The Unwritten: Apocalypse #4 – Review

By: Mike Carey (script), Peter Gross (art), Ryan Kelly (selected finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tom goes into storyland to find a possible ally.

Review (with SPOILERS): Geez….I really don’t know what to make of this issue.  By that I mean, I literally don’t understand what happened.

The main focus of the issue was on Tom Taylor dreamwalking his way into a Tommy Taylor form and visiting Madam Rausch.  Of course, I understood the surface layer of things in that Tom was there to recruit Rausch as an ally in his war against Pullman and that she may or may not help them, but then things became murky for me.  Rausch has been a recurring character in The Unwritten for a very long time, but this issue made me reevaluate her character in a different way.  I’ve always thought of Rausch as being similar to Wilson Taylor in that she was a gifted storyteller who did her work with puppets whereas Wilson was a writer.

But to be honest, I never thought of Rausch that deeply before.  She was just always “there” in the story as a quasi-villain.  Whereas Pullman is obviously the embodiment of the “Original Sin” story and Leviathan (i.e. humanity’s collective consciousness) loves that story to the detriment of all else in the world, I always thought Rausch was just an antagonist.  Hmm… I’ll have to revisit her because it seems there is a LOT more to her character than I’ve appreciated before.

X-Men Legacy #300 – Review

by Simon Spurrier, Mike Carey, Christos Gage (Writers), Tan Eng Huat, Steve Kurth, Rafa Sandoval, Craig Yeung, Allen Martinez, Jordi Tarragona (Artists), Jose Villarrubia, Rachelle Rosenberg, Ulises Arreola (Colorists)

The Story: It can be hard to make an impression when your very powers prevent you to do so.

The Review: I have to confess this issue confused me when I looked at the cover and the very concept of what it was supposed to be. Here was a book that starred three different characters, each having their own impact, their own cast and their own message, as done by the three writers that defined their very goals and concepts. The problem, though, was the fact that each of the characters that had been the protagonists of this book are now, let us say, in a problematic position of non-existence. With none of these characters actually there to advance the story or celebrate the title, how exactly could this issue manage to get to the point?

Enter Forgetmenot, a mutant with the power of getting no attention and being erased from the memory of those he previously met. Focusing the story on this unknown X-Man, all three writers are able to pinpoint a certain era where they wrote their character, inserting this particular one into the narrative. Essentially telling some important moments through the eyes of a character that no one can remember, does the issue actually manage to celebrate the very legacy that is included in the title?

The answer is not only a resounding yes, but one filled with a certain joy at seeing an experiment succeeding in a way that feels satisfactory. What makes this work very well, though, is the actual character of Forgetmenot. His powers and how he copes with them makes for a powerful message about individuality, but also about advancing through the adversary that is loneliness. His actions, his reactions and his feelings are very human at their core, with a presentation of his struggles that makes him very identifiable for readers. Who hasn’t dealt with being alone, be it with an opinion, an effort or a phase? Well, this character has been so through his entire life, making some of his actions all the more touching, yet also easy to sympathize with.

The Unwritten: Apocalypse #2 – Review

By: Mike Carey (script), Peter Gross (art), Chris Chuckry & Lee Loughridge (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: As stories and reality unravel, Lizzie and Richie try to save the world by finding an old friend.

The Review (with SPOILERS): I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the first two issues of this second volume of The Unwritten.  When I heard that the series was renumbering for a final, 12-issues finale, I worried that we might have to endure a 3-4 issue arc that would make the story “accessible to new readers” but would be pretty drab for people who have been with the story since the beginning (like me).

It turns out that I needn’t have worried and – if I was really thinking – I shouldn’t have been worried in the first place.  Throughout this series, Mike Carey and Peter Gross have woven a lovely tale, but they have made you work for it.  There’s no spoon-feeding of the plot and hidden meanings.  You have to do your own homework.  So, it really would have been out of character for them to put the training wheels back on just as we’re beginning the finale.

