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 #106 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha (inker)

The Story: Things come to a head for the man with a tophat and the man with a fur coat!

The Review: All along Willingham has built up Mr. Dark’s street cred, what with spending so many issues having all the Fables work themselves into a veritable lather of tension and fear as they prepare for their final (literally so, since none except the Boy Blue devotees have any hope of survival) confrontation with their infallible foe.  Now that the showdown’s come at last, you can only have high hopes it’s the spectacle you’ve been led to expect.

And once you’ve turned the last page, you’ll probably think, Well, that was something of a letdown.  Last time, Bigby’s dad set himself up to take care of Mr. Dark—Duladan, as the North Wind knows him—by himself, a rather lucky midnight-hour save for the Fables.  For the same reason, it also seems like Willingham chickened out in a way, as he’d already established any battle with Dark could only lead to innumerable Fable deaths, and goodness knows he doesn’t want to depopulate his cast in one fell stroke.

That’d be fine, except the battle between the Misters North and Dark winds up as nothing more than a few splash pages of Bigby’s dad keeping his vampiric opponent in a chokehold as they twirl through an icy wind.  It’s a far cry from Dark’s claim that “a battle between two such as we would crumble this frail world in its wake,” and feels all the more anticlimactic for it.  Since North takes the trouble to drag their fight to a separate realm, you’d think they’d have more freedom to go all out on each other, living up to their formidable reputations.

It feels like Willingham set up a very easy way out for this story arc.  How convenient it is that just before the Fables’ Ragnarok, North shows up vowing to kill Bigby’s son, then changes his mind, except the only way to get out of his spontaneous vendetta is to do away with himself, which—surprise!—confronting Mr. Dark would accomplish quite neatly.  Talk about killing two birds with one stone.  It’d be a noble moment, except you have to remember he was the one who inexplicably wanted to kill off his own grandkid in the first place.

Fables #105 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (inkers), Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: Who knew Mister Dark has the most effective beauty treatment regimen in all the homelands?

The Review: Of course, one of the harder parts of writing comics is creating characters who can convince us of their realism even when they may have the least realistic backgrounds in the most unbelievable situations.  With Fables, you’re dealing with some truly outlandish characters, so crafting relatable emotions or personality against our popular understanding of them can be a tricky feat, one which Willingham has done impressively.

When you really consider the fantastic nature of Bigby’s encounter with his father—the Big Bad Wolf trying to prevent the North Wind from killing his invisible son—you’d think it’d be well-nigh impossible to make the scene credible.  But Willingham tunes Bigby’s helplessness in his father’s grip just right, projecting the right mixture of subdued rage and desperation.  Even a “monster” like the North Wind gets a couple instances of honest vulnerability, the most poignant being the crouch and sniff of his subdued son just before he departs to confront Mister Dark.

But what makes these scenes most convincing is Bigby ruthlessly pointing out the hypocrisy of his father’s claim that his “nature” forces his hand (e.g., targeting Ghost for being a monster).  It’s an interesting commentary on how much the Fables are actually beholden to their original conceptions.  Most have developed beyond their childish origins, Bigby especially, so it’s fitting he calls out his father, a true force of nature, on pretending to have no control over his actions.

These scenes deliver some nice tension, but they and the rest of the issue feel like a bunch of moments strung together to kill time.  Perhaps it’s the dropped page count, but most of these moments don’t develop or have impact like they should, although some have more meaning than others.  Mister Dark’s lack of appetite and idle wondering whether Frau Totenkinder is to blame hints that the old lady’s last effort to defeat him may be not all in vain, but what significance Ozma’s stumbling onto Bigby and his father’s meeting has is a mystery.

Fables #104 – Review

By: Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciller), Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (inkers), Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: It’s up to one team of super Fables to defeat the dastardly Mister Dark—provided Boy Blue doesn’t come back to life and do it himself.

The Review: Jumping onto an ongoing title can be quite daunting, especially with one such an immensely packed history and cast as Fables.  The best way to handle the plunge is simply to roll with whatever the jump-on issue gives you, use a liberal amount of Wikipedia, and try to absorb as much as possible the most important points of the current running plot.  As an English major, I always wanted to give Fables a read, and this issue just happened to be my pick to start.

Of course, a strong, careful writer like Willingham can make things easier simply by delivering the story and characters as clearly as possible, which he does very well.  The first few pages quickly introduce you to the heroes of the moment, the band of warrior Fables known as the F-Men, and their foe in question, the formidable—scratch that—all-powerful Mister Dark.

This issue emphasizes just how dire the situation is for the fairy tale citizens, as every one of them works with the expectation that failure is the likeliest outcome.  Willingham underscores this point with both the F-Men, who become increasingly portrayed like the Fables’ Suicide Squad, and Brock Blueheart’s insistent preaching of Boy Blue’s resurrection as their savior in need.  These are characters that are facing their doom the only way we know how: struggling to the last for survival, and praying for miracles.

