Fables #111 – Review

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

The Story: Get ready to see who’ll be the new North Wind—he (or she) will blow you away!

The Review: Reading this series occasionally reminds me of something I often wondered when reading Harry Potter: for all the drama going on in the magical world, all the normals just went on their merry way, eating McDonalds and drinking Starbucks without ever becoming aware of the disaster on the verge of crossing over into their lives.  The same goes with the Fables; for all their perils, we really have no idea what tangible effect it’ll have upon the non-fictional world.

Take this choosing of a new North Wind.  The late Mr. North’s servant can talk all he wants about how “Entire worlds can live or die” depending on the choice of successor, but we don’t really know what he means by that.  “Worlds” as in other planets or fictional realms?  Why would the North Wind have such a critical effect on other worlds?  Without that information, it just seems he’s trying to play up the drama since the action is rather clearly lacking here.

At least we have assurance of real drama to come.  Spoiler alert—Winter, by reaching the Homeland of the North, reveals herself as its new “king.”  In some ways, we could have foreseen this; she bears the name of Boreas’ former wife, after all.  But as the most childlike and innocent of the Cubs, she seems totally unfit for the role.  Besides that, there’s the anxious question of how this will affect the family dynamic (aside from Darren’s obvious outrage losing kingship).

Winter’s age and personality also make her peril in her new status all the greater, as the other three cardinal winds don’t look all too enthused about the development either.  Though the East Wind seems conciliatory enough at the event, telling his fellow winds to “Mind the occasion,” don’t forget his earlier remark about the Cubs possibly killing themselves off during the testing: “[T]hat’s fewer we’ll have to winnow out when we’re compelled to step in.”  The West Wind seems determined to step in regardless, saying, “In the end we’ll still have to finish things.”

Fables #110 – Review

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

The Story: If you’re an enemy of the state, prepare to be pooped by the Yoop.

The Review: Having multiple running plots can be a handy way to keep your story from stalling in one place too long, but it has its downsides too.  Split them up too much and you have the reader not only regrouping to keep track of them all, but you also risk shortchanging each plotline to the point they only inch forward with each episode.  Even worse is when they all hit that big, fat middle of exposition, which can be deadly in the best circumstances.

That is pretty much the situation Willingham brings upon himself here.  He essentially has four stories going on at once, each pretty much its own thing and not obviously related to the others.  The real problem is they all tend to hit the rises and falls of their action at the same time.  When they reach major turning points, the whole thing sings; when they reach the talky portions of the story, suddenly the whole issue becomes an endless cascade of text.

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 #102 – Review

by Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Ozma begins to assemble a super team under the guidance of Pinocchio as the Dark Man threatens Haven.

The Review: As weird as it seems at first, and as dubious the reasoning is behind it, this whole Super Team thing is really, really enjoyable.  It feels new and fresh for Fables and makes for some smart reading as well.  It allows Fables to discuss superhero comics and, by extension, comics as a medium.  The end result is an intelligent comic that almost feels self-conscious of its own medium.  It allows Willingham to think over some of the tropes and absurdities of superhero comics by bringing it into a comic that is anything but.

The whole superhero element also allows for a good deal of comedy as well, much of it thanks to that absurdity.  There’s also a good deal of hilarity in seeing Willingham’s piss-takes here and there, for instance, with Pinocchio’s dressing up as Professor X/Chief.  As you might suspect, it also leads to Mark Buckingham’s getting to do some really cool stuff.  His costume for Ozma is both gorgeous and humorous and quite honestly, even seeing the always-serious Ozma dressed up in such a get-up is all kinds of awesome.

As I mentioned, however, the reasoning for this whole Super Team is a bit questionable.  I can see where Willingham’s going with his reasoning, but it seems like a sort of ad-hoc explanation, as though Willingham just really, really wanted a superhero team in his comic and tried to come up with the reasons afterwards.  Furthermore, it’s a bit of a strain seeing someone like Ozma buy into the whole thing and dive in so completely.  That said, the visual and intellectual places that the comic is allowed to go as a result makes all of this fairly forgivable.

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 #98 – Review

by Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha & Dan Green (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)

The Story: Rose Red takes control of the farm and does some restructuring while Bellflower/Totenkinder learns a secret about Mister Dark.

What’s Good: After months of lying bed, this is the first issue where Rose Red finally returns to her old self.  I hardly think that I’m the only person to have Rose Red as one of my favourite characters, so this issue should make the fans happy in that respect.  It genuinely feels good to see Rose Red back in action and even better see her, and the book, moving about again after having meandered with flashbacks for several issues.  There’s a sense of forward movement with this issue, both for the series and Rose herself, and it’s definitely welcome.

Rose’s return works well because of how quickly Willingham goes about it.  There are no moments of self-doubt and there’s no navel-gazing.  She grabs the reigns of the farm and slaps it back into order, with dissenters, the dryads in particular, being dealt with in short order.  I’m really happy that this consolidation wasn’t prolonged and it made the Farm, and Fables in general, feel suddenly more dynamic.

