Fables #143 – Review

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

The Story: Bigby threatens to bring down Fabletown, with neither huffing nor puffing.

The Review: One of the many ways I’m a little off in the head is the way I treat stories like people. On first acquaintance, I’m open-minded, relatively forgiving of small quirks and flaws, and cautious to make any hasty conclusions. If it rubs me the wrong way, my judgment can become scathing, and it can be quite difficult to return to my good graces. If I really take to one, my loyalty is steadfast; even if things don’t go well for a while, I’ll still be by its side.

To me, Fables is a bit like my clique of coworkers at a transition job after grad school. We met somewhat late in life and I’ll always remain a bit of an outsider, but we get along well and make each other’s lives that much more pleasant. When we part, it’ll be with regret and hugs, but not tears. This is all a roundabout way of saying that even though I haven’t known the Fables that long, I’m fond enough of them to be really grieved when bad things happen to them. And Willingham seems set to unleash quite a lot of bad things on many of them, even the most beloved.

Fables #142 – Review

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

The Story: Sisters, sisters, never where there such destructive sisters.

The Review: Last issue, when Maddy came around Wolf Manor declaring that war between Snow and Rose was practically inevitable, I wondered idly how Maddy expected Snow to fight a war all by herself when Rose had an entire kingdom at her back. I had forgotten about Winter’s preparations for this very possibility back in #137, which goes to show just how involved and sprawling and foresighted Fables can be. [It also goes to show my memory is shot since bar prep began, but I digress.]

But what are Winter’s plans, anyway? There must be something more delicate going on than a meet-force-with-force strategy, otherwise she wouldn’t be so threatened by Maddy’s interference. Then again, considering the forces she’s gathered (which now includes all her wolfish uncles), the outcome can go either way: mutually assured destruction or stalemate by threat of the same.

Fairest #27 – Review

By: Mark Buckingham (story), Russ Braun (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Even a fox loses his charm once he turns human.

The Review: And we’re back! It’s been several months since the abysmal Mice and Men arc, and if I had any doubts at the time whether I was doing the right thing temporarily Dropping the series, I have none now. I’m in a much better spirit of mind than if I had forced myself to buy into Andreyko’s wandering, inconsequential storyline, and eager to check in with the less pressing side of the Fables universe, especially as we’re winding down to the series’ conclusion.

Since I’m still woefully deficient in my Fables history, I can’t confirm whether Prince Charming’s promise to provide glamours to all non-humanoid Fables was ever established before this issue, but it does lead to a solid plot for the Fables that tend to be overlooked. It’s true they don’t get enough respect; that will happen when you look like a walking sunflower in breeches or cat with a bonnet or some other anthropomorphized creature in medieval costume. Kind of hard not to see them as comical even when they have very real grievances.

Fables #141 – Review

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

The Story: No need for minutes—this is a witches’ meeting!

The Review: As a lover of most things magical, some of my favorite Fables by default are the Thirteenth Floor witches. In most respects, they live up to the typical spellcaster mold: distant and a little bit distracted, always with an air like they’re seeing something you’re not, which they probably are. But they also have an unquestioned loyalty to Fabletown that’s somewhat surprising for such powerful characters. Mages are not well known for their charity.

It made sense for the witches to ally with Fabletown when they had Gepetto as a common enemy, but that’s all over now. Not only has the war been fought and won, the need for Fabletown itself is fading, as even the witches recognize. Yet they continue to stick to their customary meetings, discussing various Fabletown concerns, and even going so far as to consider prospective replacements for their dead/missing/departed peers. With one exception, none of these topics of conversation hold as much weight as their passing remarks.

Fables #140 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Steve Leialoha (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Never get in the way of a cat-and-dog fight, unless you want to get bitten.

The Review: I almost decided against writing a review for this issue, so turned off was I by its predecessor and so disgusted by its lazy execution. But then I remembered that part of a critic’s job is to grapple with the trash with as much vigor as he revels among the gems. “Trash” is a harsh word, I admit, but keeping in mind that I rarely throw those kinds of insults around, it’s one I think is entirely appropriate for describing the quality of this issue.

