A Survey of Everything Fables

I've been thinking about how I'm going to tackle today's post since I saw the tentative release schedule for this coming Wednesday's books, and the pressure has mounted as the day to write it got closer. You see, this coming Wednesday, the final issue/trade of the long running Vertigo series Fables is released. Counting as both issue 150 and volume 22 in trade, this is a square bound, 150 page issue. That's a lot of comic. I probably should have broken this up over a few weeks, doing a series about Fables, because there's a ton of material to cover. Not only are there 149 previous issues, but various spin-offs, including other ongoing series, some mini-series, original graphic novels, specials, a novel, and a video game. So I've decided, instead of a deep dive, to do a survey of each part of the Fables story, and after the final issue has come out, after I've had some time to digest, probably in the winter begin a great Fables re-read. But that's for later. For now, here's a glance at the various aspects of the Fables universe.

Fables

We'll start with the beginning and end (well, mostly end, but more on that later). Created by writer Bill Willingham, Fables is the story of a community of fairy tale characters who are living in the mundane (or "mundy") world to escape the Adversary, a conqueror who took over their Homelands. Fabletown in a block in alphabet city in New York City where the human and shapechanging Fables live, and the Farm is a farm in upstate New York where the Fables who can't pass for human live, at least at the beginning of the series.

The cast of the series is a massive one, but the three principles, all met in the opening arc, are Snow White, the deputy mayor of Fabletown, her sister, the irresponsible Rose Red, and Bigby Wolf, the reformed and lycanthropic Big Bad Wolf, who serves as Fabletown's sheriff. While other characters are important, including the philandering Prince Charming, the steadfast Boy Blue, the tragic Flycatcher, and the witch Frau Totenkinder, to name but a few, it's the relationship between Snow and Rose and their family that drives much of the emotional action of the series. The joy of creator controlled comics is that the characters are dynamic. Rose especially changes over the course of the series, but both Snow and Bigby grow and change, and there are some changes that occur to the world around them that are joyful, some that are heartbreaking, but they all have lasting ramifications.

The plots on volumes of Fables vary wildly. Willingham writes stories that are murder mysteries, that are political thrillers, that are capers, that are war stories, and that are horror stories. You never know what to expect next, and that's exciting. And the war with the Adversary, expected to be the overall thrust of the series, ends halfway through, leaving a completely different comic in its wake. I won't reveal the identity of the Adversary here, but it's a clever reveal that when you read it makes such perfect sense. And the villains after the Adversary are different and chilling.

The principal artist on Fables is Mark Buckingham, who debuted with the second arc of the series, and drew well over half the series. Even if he didn't create the looks for some of the characters, he defined them, creating a lush tapestry of interesting characters. Other famous artists have come along to draw stories, including Gene Ha, Linda Medley, Bryan Talbot, and Lan Medina.

The Last Castle

The first spin-off of Fables was the prestige format one-shot, "The Last Castle". The first major story set in the Homelands, it's the story of the last stand against the Adversary's forces before the last gate to the mundane world was shut. Narrated by Boy Blue, who was there at the battle, it is a stirring story of valor and battle, and cleverly lays seeds for stories to come months and years later. Penciled by Craig Hamilton and inked by P. Craig Russel, it's one of my favorite Fables stories, and gorgeous to look at.

Jack of Fables

The first ongoing spin-off of Fables, Jack of Fables was co-written by Willingham and Matthew Sturges and focuses on Jack Horner, the Jack of all tales. Jack is another character who appeared in the first issue of Fables, but when his own conniving leads to his exile from Fabletown, Jack goes off on a series of adventures, getting into trouble mostly due to his con man's instincts and his over-arching libido. Along the way, Jack encounters the Literals, personifications of literary tropes, who will become important later, as well as many lost Fables, and his own illegitimate son, Jack Frost. Generally of a lighter tone, it includes the introduction of a miniaturized Babe the Blue Ox, Paul Bunyan's sidekick, whose completely out of touch with reality insanity made her a fan favorite. I admit that Jack himself is somewhat odious, and he can be hard to take, so at times it's a book to read for the characters surrounding Jack.

