Fairest #24 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Shawn McManus (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Marcel perfects the art of going to buy cigarettes and never coming back.

The Review: I was debating on whether to even review this issue, but in the interest of consistency, I couldn’t just sideline it without a word of warning to y’all first.  But make no mistake; the temptation to quietly forget this issue ever existed was quite powerful.  In fact, the issue would be fairly easy to forget since almost nothing of significance really happens in it at all, much like all the issues before it in this arc.

There is exactly one—count ‘em, one—piece of new information in this entire issue: Marcel didn’t make love to just one lady, but quite a many, each spawning one of several species of child: human, mice, and creatures in between.  Aside from explaining where all the rodent assassins are coming from (and perhaps who their mastermind is), this isn’t much of a revelation.  At best, you react with a raised eyebrow, perhaps with a tinge of disgust, but that’s a far cry from feeling genuinely interested.

Fairest #23 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Shawn McManus (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: One should expect betrayal in the Temple of Rats.

The Review: Any time you join the speculation game, there’s always the chance—a very likely one—that you’re gonna lose, which is why I don’t often play.  I lost big-time when I predicted, with great certainty, that the mastermind behind the ninja rodent attacks was Marcel Champagne, one of Cindy’s helper mice from her original fairy tale.  I couldn’t have been more wrong, in fact, since the mastermind is revealed to be targeting Marcel for as yet undisclosed reasons.

I was spared from total embarrassment by the revelation that Marcel and the sexually aggressive Isabelle du Lac really did get it on.  Now, I’m still holding out hope that perhaps their night of lovemaking spawned a line of descendants that currently ends at our fencing mastermind; if this turns out to be the case, then at least I can still take pride in my alternative theory.  But either way, Marcel’s dalliance proves to have some very interesting magical effects, allowing him to remain human when his brother mice changed back to normal.

Fairest #22 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Shawn McManus (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: When Cinderella’s away, the mice come out to play—and flirt with noblewomen.

The Review: I’d like to directly address Gregory Lockard, editor of Fairest.  Mr. Lockard, I know that despite being a paying consumer, I have no right—or, rather, no power—to critique how you do your job.  This being America, however, I’m gonna do it anyway.  The point I want to stress to you is there’s a limit to how hands-off you can be with a writer’s product.  Andreyko’s arc has been quite inadequate, a problem you could have easily prevented.

For one thing, last issue should have been a blatant red flag to you that Andreyko was having pacing problems with his story, requiring extra scrutiny to avoid the same here.  Instead, you were apparently content to let Andreyko keep on his merry way, resulting in an issue nearly as unproductive as the first.  Quite frankly, the actual contents of both of these issues could and should have been fitted into one, an obvious point I’m distressed to see that you missed.

Fairest #21 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Shawn McManus (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Cinderella discovers a love-hate relationship with mice.

The Review: When I finished reading this issue, I immediately went back and flipped through it again—not because it was so great that I had to experience it again, but because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing pages.  Without a doubt, this is the thinnest issue, plot-wise, that I’ve ever read.  I’ve done some short reviews in my time, but I think this will have to be the shortest because there simply enough material to review.

I want to make it clear from the outset that this doesn’t mean the issue was bad, necessarily, only that it’s grossly inefficient.  The first three pages, for example, are a complete waste, a partial retelling of Cinderella’s original origin story that’s charming, but far less so than what you’ve seen from Disney pictures.  Why Andreyko decided to start here and not with the invigorating sequence of Snow White fending off an assassination attempt by a band of ninja mouse-men is baffling, to say the least.

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #6 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Shawn McManus (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: Clean the house, Cinderelley, kill off that assassin, Cinderelley.

The Review: Perhaps the most brilliant thing about Fables is how even though it’s a serious plot and character driven series, with quite a lot of dark material, because the very nature of its characters is childish, it can easily turn itself on its head and become fun and even silly.  It’s hard to think of any title that typifies this more than Cinderella: Fables Are Forever.  Though clearly a parody of many things, it never fails to demonstrate a sullenly grim streak, a potent combo.

Look at Dorothy.  This twisted version of the famous girl-child still works incredibly well.  Roberson seems to posit that instead of longing for home after seeing the big wide world, she has tasted the endless possibilities of the world and lusts for more, until only the challenge of killing keeps her interested.  But it would’ve been more interesting had Roberson explored a little further Dorothy’s amnesiac period, when she regressed to innocence, implying there may still be a small town farm-girl under that ruthless assassin’s persona.

In the end, perhaps what turns out to be Dorothy’s real weakness is that she is still a girl, despite her raw, sordid personality and lifestyle.  She exhibits with almost childish lack of control some of the most grating flaws of many young gals: cattiness (“You complete and utter bitch…God, will you shut up, already?!”), an unnervingly fickle temperament, and self-centeredness (“You don’t even know how smart I am!”), all of which prove her undoing.

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #5 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Shawn McManus (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: Watch what you’re doing with that glass cat!  You break it, you bought it!

The Review: Does anything beat a good rivalry?  It’s a rhetorical question, because of course nothing does.  I’m quite a fan of the sitcom nemesis, the one who pops up every now and again to drop some mocking taunt just when the protagonist is at his lowest, but my next favorite is the ongoing, escalating face-offs between two enemies.  Done right, the stakes just get higher and the history between them even richer with each encounter.

And for an archenemy so recently introduced as Dorothy, it’s surprising how gung-ho you already feel for the big girl-fight with Cinderella to go down.  We can see from their first showdown in the past that even with Ivan’s help, Dorothy gets pretty much schooled by Cindy, who manages to take back the kidnapped Snow White and sucker-punch her freckled counterpart at the same time.  This incident will no doubt keep both women aiming for victory in their next match-up; Dorothy to avenge her defeat, Cindy to prove the last time was no accident.

The issue also calls attention to Cindy’s role as a career killer, a funny thing since the whole premise of the series revolves around that very fact.  But even in action she tends to be so darn cool and cute that you’re often inclined to overlook the grim implications of her day job.  Still, when Dorothy claims they both serve the same function, it speaks volumes that Cindy has no hesitation in denying it and making a clever distinction: one’s a mercenary, the other “a patriot”.

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #4 – Review

By: Chris Roberson (writer), Shawn McManus (artist), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: This time, Cinderella’s taking the catfight straight to Dorothy’s face.

The Review: Fables has sprung off a lot of quality spin-offs since its conception, but none have quite the pure, unadulterated fun of the mash-up between Cinderella and James Bond.  Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love had such a strong execution of the idea that it was a pity it existed only as a limited series.  How great it is then to get another glimpse into the covert operations of Cindy—and with an even more apt title.

By now, every Fables writer has gotten to be an expert at taking our friendly, familiar fairy tales and turning them on their heads.  Roberson’s portrayal of Dorothy Gale as a professional hit woman works not only because of its twistedness, but also because of how much sense it makes when you consider the implications of her background.  After all, she was pretty much hired to assassinate the Wicked Witch; that she grew to love it shouldn’t be too implausible.

Cindy’s longstanding rivalry of sorts with Dorothy also gives us a welcome look into the former soot-covered girl’s history beyond her sordid affair with Prince Charming.  Whether she’s acting the bimbo in Fabletown or showing her real steel, Cindy’s kind of an oddball among the Fables. so it’s nice to see that in her world of allegorical espionage, she has a few counterparts—though lacking her fair appearance and disposition.