I actually don’t think Willingham would disagree with me, either. At one point, Danny Boy reminds the others about the danger of the Brochan Weir, “He cannot be killed. Except by a creature called No Man, who’ll come ages in the future to slay him at a crossroads.” Anyone who’s read The Return of the King knows exactly how this particular plotline would turn out. It doesn’t take, as it does for Briar Rose, “decades of badly written television” or training “by a legion of hacks to always look for the obvious twist.” But doesn’t the fact that things play out exactly as she guesses suggest that this, too, is “badly written,” “obvious twist” by a hack?

Fables #139 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Steve Leialoha (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Oh, Danny Boy, the groupies are calling…

The Review: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve reviewed Fables for nearly three years, which is a ghastly sort of time commitment to a venture which yields almost no profit whatsoever. But the enduring power of this series is truly a testament to its consistency. Though I have yet to read a truly extraordinary issue of Fables, nearly every issue has been well-crafted—at least, they’ve always given me something to talk about.

It’s impossible for any title to not have its duds, though, and this arc seems from the start to be one of those. Willingham started on the right note by featuring the Fabletown band, a collection of the most musically gifted Fables: Baby Joe Shepherd (drums), Peter Piper (flute), Briar Rose (guitar/vocals), Seamus McGuire (harp), and Puss in Boots (fiddle).* Had Willingham taken the band on some wild, silly adventure that involved travel by van/bus to a gig of expectedly unexpected danger, this could very well have turned into a very fun break from the main Fables narrative.

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.

Fables #138 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Russ Braun (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Geppetto proves that being a tree-hugger isn’t necessarily a good thing.

The Review: The superhero genre has plenty of belief-stretching conventions, but one worth discussing for the purposes of this issue is the constant cycle of defeat and revenge where villains are concerned.  I always find it incredible that the likes of the Joker, or Count Vertigo, or any number of evil nemeses, would be allowed to return time and time again to plague heroes and innocents alike.  It just seems logistically irreconcilable and fictionally futile.

No wonder that in most other genres, a villain that goes down more often than not stays down.  Once their big play is undone, everything else that comes after seems mostly like anticlimax.  This is why allowing Geppetto to live was a noble move on Flycatcher’s part, but one that could only lead to two predictable courses.  Either Geppetto makes a genuine effort to reform or he goes back to his evil ways, striking again when the other Fables are occupied with other matters.  The first option would be ideal, from a humanist perspective, but almost certainly cheesy and sentimental, defanging a powerful antagonist.

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.

Fables #137 – Review

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

The Story: Winter shows her oft-quoted discontent.

The Review: I may be a cold fish in a lot of ways, but even I hate to see the innocence of kids disturbed.  They already have the rest of their lives to grow cynical, bitter, and pessimistic, right?  So I’ve been distressed to see so many of the Cubs saddled with depressing fates.  Darien committed suicide and has passed; Therese is a grown queen of discarded toys; and Winter has become a force beyond reckoning, with all the burdensome responsibilities that entails.

And now we see that beneath all our noses and against Snow’s extra vigilance, Winter has already taken up those burdens in full.  The North Wind exists on countless worlds, which requires not only her power, but her presence, the experience of which in turn accumulates in her.  “Against my wishes, I’m already old and wise,” she tells the other Cardinal Winds, but more than that, she’s already gained the capacity to be ruthless.  When the other Winds attempt to horn in on her command, she takes the form of the tyrannical North Wind she dreamed of in #114.  She successfully resists their ascendancy, but she also takes a step forward to becoming the fear-mongering dictator her grandfather used to be.

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.

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.

Fables #135 – Review

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

The Story: Rose realizes that castles don’t just grow on trees.

