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.