Last issue struck a nice balance between “new reader friendly” while still serving the ongoing story.  This issue just plows right back into the thick of the story without any screwing around.  I love that.  Not only is it good for me personally since I’ve read all the issues, but it is true to the nature of The Unwritten as a story.  It would almost be a betrayal of everything The Unwritten was about if you could just “jump on” in the final 12 issues and understand everything.  The Unwritten is about stories and the importance thereof: You can’t just read that last chapter.  If you read this issue as a new reader and are a little perplexed, that’s because you’re supposed to be.  Go read the rest of the story.  You’ll enjoy it.  I’ve rarely read a comic story that had as much real cohesion as The Unwritten: The more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

The Unwritten: Apocalypse #1 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (story & art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tom Taylor returns from death by spinning through a bunch of familiar stories.

The Background (with SPOILERS): This issue totally met my expectations for excellence.

The Unwritten has had an interesting history.  It started out with a lot of acclaim back in 2009, but rapidly followed the pattern of new ongoings where the mainstream comic media sites don’t really care about any comic with a bigger number than 10 on the cover.  So, it kinda fell off the radar screen for many readers.

But, if you follow sites like this (and few others) you’d know that The Unwritten developed into one of the deepest and most ambitious stories of recent memory.  It’s central premise was to question the separation and connection between story and reality.  The Unwritten started out with the smaller idea that “real” humans could cross over into stories and literary characters could cross over into the “real” world.  From that came the idea that some of these literary characters were basically kept alive because this creature called Leviathan enjoyed them….and Leviathan’s enjoyment kept them alive – sometimes FAR beyond where the character was sick and tired of being alive and wanted to end it.

One of these characters is/was a “man” named Pullman and we’ve learned through the series that he MAY be the Biblical Cain….or he may be something more primal: The Devil.  Leviathan may be some mystical cosmic beast OR Leviathan may be the sum total of humanity’s consciousness.  Anyway, Pullman – sick of being kept “alive” by Leviathan – came up with a way to gravely injure Leviathan.  This has led to a true crisis for reality.  When it was first presented to us, it was as if real-world humanity had lost the ability to imagine stories…..and THIS was damaging to the world.  This damage was illustrated to us in a story arc where the only people capable of crafting a story were children and they could only come up with zombie stories (an ironic meta-commentary on the amount of copy-cat zombie stories in the world of 2014).

This led us to a crossover with Fables which was mostly unfortunate.  It just didn’t have the punch of the rest of The Unwritten, but it DID introduce an interesting thought: That none of these worlds is really “real”.  There are no “real worlds”.  Everything is just a collection of stories: every world, every person.  So, when Leviathan is damaged to where he/she/it/us cannot comprehend/enjoy new stories, all realities are threatened.

The conceptual storytelling behind The Unwritten is SO rich.  It is/was truly the best form of storytelling where there are multiple layers to every story and where you can start to examine the real world in different ways because of the work.

FOR EXAMPLE: Just as I was typing this I reconsidered the anti-religious angle in The Unwritten.  If Leviathan is the collective conscious of humanity, then humanity’s long-term obsession with Abel and “original sin” and Biblical stories has led to humanity’s own downfall.  Rather than moving forward and applying the lessons of Abel, humanity became obsessed with the STORY of Able to the point where the original story was tortured beyond recognition and it rose up to bite humanity.  That could just be my imagination making connections OR it could be some meta-commentary on conservative Christianity.

See, deep stuff indeed… And I’ll tell you that there are few things more rewarding in stories than feeling this you are unraveling what a complex story IS REALLY ABOUT.

Review (with SPOILERS):  The main purpose of this issue is to get the train back on the tracks.  The Fables crossover did have a few interesting wrinkles, but it was largely a departure from typical The Unwritten storytelling.  At the same time, almost nobody read The Unwritten Volume 1.  So, this issue needed to be a jumping on point for people who are relatively new to the series.  Thus, it isn’t reasonable to expect this first issue to dive right back into the deep end – and it doesn’t.  