1,001 Nights of Snowfall

An original graphic novel, 1,001 Nights of Snowfall is an anthology, drawn by a different artist for each short story, framed by the text story of Snow White in the Scheherazade role as she must appease a Fable sultan who is holding her hostage by telling stories. The stories vary in tone, from the comedic like "The Christmas Pies," a tale of the trickster Reynard the Fox, to the absolutely heartbreaking, the Eisner winner for Best Short Story "A Frog's Eye View," the backstory of Flycatcher, the Frog Prince. We also get the details of how the various series leads made their way to the Mundy world. Like the series proper in miniature, the artists included are among comics' best, including Charles Vess, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Mark Buckingham, and internals from series cover artist James Jean. Along wit the best short story Eisner, the book also won Best Anthology for its year.

Cinderella

Established early on that Cinderella was Fabletown's chief secret agent, writer Chris Roberson write two mini-series of spy action and adventure featuring Cinderella. "From Fabletown with Love" and "Fables are Forever" expand on Cinderella as a character, giving the reader a view of her as one of the fullest and most fun characters in the Fables mythos. A third mini-series was planned, but when Roberson parted ways with DC it was postponed and rolled into... well we'll get to that in a bit.

The Literals/ The Great Fables Crossover

The culmination of the first half of Jack of Fables, and a brief detour from the main Fables story, was the "Great Fables Crossover" which included a three issue mini-series entitled The Literals, for those beings who are personifications of creativity. Bigby and Snow rush to stop Kevin Thorn, the Literal representation of storytelling itself, from wiping them from existence. The Fables parts of the crossover are only tangentially related to the crossover, mostly putting Jack back with the Fables cast, and while a fun story the literals don't impact the overall Fables story all that much. But it's fun, and has Bigby turned into a monkey, so that's good.

Peter & Max

A long form prose novel by Willingham, Peter & Max takes two fables, Peter Piper and the Pied Piper of Hamlin, and creates a narrative about two brothers are war. Peter was given his family's magical flute, passing over his older brother, Max, who gets his own magical flute and a family conflict begins. Taking place in both the Homelands and the modern Mundy world, Willingham crafts the rivalry well, as well as the love story between Peter and Little Bo Peep. As Fables nears its conclusion, it's interesting to see this story of warring siblings as a precursor to the events of the last few volumes of the main series.

Werewolves of the Heartland

As Bigby Wolf goes in search of a new place for the Fables to live, he encounters a town of werewolves that have a connection to his past. Craig Hamilton returns to draw the story, and while it has not proven to be anything than a diversion until now, there are seeds that I hope bear fruit in the final issue. Plus, well, werewolves.

Fairest

The second ongoing Fables spinoff, Fairest was a book focused on the various female characters of the Fables universe. An anthology series with different writers and artists for each arc, Bill Willingham wrote the opening arc, a gloriously illustrated tale of the Snow Queen and Sleeping Beauty drawn by Phil Jiminez, but further arcs included tales of Beauty, Rapunzel, the final Cinderella arc (now written by Marc Andreyko), and others. The final Fables original graphic novel, Fairest in all the Land, which I reviewed in detail when it first came out, is also a spinoff from this title.

The Unwritten Fables

Another crossover of sorts, this was the final arc of the first volume of Mike Carey and Peter Gross's story about the power of stories, The Unwritten. When that series' protagonist, Tom Taylor, is thrown into a world he has never been in before, he finds himself in a a dark version of the world of Fables. It's sort of like the episode of Star Trek set in the mirror universe, although nobody here has a hip goatee that usually doesn't. While not directly effecting the main plot of Fables, it's cool to see what might have been

The Wolf Among Us

Telltale Games has recently been releasing popular episodic video games with a storytelling/rpg bent, not typical open world rpgs or fighting games, but stories where your decisions absolutely effect the progress of the story, and one of these games is The Wolf Among Us. Set before the events of the first issue, this video game is considered part of Fables canon, and tells the story of Bigby, the player character, investigating the death of some Fable working girls. It features many popular Fables characters, and is a very enjoyable game. If you're not a video game person, though, there is a tie-in comic, which is being released as DC digital first, and now in print. Written by Matthew Sturges and Dave Justus, this series not only lays out the canonical sequence of events in the game, but also fills in some gaps with additional scenes and extended flashbacks to Bigby's time after first coming to the Mundane world.