The Review: It doesn’t take too long in life before you run into that one person who teaches you about the danger of forgiveness, the one who makes you doubt the human capacity for redemption.  That’s the thing about second chances; not everyone makes good on them.  With some people, even third, fourth, fifth, a whole plethora of chances won’t do the trick.  And all the time, the people giving those chances are draining their lives to maintain their faith.

This is the risk of second chances that Rose doesn’t seem to have much appreciation for, which is surprising, considering how long it took and how many disappointments she caused before she finally got her act together.  Perhaps this lack of reflection is caused in part by the people she repeatedly disappointed.  Despite the current acrimony between her and Snow, she says confidently, “…Snow will forgive me eventually.  It’s what she does.”

The Unwritten #54 – Review

By: Mike Carey (story), Peter Gross (art), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Dean Ormston (inks), Chris Chuckry (colors)

The Story: And they all died unhappily ever after.

The Review: Hiya, folks—just filling in for Dean while he’s out of the country.  What that, let’s get to it.  Like most crossovers, The Unwritten Fables has offered its share of fun, but is mostly overshadowed by sharp deviations from the ongoing plots in its participating series (Fables seems blithely ignorant that a crossover is going on at all).  Unfortunately, this arc has also fallen into the trap of quarantining its story so that it has no lasting impact beyond the crossover itself.

Unlike some folks, including perhaps Dean himself, I had no problem with at least the notion of a Fables/Unwritten team-up.  The premise itself is sound; Unwritten revolves around the nature of stories, and the Fables have an awareness of their fictional nature and their place in the story-worlds that fits very well in Unwritten’s explorations.  The problem is the plot quickly became less about metafiction and more about a fruitless battle against the embodiment of all evil.

Fables #134 – Review

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

The Story: You have plenty of time for deep conversations when you’re death.

The Review: This sure has been a year for seeing Fables long dead, hasn’t it?  Like Prince Charming, Boy Blue was a character who had already passed away well before I ever hopped aboard this series, but whose reputation was such that even without once encountering him personally, I knew instantly from this issue’s cover that he’d be appearing and what a big deal that would be.  For some characters, as for some people, death diminishes their presence little.

I must say, after getting a chance to experience Blue up close, he really is something.  He just has a quiet magnetism to him, in sharp contrast to the flamboyance of Charming or Jack Horner, but different still from Fly’s similarly reserved charisma.  It doesn’t surprise me that Fly and Blue were close once upon a time; they share a mixture of purity and wisdom which sets them apart from the rest of the generally embittered and cynical Fables.  If anything, dying has only enhanced the virtues which Blue already possessed in abundance.

Fairest #20 – Review

By: Sean E. Williams (story), Stephen Sadowski & Meghan Hetrick (pencils), Phil Jimenez & José Marzán (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: Prince Charming is relieved to know he can still keep an eye on his love life.

The Review: Reading through this arc has made me realize that Bill Willingham must have a lot of courage to trust others with his toys.  It’s one thing for mainstream writers to loan out their storyline ideas or to pass on their continuity to the writers who come after them; those characters don’t belong to them anyway.  But an indie writer owns not only the premise and characters of his story, but the story’s entire vision; can he really trust others to see the world the way he does?

In hindsight, Willingham probably shouldn’t have entrusted one of his bigger characters to Williams, who has unfortunately proven to lack the skill necessary to meld a personality like Prince Charming with an entirely new mythos in the Fables universe.  It’s possible that Williams was hindered by a mission to revive Charming and figure out a way to return him to Fabletown, but this by itself can’t possibly be the reason why this entire arc has felt so lifeless.

The Unwritten #53 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham & Dean Ormston (pencils/finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: The Fables characters come up with a plan to defeat Mr. Dark.

Review (with SPOILERS): I’ve been really hard on this crossover between The Unwritten and Fables.  The major problem being that it isn’t much of an Unwritten story.  It’s just a nice, cute story of Good battling Evil in the Fables universe….with the Tommy Taylor literary characters merely guest stars.  The story is much more about Frau Totenkinder, Fly, Bigbie Wolf, Mr. Dark and Snow White.