But, what we DO have in this first issue is a very powerful return of the themes of The Unwritten.  We basically see Tom Taylor – who died at the end of The Unwritten Volume 1 – trying to return to “life” and his own “reality”.  Along the way, he bounces from story to story before finally ending up in something that approximates his reality, except that his reality isn’t anything like our real world anymore.

The Unwritten: Apocalypse #1 – Review

By: Mike Carey (script/creator), Peter Gross (art/creator), Ryan Kelly (select finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tom & Gang try to escape a screwed up London.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): This was a much lighter issue of The Unwritten.  Often this series dives into some pretty deep waters in terms of story, but this issue is really here just to introduce the villain.

Of course, that villain is Pullman, but he isn’t introduced in all of his glorious depth.  He’s really just introduced as a “bad guy” and we don’t get into how he represents the story of original sin (or the devil or evil personified….whatever) and how humanity’s fixation on that story has both warped that story and made it worse….but also irritated the story itself and the story – through Pullman – has become sentient and fought back against humanity.  Carey and Gross certainly get all of the important pieces/mechanics on display in this issue, but they don’t really shake them in the reader’s face.  That’s fair enough.  That portion of The Unwritten’s story is really deep and these final 12 issues should be at least somewhat welcoming to new readers.  They haven’t dumbed the series down yet…..and I don’t think they will now.  They just didn’t emphasize the greatest depths of the narrative in this particular issue.

The only bad thing is that it leaves the issue a little light and it stays strictly in the action-adventure realm.  I mean….the issue is fun as we watch Tom & Gang trying to escape from a London that is beset by all the armies that have invaded London in all of fiction, but it is nothing more than fun.  Given that this series only has 8 issues remaining, I am reluctant to fully endorse any down-shift in ambition…..even if it is a temporary.

I also don’t remotely understand what is going on with the young Australian man and the veiled woman.  It makes no sense to me.  I know it’s just because I don’t get it yet.  Or perhaps I’m not supposed to understand yet?  I don’t doubt that once it is explained, these issues will merit a re-read.

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.

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.

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Ship that Sank Twice – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer/creator), Peter Gross (layouts/creator), Kurt Huggins, Al Davison, Russ Braun, Shawn McManus, Dean Ormston, Gary Erskine & Gross (finishes), Zelda Devon, Davison, Chris Chuckry, Eva de la Cruz & Jeanne McGee (colors)

The Review: While this OGN isn’t all I hoped, it is worthwhile to consider the status of The Unwritten franchise before really diving into any serious criticism.

For the first 49 issues of its Volume 1 run, The Unwritten told a story as complex and nuanced as any comic currently in publication.  In those issues, it dug deeply into the power of stories to shape reality, propaganda, religion, and what happens when humans lose the ability to create.  It was truly wonderful….but it never sold very well.  By the end of its 49-issue run, sales had slipped to ~8,000 issues/month and that usually leads to cancellation of the series.  However, what we got was not a rushed conclusion to The Unwritten.  Instead, Volume 1 run is ending with a (pretty terrible) crossover with the Fables Universe.  The crossover is a cute enough story, but it has absolutely none of the complexity of The Unwritten and has nothing to do with the first 49 issues.  Now we get this OGN (which I’ll discuss in a minute) and a relaunch of Volume 2 sometime this winter.

On one hand, I could complain that *they* aren’t finishing the story that I – and ~8000 other people – was enjoying for the first 49 issues.  On the other hand, I could be grateful that the series didn’t just have a rushed ending – The End.  Someone at Vertigo fought to keep this series going despite low sales and decided to try this as a strategy to bring in some new eyeballs because an audience of 8000 fans isn’t very profitable.