Aside from all these fiction pieces, there are also two impressive Fables reference books. Fables Covers: The Art of James Jean contains all the covers by original series cover artist James Jean, along with sketches and information about his creative process. The Fables Encyclopedia contains entries on all the major and minor characters of Fables, both within the series and in their historical context, as well as liner notes by Willingham and Buckingham about the development of the characters.

Pretty much everything I've discussed here is readily available either in trade or hardcover. All 21 volumes of Fables are in print, as are all the volumes of Fairest, and the first volume of The Wolf Among Us. Jack of Fables might be a little trickier to track down, but by no means impossible. And if you like your hardcovers, deluxe editions collecting somewhere between one and two trades, as well as things like the original graphic novels, are currently being produced. It's a lot of material, true, but it's one of the most well developed long form graphic novels series out there, and will really be worth your time. Once you start, you'll be spellbound, and now it's all out there for the getting.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 7/2

Daredevil #0.1
Story: Mark Waid
Art: Peter Krause

I've been enjoying Mark Waid's new volume of Daredevil, with Daredevil now operating out of San Francisco, and this new issue collects the digital first story that bridges the gap between the first volume and the second. Called, "Road Warrior," it tells the story of Matt Murdock travelling with Kirsten McDuffie, his partner and love interest. Of course, Matt is Daredevil, and so when their flight is grounded halfway across the country by weather, and he finds one of the passengers has not heartbeat but is moving around, he goes to investigate and leaves Kirsten behind and gets into an adventure involving an Adaptoid and the Mad Thinker. There are a lot of things in this issue to love. Firstly, it stand completely alone; you need little knowledge of Daredevil going in, and while the story ends with Matt on his way to complete his journey, there is no cliffhanger. Waid has done more to really underline that Daredevil is blind and his senses and experience of the world are not like everyone else's than any writer I can think of, and this issue really uses those perceptions well. It opens with an internal monologue of Matt trying to put into words how his "radar sense" works, and not having the words because they don't exist, and I think that's a very cool observation. I also was impressed with the final fight for a couple of reasons. First, I like it when Daredevil is out of his depth. He isn't anywhere near the most powerful hero in the Marvel Universe, and so often when he has to fight a villain who isn't one of his rogues, he has to rely on his mind, not his powers, to win, and he does so in a very clever way here. Waid also takes one of the main tropes of science fiction, the robot who wants to be human, and completely subverts it here. The Adaptoid, a robot Mad Thinker built, has begin to think it's human, and at the end, well, let's just say it's not Mister Data. If you haven't tried out any of Waid's run on Daredevil and want to dip your toe in, this is a great place to start.

Fairest #27
Story: Mark Buckingham
Art: Russel Braun

The final arc of Fairest begins. I'm going to miss the heck out of Fables and the universe of spin offs that it has built, and this final arc of Fairest ties very heavily into the events that are taking place in the home title. There is unrest at the Farm, the home for Fables who can't pass for human, caused partly by Reynard, the wily fox, rubbing his new ability to transform into a human form, and the other animal and non-human Fables deciding they are finally due the similar glamour that they were promised. Tying back into an earlier issue of Fairest, we spend a lot of time with Reynard, who is mourning his clumsiness and lack of romantic luck in his human form. With dissent building, Rose Red, the queen of the new Camelot she is building on the Farm, calls for King Cole and the Witches of Fabletown to come along and help settle the rumblings. It's a complex issue, with lots of moving pieces and different characters, but it's enjoyable if you have been reading Fables and Fairest for a while. There is also a feeling of symmetry, as the first arc that featured the Farm dealt with an attempted coup, and now we're here at the end with chaos about the ensue again. It's also interesting since this story is written by Mark Buckingham, the principle artist on much of Fables, whose first arc was that initial Farm story. While Fairest has mostly featured the female cast of Fables, and I'm sure they will play a big roll as this continues, this story was a spotlight for Reynard, whose final page reveal of who he has decided to woo is only going to lead to a bigger problem for him and some comedic chaos that I am very much looking forward to.