None of those problems has vanished in this issue and I still think it is a darn shame that The Unwritten has to finish its Volume 1 run with a paint-by-numbers Fables story.

However, there are a couple little glimmers of hope peeking through in this issue.  It’s nothing as deep as The Unwritten was before this crossover, but it shows that the series isn’t totally killing time until Volume 2 launches this winter.

Fables #133 – Review

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

The Story: Lord help the sister who gets between her and her man.

The Review: The fact that we almost all love a good redemption story attests to our belief in the essential goodness of human beings.  But make no mistake that it is mostly faith that spurs on that belief, and much less in the way of evidence.  Your views on the merits of punishment and rehabilitation often turn on how changeable you feel people can be.  Before one ever get to the redemption stage, one often requires a lot of forgiveness and trust first.

You can see this conflict play out between Rose Red and Snow White as they bicker on the fate of Brandish, someone who both needs serious redemption and for whom redemption seems impossibly out of reach.  Rose is correct in saying that if Brandish can be reformed, then that is incontrovertible proof of the power of second chances.  But can a man who seems to have been a bad egg since childhood (see #132’s matricide), who’s allied with the most purely evil forces in history, who literally has no heart—can such a man even live with himself if he actually develops a conscience?

Fairest #19 – Review

By: Sean E. Williams (story), Stephen Sadowski (pencils), Russ Braun (art), Phil Jimenez & Christian Alamy (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: Nalayani’s village becomes a victim of serious huffing and puffing.

The Review: Of all the arcs on this series thus far, this one has been the least engaging, embodying all your worst expectations about a spin-off title.  Besides stretching a thin plot well beyond what it can actually sustain, the arc has accomplished shockingly little for it.  Despite Williams’ efforts—I would say “best efforts,” but I would be appalled if these were actually his best efforts—we remain unattached from the characters and the story at large.

I suppose it’s sort of an interesting twist on the usual chauvinistic dynamic in fiction that Prince Charming has turned out to be really a very thin character in this arc, largely defined by his relationship to Nalayani.  His professions of love last issue felt so unconvincing as to make you squeamish, but it looks like Williams won’t be dropping the subject anytime soon.  Through some eye-rolling plot developments, he confirms that Charming has finally experienced “genuine true love” (as opposed to just good ol’ plain true love, presumably), but still can’t manage to offer any evidence of it, or even a good reason why.

Fables #132 – Review

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

The Story: Joining the Round Table is a bit like trying out for Glee Club, except less singing.

The Review: I took an Arthurian legend class once, and the one thing I took away from it was how grim most of the stories ended up.  In every version of the Arthurian tales,* Camelot, which stands as a shining city of ideals against the Dark Ages, ultimately falls to mankind’s baser instincts.  The chivalric code and the Round Table are undermined by the fatal flaws of the knights, the court, and Arthur himself.  Virtue crumples in the face of human weakness.

So how shall we take Rose’s big idea to bring back the Round Table and to establish “a new order of knighthood, here at the Farm, dedicated to the ancient ideals of chivalry”?  Given how well that turned out last time, can we possible expect Rose to succeed where King Arthur failed?  Erratic at the best of times, it’s clear she’s working out this plan on the fly, though hopefully inspired by, well, hope.  If Rose has one advantage over the legendary king, it’s a sense of realistic expectations.  Her first table looks more like a setting for an AA meeting than a future Camelot, but, as she points out, “This is a start.”

The Unwritten #51 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Bill Willingham (writers), Peter Gross & Mark Buckingham (art), Russ Braun (finishes here and there), Chris Chuckry & Lee Loughridge (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: The Fables – Unwritten crossover continues.

The Review (with SPOILERS): I wasn’t very keen on the first issue of this Fable/Unwritten crossover and judging from the comments on that review, nobody else seemed to love it either.  The main problems were (a) that Vertigo is a publisher that readers choose when they are sick of the crossovers that plague superhero comics and (b) that the story was more of an alt-Fables story than anything remotely connected to the ongoing story of The Unwritten.