With that out of the way, it’s natural to expect this OGN to be “new reader friendly” and it is.  If you are one of those intrepid 8000 fans and you hoped this OGN would pick right back up with the story of Tom Taylor in Hades, you will be disappointed.

The Unwritten #52 – Review

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

The Story: The Fables miniseries being published under The Unwritten title continues.

Review (with SPOILERS): I’m amazed that this story-arc isn’t getting any better.  To put things in context, I just finished prepping some recent issues of The Unwritten for binding.  Doing that reminded me of those really powerful stories that we got over the last ~20 issues of The Unwritten and it really illustrated how vapid this crossover with Fables truly is.  Even though the first couple issues of this story have been poor, I hoped that at some point, we’d get back to some of the themes of The Unwritten, but it doesn’t seem likely at this point.

This is just a crummy story and a crappy publication gimmick.  The story within these first three Fables/Unwritten issues just isn’t very deep and it isn’t even much of an Unwritten story.  It’s Fables characters fighting a Fables villain….ergo it is a Fables story.  Furthermore, there isn’t much more to the story than Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.  The Unwritten is/was so much more than that.  It was never a story about a “bad guy” who was plotting to kill everyone.  It was about the power of stories themselves to alter reality.  Maybe that was too esoteric of a concept for the comic market because I don’t think The Unwritten has ever sold that well….and maybe that’s why they crossed it over with the much more popular Fables?

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?

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.

The Unwritten #49 – Review

By: Mike Carey and Peter Gross (creators, writers/artists), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tommy, Lizzie & Gang have to escape from the real Hell.

Review (with SPOILERS): There were a few surprises in this issue.  Namely, although I guess that it was made clear in the cliffhanger final page of last issue, I totally didn’t catch that it was Pullman in charge of Hell.  Without his magical hand and trademark pea-coat, I just didn’t make the connection.  Perhaps the facial hair isn’t distinctive enough?

The Unwritten #48 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tommy continues trying to save his lady love from Hades.

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue is a little hard to react to.  For the past 6 months or so, The Unwritten has really poured on the subtext.  Every issue was almost hard to review because there were so many subtle things going on, that I just knew I wasn’t doing a thorough job of discussing them all.  So, as I braced myself for this issue, I was bemused to discover that it was just…fine.  This month The Unwritten gives us a pretty straight-forward story without any subtext.  It isn’t awesome or mind-bending or lousy or crap; it’s just “fine”.

The Unwritten #47 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Tom Taylor resumes his quest to rescue Lizzie from Hades.

The Review (SPOILER ALERT): At first glance, this is a pretty standard issue of The Unwritten that just serves to advance the plot.  Contrast that with the last few issues that have focused more on building the entire mythology of The Unwritten universe and it might seem that this issue is a little light.

It is actually one of the least obtuse issues of The Unwritten in a long time, very straight forward… And if you start scraping at the story, you find a lot of those lurking complexities that the series is known for.

The basic story is simple enough: Tom goes to rescue his girlfriend, Lizzie, from Hades and runs into Pauly the Rabbit.  Pauly has taken control of Hades and while he is amused by Tom – since Tom is very different than the other folks Pauly gets to hang out with all day – he isn’t about to just let him waltz in and out.  So, it’s a pretty standard set-up: Hero must overcome the big-bad to save the girl.  It’s very understandable and the art is lovely, but when you start to think about it, it does that typical “The Unwritten thing” where it begins to beg thought provoking questions:

• Why are they in Hades? – Pauly and the little French children may not have been regular church attendees, but it’s safe to say they were raised in a more Christian tradition than a Greek one.  Why are we in Hades and not some Biblical “hell”?  Could it be that one of the central concepts of the series is at work again?  Much as “the word became flesh” so can flesh become words.  Perhaps when characters in The Unwritten die, all that is left of them is a “story” and that “story” has to go to an afterlife…..and since the concept of Hades is older than Hell, they end up in Hades?  Makes a little sense, right?  Does that make Hades a library?  Also weird is that the saying “the word became flesh” is from the Gospel of John (right?)…..so it is once again weird that The Bible is important, but not directly involved in the story.  It really is amazing how continued digging at this story keeps revealing new layers.
  
