Fairest #7 – Review

By: Matthew Sturges (story), Shawn McManus (art)

The Story: Your wife’s a hottie, but she’s also a real snake in the grass.

The Review: Now that fiction has become a largely manufactured business, storytelling devices have turned into commonplace—dare I say, cheap—products.  Along with cliffhangers, dramatic irony, and in medias res, the most overused and increasingly impotent fictional tactic is nothing other than the “twist.”  The bulk of these things turn out silly and artificial; a handful prove to be actually surprising; and then you have ones that teeter right on the edge of excellent and lame.

We have one such twist in this issue.  It’s a doozie, no doubt about it, but size really doesn’t make a difference with these things.  There’s no use beating around the bush, so—spoiler alert—the revelation that Beauty (as in “and the Beast”) is not actually one of the fairest maidens of the land, but rather a shapeshifting snake-woman in disguise hits that sweet spot between amazing in a good way and amazing in a bad way.