As I read this issue, I kept hoping or thinking that we might see some little glimmer of The Unwritten lurking in the story.  Something like Pullman showing up in the background or some discussion by the Fables characters of a whale-like creature that feeds on stories (i.e. Leviathan) or even some sense that stories have been damaged and that is what allowed this alt-version of Fables to come to pass…….  Alas, this was not to be.  Our beloved Unwritten seems to be totally buried under the weight of Fables to the extent that you can’t see much trace of The Unwritten.  The only remnants of The Unwritten are the Harry Potteresque Tommy Taylor & Friends and the vampire, Savoy.  I’m not sure that any reader of The Unwritten has been champing at the bit to get a real story about Tommy Taylor (Anyone?  Anyone?) and of all the characters to carry over, why Savoy?

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.

Fairest #17 – Review

By: Sean E. Williams (story), Stephen Sadowski (pencils), Phil Jimenez, Andrew Pepoy, Dan Green (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: Nalayani and Charming get the sinking feeling that someone is out to get them.

The Review: Longtime readers of this site—specifically, longtime readers of me—probably have noticed that I have a fairly unusual (some might argue unpredictable) grading style.  You can check out this article for some comprehensive explanation behind that, but I can tell you right now what falls under C-material in my mind.  It’s the same things I used to comment on my C students’ work: passing effort, messy, lacks originality, barely functional.

I bring all this up now because this issue of Fairest and this whole arc in general seem to hit all those qualities.  If some find this assessment harsh, I offer as proof Williams’ explanation of Prince Charming’s return from the apparent dead.  It basically boils down to the fact that he’s too popular to die, even after getting blasted apart by an explosion which shattered the gateways to other worlds.  But this is simply the physics of the Fables universe.  What’s really problematic is the unaffected, nonchalant, even dull manner in which this story is recollected.

The Unwritten #50 – Review

By: brace yourself–Mike Carey and Bill Willingham (writers), Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha and Inaki Miranda (art), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: The Unwritten and Fables universes cross over.

Review (with SPOILERS): Ugh….despite being very attractive and nicely written, this is a disaster of a comic from a creative standpoint.

Last month in The Unwritten #49 we saw that Tom Taylor attempted to reach the “beginning” of all stories in his attempt to cure what ails the power of stories.  When he reached the “beginning”, he found himself amidst the characters of Fables.  At the time, it seemed very misplaced and forced.  After all, the Fables aren’t even the most important story characters that DC owns the right to.  It would have made more sense for Tom to find himself in the Fortress of Solitude or the Batcave.  Further, the whole thing smacked of the type of crossover the people read Vertigo comics to avoid.

Unfortunately, this lovely-looking issue doesn’t do anything to make me feel better about things.  Essentially, this turns into an issue of Fables wherein several of the characters have attempted to summon a powerful wizard to aid them in their battle against Mister Dark and his minions.  Naturally, they are somewhat perturbed to have a sloppy looking modern adult (Tom) rather than a “real” wizard. You’d think that a group of characters who shared a publisher with Hellblazer for years would know better than to underestimate a rumbled looking man.

Fables #130 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (story), Barry Kitson (art), Gary Erskine (finishes), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: Someone did exterminate Castle Dark before we all moved in, right?

The Review: I can’t say that I always have my head wrapped around how the Fables exist, but one thing I do know is they depend on our investment in their stories to survive.  As the recent resurrection of Prince Charming attests, the more powerful their fictional impact, the more resilient they become.  With that in mind, it’s crucial that the Fables’ children generate worthwhile tales of their own, lest they become forgettable inferiors to their parents.

Sadly, Junebug, the fair child of former wooden soldiers Rodney and June, will probably always remain a well-liked but unmemorable member of the next-gen Fables (though on the plus side, she has the best chance of surpassing the fame of her parents).  Her little sojourn in Castle Dark is, like herself, lively, charming, and generically defined.  It’s good enough to pass a bus ride on, but not nearly good enough to make its mark on your memory once you get off.