• Role reversal – How odd is it that a real man (Pauly Bruckner) is running Hades while a fake man (Tom Taylor) is invading Hades to rescue a fake girl (Lizzie)?  Pauly is basically defending a literary creation from an invasion of literary characters.  I’m not sure if it means anything, but it is beyond weird when you think about it.
• Why are the French kids present? – At first, it doesn’t make any sense.  I mean, these kids weren’t anything very important except that they died tragic deaths and their death allowed the essence of Count Ambrosio to cross over and inhabit the French prison warden’s body (back around issue #8 or so).  But, one thing that sticks with me was that those kids were SUPER Tommy Taylor fans.  Remember, they actually had wands and kinda thought that they could actually perform magic, right up until their “magic” failed to keep a wall from crushing them to death.  Surely their misplaced belief in Tom/Tommy will play a role here, right?
• Tom remembers the staircase. – Interesting that Tom/Tommy remembers “the staircase”.  Those stairs have been presented as a kind of journey that stories must follow to be born onto the “real” world.  I can’t think of any significance to Tom remembering that experience, but it is interesting.

The Unwritten #46 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators, writer and pencils), Dean Ormston (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Didge seeks a way to end the zombie killings.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1) Meta-commentaries continue.  – Last month, there was a lot of meta-commentary in The Unwritten #45.  This issue made it pretty clear that my perception of those meta-commentaries are true and accurate.  This current storyline is ALL about something metaphysical causing our “real world” to have tepid storytelling.  This issue we resolve the zombie issue and learn that people were killed by similar fictional constructs the world over, but that all of these people were left severely brain damaged by their encounters with crappy stories.  I love it!  This is Mike Carey and Peter Gross saying that watching American Idol and reading the National Inquirer makes you stupid.  I can’t quite tell if they’re brave enough to include Big 2 superhero comics in that generalization or not.  Interpret things in your own way.

The Unwritten #45 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Dean Ormston (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Braaaiiins!!!  The shambling undead make an appearance in The Unwritten.

Review (with SPOILERS): It’s no secret that I really love The Unwritten and this issue exemplifies what I love about the series.  The funny thing is that it is a hard series to review because the good issues (like this one) have multiple interesting things going on and it can be hard to meld my thoughts about everything into a coherent ~700 words.

The best thing about this issue is that the creators laid out why the “death of stories” is such a bad thing.  Ever since the wounding/death of Leviathan in the finale of War of the Words, this series has discussed this concept that stories are somehow dying.  We’ve seen the effects in “storyland” where characters from popular fiction are living in a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.  That theme has been interesting, but it was never expressly clear why this should matter to us in the real world (or even the “real world” of the comic).  Sometimes I can be pretty literal and I wondered, “Death of stories?  Huh?  What does that mean?  Does it mean words vanish from the pages of books?”  This issue uses narration from the vampiric Savoy character to establish the consequences of the “death of stories” and show us that we’re living with the consequences right now in the real world.  It isn’t so much that the stories vanish from the page, but that we humans lose the ability to pay attention to a good story and instead focus on less demanding forms of entertainment like reality TV, porn, sports, etc.

The Unwritten #44 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tommy Taylor has a bone to pick with the King of Hades.

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 

1). Confusing, but enjoyable. – This is probably a series that reads better in collected editions.  I usually hate that phrase – “reads better in collected editions” – because it is often code for “lazy writing where not much happens issue-to-issue.”  But in the case of The Unwritten, the problem is that so much is going on, keeping a handle on the story is like trying to catch a greased pig.  This is a comic that gets special reading treatment and I simply won’t read it if I’m tired or distracted because I know I won’t fully appreciate the story.  It can be a little annoying sometimes when I’m going through a confused phase, but I do appreciate the fact that The Unwritten is always telling an ambitious story.  It is also interesting that I never find The Unwritten to be aggressively opaque the way I find some comics like Change #1 from a week ago.