Rocket Raccoon #1
Story & Art: Skottie Young

From foxes to raccoons, we're now off to space to spend a little time with the Guardians of the Galaxy's favorite rodent and his tree sidekick. Rocket has been a character I've loved since he was re-introduced back during the Annihilation: Conquest event, and his recently raised profile thanks to what I'm sure will be a star turn in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film has led Marvel to launch this ongoing series from cartoonist Skottie Young. This first issue is a ton of fun, starting with a princess rescue, followed by Rocket on a date watching Groot, his partner who happens to be a walking and talking tree monster, in a wrestling match, and then Rocket on the run with a bounty on his head. It's a wacky buddy comedy sort of adventure issue, which is the perfect tone for this book; nobody wants a grim and gritty adventure about a talking raccoon. I must point out that you don't get a story that works on its own. This is very much the beginning of an arc, and has lots of hints of what's to come in this first arc. But it does better than many first issue in that we get a lot of character mixed in with a ton of action; this isn't a talking heads comic. If you're coming for a fun, light story, though, you're staying for Skottie Young's incredible art. His style is fun and cartoony, perfect for Rocket and Groot, but is hyper-detailed at the same time. You can spend hours pouring over the panels of the city Rocket is in, looking at the backgrounds with all the crazy creatures and designs. And when the other Guardians appear briefly, while they are all in Young's distinct style, they are still very much themselves. Marvel has done a lot of interesting, different comics lately, and this new series is a perfect addition of that stable: a sci-fi/action/humor comic. If you enjoy crazy outer space action with talking animals, you need to try out Rocket Raccoon.

Southern Bastards #3
Story: Jason Aaron
Art: Jason Latour

It seems that in one of those cases of bad fortune, the weeks I've missed doing reviews the past couple months have overlapped with the release of Jason Aaron's new southern crime series, Southern Bastards. I've talked about Scalped here before, and this book is a worthy successor to that title. Earl Tubbs has returned to his home town in Craw County, Alabama to put family affairs in order, only to find the place rotten to the core, and after the death of his old friend Dusty last issue, it's time for Earl to get some answers. Armed with a big stick, one very reminiscent of the one his father, who was the sheriff and a local legend, wielded, Earl heads into town and makes a show of beating down a couple of the thugs who work for Coach Boss, the local football coach and crime boss/gang leader/all around bad guy. It's an exciting scene, and the reverence the townsfolk play to the stick makes me even more curious to see what exactly the story is of Earl's father. And the more we see of the town, a town that seems deep friend and crinkly around the edges, and almost completely lacking in southern hospitality, the more we see how rotten things are. The issue ends with a message being prepared by Coach Boss's tugs for Earl, one that isn't a peace offering. Earl continues to leave voicemails for a mystery woman, someone I hope we get some answers about soon. It's a great series, full of atmosphere and grit. Plus there's a recipe for deep friend apple pie from Jason Aaron's mom, which looks delicious. If a comic can also provide deliciousness, you know it's a keeper.

And as a final addition, check out this blog post from my coworker, Annie Gribbins. Annie brought her daughter to her first con a couple weeks back, Wizard World Philly, to meet Evan Peters, of X-Men: Days of Future Past and American Horror Story fame. It's a great post, and fun for a grizzled vetran like me to read the reaction of a first time con goer.

Recommended Reading for 12/13: Fairest In All the Land & Tommy Taylor and the Ship that Sank Twice

Today's recommended reading is a little different than usual, as it is featuring two books that are not connected by story, but by publisher. In the past couple years, it seems like DC's venerable Vertgo imprint, the mature readers imprint that gave us such seminal works as Sandman, Preacher, Transmetropolitan, and 100 Bullets, has been slipping away. There have been a few hits, but mostly the new series have come and gone in short order. The end of Vertigo's longest running series, Hellblazer, and the fact that many of its major creators are now doing their creator owned work through Image, seemed like a clear death knell. But there have been some signs of life recently, with a couple new hits, and this fall, two of the better received series of the past five years each released special hardcover original graphic novels: The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice and Fairest: In All the Land. I sat down and read them both this past weekend, and was very pleased. There will be some mild spoilers in this piece, but I'll do my best to not give away too much.