Fables #99 – Review

by Bill Willingham (writer), Inaki Miranda (art), Eva De La Cruz (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Mr. North confronts Mr. Dark and tells him of Totenkinder’s challenge to single combat as the Dark Man continues to build his domain.

What’s Good: I wasn’t particularly impressed by the Rose Red arc.  Overall, it meandered a bit and the result was that I wasn’t anywhere near as excited for Fables #100 as I should be.  All of that changed with this issue, which had me salivating for #100.  This comic should serve as a template for how to construct an effective build-up issue.

Much of this is because Willingham spends much of this issue showing, and not just telling, what is at stake.  We get a disturbing peek into Mister Dark’s transformed New York City, one that’s rife with irrational violence, cruelty, apathy, and, well, zombies.  It’s a dark and diseased place and instantly, next month’s climactic issue feels all the more important.  More than that though, Willingham hypes #100 by basically telling us exactly what that book is going to be about: an epic duel between Mister Dark and the suped-up Totenkinder.

Willingham relays this purely through a tense dialogue between North and Dark.  I love it when writers have immensely powerful entities just… talk.  It’s great to have scenes where characters who are essentially gods only imply their powers and merely converse, while showing a certain respect for one another.  It’s always an awesome dynamic and Willingham does it well.  More importantly, by merely talking about what will, or might, happen next month without actually giving us any action this month, Willingham ratchets up the tension and makes us want #100 all the more.

Fables #84 (Great Fables Crossover) – Review

by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges (writers), Tony Akins (pencils), Andrew Pepoy & Dan Green (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Jack returns to the Fables world, taking control of the farm, a weak Rose Red, and Stinky’s Boy Blue cult in the process.

What’s Good: For better or for worse, this was a Jack of Fables comic without Gary or the textboxes. While a lot of people can’t stand Jack’s Deadpool-esque breaking of the fourth wall, I love it. He only does it a couple of times in this issue, but both times, I laughed; it’s quite clever. What I like even more is that this issue finally explained Jack’s ability to do this, tying it to his being half-literal.

What’s-Not-So-Good: I am a huge Fables fan. Furthermore, I love Jack as a character and read his series as well. I find him incredibly humorous and am definitely not among the vocal “Jack hating” party. However, I do not exaggerate when I say that this is one of the worst issues of Fables/Jack of Fables that I have ever read.

The elephant in the room: Jack as semi-rapist.  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this angry towards a comic. Willingham and Sturges, writers who I have long admired, have truly, utterly crossed a line here. I understand that Jack is without morals and I understand his Byronic sexual hunger. However, Byron, despite being somewhat incestuous like Jack, was not a rapist. Jack was always meant to be the “lovable asshole”, the self-centered twit who conducted himself with complete moral abandon, but always in such a way that we could still laugh and get behind him. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how I can laugh at something that nears on the rape of one of Fables’ most beloved characters. I don’t see how I can support a rapist. Willingham and Sturges have moved Jack from “affable rogue” to “depraved villain.” It’s absolutely sickening; this is disgusting stuff and a huge mistake.

What’s also bad, is Akins’ art. I normally love Tony Akins for his comedic potential and what he’s able to do with cartoonish facial expressions. However, when Jack spends half the issue in Rose’s bed, Akins’ art only makes it worse. His depictions of Jack’s face making the quasi-rape all the more nauseating; his depictions of the wasted-away, broken Rose making it all the more vile. Jack’s banter and Akins’ art try to extract comedy where there is none, and as a result, Akins’ comedic style makes the whole affair look like an underground European sex comic. Instead of bringing laughs, it brings vomit. It’s sad that Akins has an issue long struggle with drawing Beauty. He just can’t do it.

The other major problem is this “Great Fables Crossover” itself.  I had faith last month, but now, as we near the halfway mark, I finally admit that it’s floundering.  This issue is a complete stall, not advancing the major plot or the conflicts with Mr. Dark or Kevin Thorn in any perceivable way.  The fables don’t believe in the Literals…and that’s it.   Also, this issue proves that there are just too many disparate elements.  Crossovers NEED one, big central issue/conflict to drive them and to necessitate their existence. So far, we have TWO entirely separate conflicts in Mr. Dark and Kevin Thorn, but as if that’s not enough, we also have other issues like the Boy Blue cult and Jack Frost.  As a result, this issue moves forward with the latter two smaller issues, while throwing the two major conflicts on the backburner.  This crossover is turning into an aimless, and pointless debacle and I’m failing to see why keeping Mr. Dark and the Boy Blue cult in Fables and Thorn and Jack Frost in Jack wouldn’t have been better.

Conclusion: From a plot perspective, this issue is a waste of time.  Nothing moves the major conflict forward, and there are just too many damned minor issues going on at once.  However, if you are a Jack of Fables reader or are looking to be one, skip this issue. I’ve never said this before. Skip it. You don’t want to see Jack as a rapist, as it will ruin the character for you.

Grade: D

-Alex Evans