fate of shattered Bigby in the witches’ hands, an undertaking that could take ages by their own accounting before it’s complete.  Obviously, it won’t be literally ages if Willingham intends for us to see Bigby’s revival during his lifetime, but the ongoing work of putting our wolf-man back together could be interesting to return to from time to time as the series inexorably advances.  As a fan of the magical stuff, I admit to having a particular interest in everything the witches do, no less because of the seeming altruism of their actions.  What benefit do they get from “magically track[ing] down each and every mote”?  There’s got to be some great need for it that we don’t see just yet.

Fables #129 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: With that, Snow officially has the worst love life of all the Fables.

The Review: I find it quite interesting that for this arc, Willingham has chosen Ambrose to narrate the last few issues.  I don’t know if this will be a permanent thing, seeing how his destined role is to judge the past through his journalistic histories, but I do wonder why now, for this particular story?  In some ways, his hindsight vision ends up stealing some of the suspense from the plot, as he hints at the chain of events to come.

Perhaps allowing Ambrose to serve as narrator is an act of compassion on Willingham’s part for a character doomed to be sidelined.  In Ozma’s prophecy, all the Cubs are fated to do great things (and some already have), all but one, who is merely to judge the actions of the rest.  He promise of survival is his doom; he exists to observe, rather than participate, in Fables’ great events.  “My life in a nutshell,” he muses, with no small hint of ruefulness, “insignificant bits and pieces of other stories.”

Fables #125 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Lord help the pedestrian in the way when Bigby learns to drive stick-shift.

The Review: Being a latecomer to the Fables mythos, I probably don’t have as profound an appreciation for its characters and continuity as I should.  It’s hard to get the real flavor of anything from Wiki summaries alone.  Bu that doesn’t make me any less interested in an arc focused on Snow White.  Given Bigby’s more active personality, Snow can get a little sidelined, so it’s good to shift the focus on the only real contender for Fables’ female lead.

At first, you might be misled into thinking that Bigby’s search for their children will take center stage in this arc.  That kind of quest does seem like the more exciting kind of stuff, after all, and once you add Stinky the Badger for a road trip buddy and the promise of Bigby learning to drive a car (a “terrible day,” Ambrose recalls in his future writings), well—that’s about all you can ask for, right?  Besides, we know from #121 that Bigby’s quest will prove fruitless, so actually finding his kids won’t be the outcome of his story.

Fables #123 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Gene Ha (art), Art Lyon (colors)

The Story: The first and last time a lord of monsters took advice from a dainty turtle.

The Review: As I’ve mentioned, I try not to let my fictional preferences show around these parts, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m something of a fantasy nut.  Maybe not so much in the dragons ‘n’ sorcerers sort of way, but I do love tales of the hidden and unknown, the idea that there’s a whole world in our world that we don’t know about, that sometimes superstitions and stories are hinting vaguely at something much bigger and real.

So between the Japanese folklore in Fairest and the intersection of myth and fairy tales here, you can safely conclude that the Fables series have been rocking my boat this month.  These kinds of stories really get at the heart of why we started telling stories in the first place: to pin down the unknowable, to try to make sense of a world where good people die young and crooks get away scot-free and folks who take more than one sample at Costco don’t get severely beaten.

Fables #122 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Gene Ha (art), Art Lyon (colors)

The Story: The only thing that can make a giant wolf lose his appetite is his own ennui.

The Review: I’d never have predicted that of all the many comic book titles I’ve ever reviewed, Fables would end up being the one I covered the longest.  Granted, the DC relaunch messed with the numbers a little bit, but facts are facts.  At eighteen issues, it still rests solidly on my pull list and I imagine it will remain so for a long time to come.  The world Willingham’s chosen to explore has few real limits and enduring appeal; it’s as eternal as it makes itself out to be.

And when you have different parts of folklore meet, especially with the spin that Willingham puts on them, the possibilities are endless.  Some meetings, however, have more inherent story potential than others.  I’d say a chance encounter between the Big Bad Wolf in his primal glory and a woman “from the deep realms” with the power to assign fates falls into that category.  Is it even possible to write something unoriginal, given such a premise?