Fairest: In All the Land is this year's Fables special project. Since writer/creator Bill Willingham began his work on Fables, he has tried to do nearly annual special issues or tie-ins, whether it was an extra large anniversary issue, a special (The Last Castle), an original graphic novel (1,001 Nights of Snowfall and Werewolves of the Heartland) or even a prose novel (Peter and Max). This new book ties in with the ongoing Fables spinoff, Fairest, which focuses on the large number of strong female fairy tale characters that populate Willingham's world.

The book is tied neatly into the ongoing continuity of Fables and Fairest, so as a warning to people who are reading Fables in trade, DO NOT read this before you read Fables Vol. 19: Snow White, which comes out this Wednesday, and it might not hurt to read volume three of Fairest first, which is scheduled for a June release, but the spoiler there is nowhere near as big as the one for Fables. This book, more than either of the previous graphic novels, feels like it is hugely important for the upcoming arcs of Fables, and I believe is gong to be a major part of the lead in to Willingham's grand finale in a next year. Still, if you have no background in Fables, Willingham does a good job of using the framing sequence to explain everything you need to enjoy the book with no history with the parent series.

I was expecting another anthology of shorts tied together by a framing sequence, like 1001 Nights of Snowfall, but was actually surprised and pleased to see that this is actually one continuous story with various artists drawing each chapter. There is a framing sequence, narrated by the Magic Mirror; you know the one, the one that the wicked queen from Snow White had, that has been trapped in the pocket dimension when the business office of Fabeltown, the block in Alphabet City in New York where the fairy tale characters in exile reside, was lost. He is investigating a mystery, and also putting on a show for his fellow prisoners, a group of tiny women and some severed heads that still have quite a bit of life in them.

The story that he is showing is itself a mystery, connected to the goings on in the business office, but this mystery is  one of a more bloody sort. Cinderella, Fabletown's number one spy, is pulled into a situation where she must solve a murder mystery. As she points out, detective work and spycraft are two distinct skill sets, and she feels somewhat out of her depth. But Cinderella, as created by Willingham and expanded by Chris Roberson in the two mini-series that she starred in, is nothing if not resourceful, and so she goes out to solve the case, with a little help from Reynard the Fox and Little Bo Peep. Soon, the bodies begin to pile higher, and some of Fabletown's luminaries are among them.

The mystery doesn't seem to hard to figure out, especially if you've been reading Fables for any amount of time, but there are some great twists involved, and whodunnit proves to be less important than why and how. Other than giving readers more time with Cinderella, one of the best characters in Fables, we get to spend a little more time with Ozma, the good witch, a character who has been getting fleshed out a bit in the past couple years and who I find a lot of fun. A couple old favorites pop up, including Bellflower, better known as Frau Totenkinder the Black Forest Witch, and the Page Sisters from Jack of Fables. There is also some very interetsing stuff done with one of Fables male characters, Stinky the Badger, who is usually played for laughs. I wouldn't say his speech was poignant, but he makes a point that ties heavily into the theme of the book.

Dancing around the specifics of the mystery makes writing a piece like this tricky, as so much of what happens hinges on the mystery, but Willigham plays with a lot of interesting themes within a story that focuses on the most beautiful women in all of Fables. In a society obsessed with beauty like ours, is it really the most beautiful that get all the best? Exactly what kind of punishment is deserved by those who would enslave or use another? And what exactly does it take to rise up in a society? And aside from the interesting thematic pieces, the book ends with some Fables characters irrevocably dead, which is hard to do when your characters lives are fueled by belief. There are a couple surprising deaths, ones that may have some serious effects on the series as a whole.

While the story here is a lot of fun and well done, the art in this book is something that grabs you by the shirt and demands to be noticed. There are over a dozen different artists who worked on this book, and all of them are impressive on their own, but when put together, it's a murder's row of top talent. Chrissie Zullo, the cover artist for the two Cinderella minis, provided wonderful spot illustrations for Willingham's prose framing sequence. Single chapters are produced by luminaries like Adam Hughes, Chris Sprouse, Gene Ha, and regular Fables artist Mark Buckingham. Russ Braun, former artist from the Jack of Fables spinoff, contributes a couple chapters, as does Shawn McManus, who pencilled the Cinderella minis and is pencilling the current Cinderella arc in the regular Fairest monthly. And that's just a few of the names. Even if you've never read Fables or Fairest, if you're a fan of great comic art, this book is worth picking up.