The Unwritten #43 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)’

The Story: Tommy Taylor finds a post-apocalyptic wasteland as he journeys through storyland to find Lizzie.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). The story is very locked in right now. – Sometimes The Unwritten makes me feel like I’m not quite smart enough to be reading it.  There have been 4-5 issues runs where “the story” felt like I was trying to grab onto a handful of eels.  That’s somewhat intimidating when you’ve been reviewing the series for a few years and you hope/need to say something intelligent about it every month.  But, right now, the story is very locked in and I know exactly – or at least “mostly” – what is going on.  I think I almost appreciate the story more now because I’ve had to struggle to understand it in the past.

The Unwritten #42 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: The quest to rescue Lizzie begins.

A few things: 1). Unwritten is less fun when you don’t know the fable. – Over the course of the series, most of the “real world” stories that have appeared in The Unwritten have been stories that I’ve heard of or read:  We had an arc from Moby Dick.  Lizzie is from Dickens.  People are familiar with Nazi propaganda.  There are the obvious parallels between Harry Potter and Tommy Taylor….and I’m sure that if Carey and Gross had the legal right to use the Harry Potter characters, they would have.  It’s a lot of fun to watch these intersections between stories you know and this fictional world.

The Unwritten #41 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators – writer & artist), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: What became of Tom & Richie after the War of the Words?

A few things (with minor SPOILERS): 1). Bits of answers from puppets. – For me, the most enlightening scene of this issue was the kinda dream sequence where Madam Rausch appears to Tom and Richie in their dreams and explains that all things touched by Pullman’s hand become words.  As a smart reader of this site pointed out a few months ago, much as “the words become flesh” so can the flesh become words.  Those words are then “fed” to Leviathan and Rausch indicates that Lizzie may be alive in the stomach of Leviathan.  Of course, this implies a connection with the story arc from around issue #21 where Tom got stuck in the belly of a whale.  Now….what that really means to me as a reader, I’m not exactly sure.  As I’ve said in these reviews in the past, I’m not clever enough to connect all the dots on the first reading.  But, it illustrates the thing I love best about The Unwritten: this series is attempting to be great.  It’s rare for a comic to have such ambition and while we won’t be able to fully evaluate the greatness of the series until it is finished – and even then we’ll need to reread and allow the story time to breathe – we should applaud the ambition of the creators.

The Unwritten #40 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tom Taylor returns to the pages of The Unwritten.

Quick review: This series is kinda at a transitional point and it’s affecting the enjoyment of the single issues.  That’s a normal thing in a long running, on-going series that has a defined ending.  Something has to be in the middle after the initial climax and that’s what these issues represent.  It doesn’t make them “bad”, but they won’t have the same issue-to-issue payoff that we were getting during the War of the Words storyline OR the type of payoff that we’ll get in a year or so when this series starts its final story-cycle.

The Unwritten #39 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (artist), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Events in Australian finally loop back to the classic Unwritten characters.

A few things (with SPOILERS): 1). Connections! – The Unwritten had suffered for the last several issues because our favorite trio of characters (Tom, Richie & Lizzie) were no longer the center-pieces of the story.  It was just kinda jarring after having ~40 issues of a very focused story to suddenly jump to new characters in a separate (but related) situation.  When you think about how comics are published these days, this current story arc is almost one that would appear in a spin-off 5-issue miniseries (and we’d all complain about having to buy two series).

Well…THIS was the issue that tied things back together.  It doesn’t provide an answer to everything but it definitely heads in that direction.  Just learning that the central protagonist of this arc (Danny) is the same young man that we met at the end of the War of the Words (as a guy hired to be a writing minion for the Cabal) and that this Lucas Filby (the Jesus-looking guy) was not only the same guy who heckled Tom Taylor in the first issue of the series, but a former thug for the Cabal…..this stuff really made a lot of difference.  Maybe those connections were there to see all along, but they went over my head.