Better still are Rose’s changes to the power structure.  Her adopting the blue neckerchief and forming a privy council are both interesting, yet natural, developments that just feel right.  Furthermore, Rose ends up in a more politically powerful position than she’s ever been in.  After months of hiding, she’s now the most central of Fables characters.  All of this leads to promise for the future, as does the new information about Mister Dark.

Mark Buckingham’s art remains consistent, with Fables readers knowing exactly what to expect.  That said, his work on Rose’s facial expressions is particularly good, working to make her all the more lovable.

North Wind #3 – Review

By David DiGilio (writer), Alex Cal (artist), Renato Faccini (colors)

Yikes, I hate it when Daniel’s right! When we were running around WonderCon a few weeks back he and I stopped by the Boom! Studios booth where they had North Wind #3 for sale weeks before its ship date. Daniel told me to stop while he thumbed through the issue, and sure enough, just like his review of issue #2 predicted, Pak’s childhood girlfriend, Schuyler is still alive and well! Little did I know how much more of his predictions would be true.

First of all, Pak does return to Lost Angeles to seek vengeance. He also meets up with an old acquaintance from his childhood who let’s him know Schuyler still lives. We’re treated to a bit of Pak’s new skills as he makes short work of a couple of slave drivers. The story then cuts to the inner city and how it has changed (or not changed) over the past 10-15 years. Immediately, Pak goes on a search for Schuyler.

It doesn’t take him long, either. Apparently, she’s a big wig in town being the “daughter” of Slaughterhouse Joe. At this festival held at a local arena, she announces that she’ll have the energy crisis solved by the end of the year (damn you for being right Daniel), to which she’s hit with rousing applause. Her father then takes the mic and opens the festivities: A gladiator fight against a polar bar – the winner having “a night” with Schuyler. Of course, Pak can’t help but enter the contest.

Alex Cal does some really good layouts this issue, but when it gets to the whole gladiator-esque scene, the actions becomes difficult to keep track of. In fact, I almost just skipped the pages because the action was completely incoherent. My other problem is Pak, himself. He’s this seasoned, Skinrunner. Yet why is he so such a pretty boy with a nice short haircut? Isn’t it cold outside? Shouldn’t he look weathered? Lastly, what’s the deal with Schuyler looking like a teenager – and an ugly one at that? Aside from the expensive garb she wears, I can’t see why men would put their lives on the line to spend one night with her.

It’s a bit jarring to have a series that has so much potential, only to fall into the trap of being completely predictable. But even when being predictable, there are ways of making the story interesting and the characters compelling. North Wind, so far, does both very half-heartedly. If Dave DiGilio can get out of the trap of being so formulaic, this book could completely live up to its potential. Until then, it’s on the cusp of being mediocre. And I don’t want it to be mediocre! (Grade: C)

– J. Montes

A Second Opinion

It’s a good thing I didn’t have to pay for this issue. Indeed the story is predictable. I’m glad I didn’t spend a dime, but I lost 10 minutes of my life and I’ll never get it back! (Grade: D)

-Daniel Yanez

North Wind #2 – Review

By Dave DiGilio (writer), Alex Cal (art), Renato Faccino (colors)

North Wind #2 picks up exactly where the first issue left off. Pak is about to be eaten by dogs, when a bunch of near-rioting townspeople come to Joe (the tyrannous leader of Lost Angeles), and demand he turn the heat back on. Joe is convinced that Outcast Village is hiding energy, hording it for themselves. He doesn’t turn the heat back on, but he does let Pak and his mother go only to relentlessly pursue them later.

Using intimidation, Joe separates Pak from his mother and continues his run towards Outcast Village. Pak is found by the Skinrunner who keeps him protected. Pak soon discovers his village is destroyed. His mother dead. It’s just him and the Skinrunner now.

This story echos the hero’s journey seen in Star Wars and Mouse Guard, while its dystopian future is reminiscent of movies like Mad Max. What I don’t like is after Pak discovers his mother’s death he’s given little time to grieve (at least that’s what we’re shown). Instead, we get a montage of him training in the ways of the Skinrunner. The story, I feel advances much too quickly. Suddenly, the boy is a man, and sorry for the comparisons, but it’s like watching the opening of Conan the Barbarian. Soon enough, the Skinrunner dies and only Pak remains.

It would have been nice to have had more time with Pak as a child so that we could understand his connection to his mother and the village, but we don’t see that. We also don’t see how the trama affects him. Instead, he’s now just a grown man (who’s a bad ass) with a chip on his shoulder. Even as he’s dying, the Skinrunner knows Pak will eventually descend on a mission of vengeance. So, if this kid is lying and you know he will go against everything you taught him, why bother taking him in and raising him?

There’s a lot of potential for North Wind. The first issue was engaging, but this second issue stumbles a bit. (Grade: C)

– J. Montes

A Second Opinion

This book is full of clichés. It’s the textbook definition of the hero’s journey – no doubt about it. Next issue, Pak will probably meet the woman who was a little girl from issue #1. Fourth issue he’ll find out the solution to the fuel problem and by the fifth, he will avenge his tribe. Sometimes this type of story is well done, not this time – it’s too transparent for intelligent readers. But you be the judge reading #1 and #2 available for free. (Grade: D)

-Daniel Yanez