The Unwritten is currently in between volumes, with the original series ending with issue 54 and the final year, subtitled Apocalypse, not beginning until next month. This has been one of my favorite comics since it began, and I intentionally saved the first Unwritten original graphic novel to help me get over the hump in between volumes. After the previous arc, "The Unwritten Fables" which was a crossover between the two properties (huh, see, I found a way to tie the two books together after all), it's good to be back firmly grounded in the world of The Unwritten.

The concepts behind The Unrwitten is a bit more complex than Fables, "fairy tale characters living in the modern world," one, so bear with me as I explain a bit. The Unwritten is the story of Tom Taylor, a young man whose father wrote a mammothly popular series of books about a bespectacled, young, orphaned wizard named Tommy Taylor (and yes, I know that description is familiar to pretty much everyone, but it's not like J.K. came up with the concept from whole cloth either, and all similarities are not purely coincidental here). Tom has spent his whole life dogged by his literary alter ego, but at the beginning of the series, things start happening to Tom, things that seem to connect him more to Tommy than he imagined, and he finds himself thrust into battle with a cabal that wants to control the world through stories and the collective unconscious.

Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice is the first book in the Tommy Taylor series, and this graphic novel serves as a full adaptation of that fictional book. Throughout the series, readers have been treated to bits and pieces from the Tommy Taylor series, but never more than a page or two. All the things we've seen in the series come together here: Tommy, his friends Peter Price and Sue Sparrow, his pet/familiar Mingus the flying cat, his nemesis the vampire Count Ambrosio, and the wand Glitterspar. And the world of the books, the ones that readers have heard so much about, makes a lot more sense and has a life that it lacked before.

In a recent episode of NPR's excellent podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, host Linda Holmes commented on how hard it is for a fictional work to live up to its hype. If you hear about a band or a book or a movie in a TV show that exists exclusively in that world, when the consumer of that media actually gets a chance to sample that much ballyhooed bit of culture, it rarely is anything near what you've been led to expect. I was a little worried about that as an idea before I heard the podcast, and after I did it crystallized my fears about reading this book: what if the Tommy Taylor story was dull, or just really read as warmed over Harry Potter? Would that throw me out of the world the series of books inhabits? Fortunately, I don't have to find out.

I won't say Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice is the greatest piece of fantasy I've ever read. Writer Mike Carey actually addresses that in the reviews we see of the book in the sequences in the graphic novel that take place in the "real" world. He acknowledges the failings of Wilson Taylor, Tom's father and the author of the Tommy series, as a writer, and that gives him a safe little out. But what we get is a very fun fantasy story.

Tommy's world isn't like that of Harry Potter. Magic is commonplace, and the world is controlled by mages. Tommy is rescued from the same watery grave as his parents in the ship Demeter by Leviathan, the great whale (an important figure in The Unwritten), and he is deposited at a school for magic, where he is raised in the kitchens. He has no magic himself, and so seems to be relegated to the life of a second class citizen. But Tommy is clever, and he makes friends, and when the Demeter is raised from the sea, it is his intelligence and grit that saves the day as much as the magic he discovers in himself. He proves himself a hero, and makes a difficult choice that makes him a savior, and sets him a messianic path.

That description could pretty well describe Harry Potter, and that's clearly intentional. It's the differences that make this book interesting. The more magical world and the fact that Tommy combines Harry Potter's grit and Hermione Granger's brain, gives the book a different flavor. Frankly, it feels closer to Garth Nix than J.K. Rowling, and there are healthy doses of Bram Stoker mixed in as well, with even a touch of Lovecraft for good measure. Carey knows his source material, and wears that on his sleeve, but in a book that is about humanity absorbing stories, and how stories effect the human mind and world, there are worse ways to be.