The Unwritten #38 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Peter Gross (art), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: More about the Australian Tommy Taylor cult.

A few things: 1). New colors! – The first thing I noticed when opening this issue is that the colors are completely different.  Everything is darker than the color palates of the past and this coloring is also much more shaded than the flat-ish colors that have pervaded this series.  The difference is striking enough that I wonder if the credits are in error and Chris Chuckry actually didn’t color this issue?  If he did, then he’s really trying out new stuff, which would be odd in the middle of a series and story arc.  I guess I DO like this coloring, but since it is the first thing mentioned in this review, I guess I found it a little distracting too.  Not sure that’s what the creators had in mind.

The Unwritten #37 – Review

By: Mike Carey & Peter Gross (creators), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (covers), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: How are people reacting to Tommy Taylor down under?

Review (with minor SPOILERS): If you were looking for The Unwritten to return to the regularly scheduled story with a BANG, you might be disappointed with this issue.  That was probably an unrealistic expectation for a methodical and thought provoking book like The Unwritten anyway, but coming off the War of the Words story arc where events happened in rapid-fire (at least rapid-fire for this series), it was a little jarring to go back into slow mode.

There are those who take issues like this one as evidence that The Unwritten “reads better in trade”.  And….it might be more satisfying in some ways.  But, even with the slowness of the story, something is lost when you consume 5 issues in one sitting.  The Unwritten is still a good story to carry in your mind from month-to-month.  What do stories really mean?

The story choice here is interesting.  For one thing, Tom Taylor doesn’t make an appearance.  Except for the “special issues” of The Unwritten, I’m not sure if Tom has ever failed to appear.  But, the other thing is that we bounce the story all the way to Australia where we see the Australian police investigating a cult that is causing people to disappear.  The cult is a pretty interesting place too.  Their leader (who I’m 99% sure has been appearing in the series since early on as a bit character) is upset over the fact that stories are ending.  That concept of the “end of stories” was the big take away from last month’s issue #36 featuring our favorite, foul-mouthed bunny rabbit.

The Unwritten #36 – Review

By: Mike Carey (story/writer), Peter Gross (story/pencils), Rufus Dayglo (finishes), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters), Yuko Shimizu (cover), Joe Hughes (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: Tinker and Pauly Bruckner get ringside seats for the end of the world.

Review: This is a tricky issue.  We’ve previously met Brooklyn tough-guy Pauly Bruckner who is trapped in a Velveteen Rabbit-esque body in the ‘land of stories’ in issues #12 and #24.  Both of those issues were Grade A material as we met Pauly and learned that real world people can be ported into “storyland”  (in #12)  and then watched Pauly trying to escape from storyland via a winding staircase (#24).  Even though these issues aren’t the main focus of The Unwritten, they’ve come to add deeper meaning to that concept that stories are alive and an alternate universe that has limited interplay with our world.  The connection seems to be a man like Wilson Taylor who either (a) has some special gift as a storyteller or (b) just understands the relationship of the two worlds.

There was natural desire for this to be another Grade A work, but it just isn’t.  It’s not “bad” in any way, but it suffers by being compared to the first two issues.  The first problem encountered is that for the first time with these storyland issues, one wonders WHEN this issue takes place.  The first two issues have been timeless, but this one, not so much.  Toward the end of the issue, we see a serious threat to the fabric of storyland.  Is this due to the events of the War of the Words story arc?  The implication seems to be “yes”, but it’s hard to see what that really means.  If storyland dies, does that mean that the real world can’t have stories anymore?   Do the people of the Earth forget classics like Cinderella or The Bible?  And if that’s true, how exactly does that happen?  Or if stories must be created by humans first, are humans somehow (HOW?) losing the ability to create new stories to populate storyland?