Fables #120 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Evidently, no one ever told Dare about the downsides of heroism.

The Review: I have to confess that when I first picked up this series, I almost regretted it shortly afterward.  The story arc running at that time involved the Fables anxiously awaiting their doom by Mister Dark, only to have the North Wind step in and save them all at the last minute.  This development was deeply disappointing as it just sucked away all the tension Willingham built up over this impossible foe, basically concluding with two godlike immortals fading out quietly.

I figured if this was the kind of finish I could expect on a storyline with stakes this big, what could I expect with later arcs that had less scale?  Anyway, I stayed on; it would’ve felt a little silly dropping the title when after only three issues.  Since then, we’ve had quite a bit of soft material (the entire contest for the new North Wind was pretty much just for fun), and only now have we reached a point in Fables where you feel you have something to lose.

Fables #115 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha (inker), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Shawn McManus (feature artist)

The Story: On the bright side, Therese, at least you’re not being made queen of Haiti.

The Review: Even though “happily ever after” doesn’t apply equally to all ye olde fairy tales, that’s generally the feeling such stories evoke.  The brilliance of Willingham’s Fables is for them, there is no “happily ever after.”  One day, perhaps, when we reach the end of this series, we’ll discover all the conflict and horror these characters have suffered through are just a heightened extension of what they must necessarily go through to earn their happy ending.

Till that day, most of the Fables have to take their joys in measured doses.  For Snow White, Bigby Wolf, and the Cubs, that means cherishing their family life, something hardly any other Fable has.  We begin with Snow looking lovingly on her kids, and singing—actually singing (“…best part of the day… / …when monsters, trolls and grumpkins are locked away.”).  Snow probably hasn’t engaged in such stereotypical fairy-tale princess behavior since the innocent days of her youth, so that should indicate the gladness coursing through her in that moment.

It all falls apart, of course, once Therese’s disappearance is finally noted (frankly surprising me no one notices sooner—didn’t anyone wonder at her absence during dinnertime?).  And where is she now?  Well might you ask, for the place she’s landed upon has many names, including Magical Land, Madland, Far Mattagonia, Discardia, but the one we’ll inevitably remember most is Toyland.  Unlike the realm you imagined in childhood, this Toyland seems quite sinister.  It’s only because broken toys which talk tend to have that effect, but it’s also because they play so perceptively on Therese’s desire to be queen of her own kingdom, like homelier sister Winter.

Fables #109 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha (inker), Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: Heavy is the crown the king must wear on his noggin—or whatever.

The Review: The last couple arcs spent a lot of time building up the tension for when Mr. Dark would rain down his nightmarish power over all the Fables and destroy them all, or at least most of them.  Since all that anxious anticipation pretty much came to nothing, both for them and for us, it now just seems like the title has been spinning its wheels for a while.  While all their current antics offer the usual good times, you also wonder where the next baddie will come from.

As much as Willingham wants to direct our attention to Nurse Spratt—I mean, Leigh Duglas—the idea of her as the Fables’ newest nemesis seems a major step down from the embodiment of bogey-men everywhere.  It’s obvious she’s determined to improve herself in the art of dastardly dealings (familiarizing herself with poisons and the like), and she briefly mentions that “others” will soon join her in an ostensibly spooky way, but it all seems very mundane and unthreatening.

Also somewhat disappointingly, Rose Red and her scouting team find nothing out of sorts on the Farm.  You’d think they’d run into at least one obligatory mystical trap worthy of a panther, crow, tomcat, and redhead armed with a dagger, but no.  In short, things seem to be going swell for all our Fables at home—meaning some horrible disaster must lurk right around the corner, just out of sight, but that doesn’t really do anything for our suspense in the herenow.

Most of the action comes courtesy of Bufkin et al, still getting up to no good in land formerly known as Oz.  We know they plan to start a revolution and to do it they need to sneak out some of the goodies from a bunker full of the most powerful magical weaponry in the Homelands, but everything in between remains a mystery.  The odds certainly are stacked against them, as before they even take their first step, they run into “the Yoop!  And ravening monkey-eating kalidahs!”