While the main part of the book is the story of Tommy, it is interspersed with scenes of the events surrounding the writing of the book and the birth and first year of life of Tom Taylor. These sequences are narrated through the journals of Wilson Taylor, so the view of events is somewhat skewed, but the reader gets a better understanding of what Wilson was doing. This does not make him any more sympathetic a character. In the regular comics, we've seen glimpses of Wilson's journals before, and they portrayed him as a cold, manipulative s.o.b., and this doesn't help. His treatment of Tom's mother, and the way he uses Tom, is nothing short of repugnant. But you get to see him as a pragmatist, doing this for "the greater good," and not a sadist, hurting people for no other reason than he can. The thorough process that Wilson uses to make Tom and Tommy one thing, despite them being inherently two (a little boy and a fictional character) is finally laid out, and it's brilliant in its Machiavellian design. Every step is laid out, from the moment of conception of both the book and child to Tommy's first birthday party, and every step he takes in between.

As with Fairest In All the Land, you don't really need to have read The Unwritten to enjoy this book. The sequences with Wilson won't have the same resonance, and you might really hate him if you don't know exactly what it is he's creating Tom to fight, but it's not like we don't live in a time where anti-heroes outnumber heroes in a lot of popular media. It also uses various artists, mainly Peter Gross, the main artist for The Unwritten, but includes works by other who have worked with Carey before. If you're someone who has enjoyed Tom Taylor's battles in the monthly comic, or someone who just enjoys a well told fantasy story, this is a great volume.

Both of these volumes are available now at both comic shops and book stores, and would make for excellent holiday presents.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 5/1

 
Fairest #15
Story: Sean E. Williams
Art: Stephen Sadowski

One of the best parts of Bill Willingham's Fables world is the variety of stories and settings available for writers and artists willing to take the leap. This new arc of Fairest, the spinoff spotlighting the strong female cast of Fables, "The Return of the Maharaja," takes readers into a new land, Indu, the source of myth and legend of India, and introduces a new beauty, Nalayani, string, confident, and a demon with a bow. When her village is attacked by monsters, she goes to meet the new maharaja and ask his help. Along the way she befriends and loses a jackal, fights hyenas and thugs, and more than proves her mettle.The identity of the new mahraja is not hard to determine for any long time Fables reader, especially since he's slapped right on the cover, but it's still a great last page reveal. I'm expecting a romantic comedy-esque journey across Indu, with Prince Charming attempting to add another beautiful bride to his resume, and I won't be disappointed if that's what I get, but Fables and it's attendant books do a good job of twisting expectations, so I'm expecting a twist or two. I am also excited that Stephen Sadowski is doing art for this arc; he's an artist I haven't seen a lot, but everything I've ever seen his do has been gorgeous. He draws beautiful princesses with the same skill as he draws wild dogs, so I'm curious to see what writer Sean E. Williams throws at him over the course of the arc.

The Movement #1
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Freddie Williams II

The advertisements for DC's new title, The Movement, made it seem to be about an Occupy protest with superpowers. There is a touch of that, but the book is about a lot more than that, something far more global. It's about the little guy standing up to corruption. Coral City is a new addition to DC's vaunted pantheon of fictional cities, and it's clearly a city more akin to gritty Gotham than shiny Metropolis. The comic opens with a pair of dirty cops attempting to extort a couple of teenagers, and do a lot worse to the female one, before a group of masked individuals stop them. We meet a captain at their precinct who is the typical, "good cop in a dirty town," and the police are called to a body, the most recent victim of the "Cornea Killer," a murderer who removes the eyes of his victims. Meanwhile, a young man enters a church and seems to become possessed by a demon. Finally all these plots come together as we meet the Movement, a group of metas who protect the Tweens, the blocks of Coral City the police ignore. They are entirely new characters, which is exciting in the landscape of mostly reimagined characters that is the New 52, and I got a good vibe of who each of them are, from team leader and psychic Virtue, to the poor possessed young man, Burden. As opposed to so many issue ones in recent years that are so setup heavy that nothing happens, and it won't be until issue six before anything really does, this felt like a full comic that fully establishes its premise. Gail Simone is one of comics' best character driven writers, and that is clearly on display in this introductory issue. With interesting designs from Freddie Williams II and a whole new city for Simone to make her own, I see a lot of potential in this series.

Suicide Risk #1
Story: Mike Carey
Art: Elena Casagrande

There's an old adage that the tale is in the telling. To me, that has always meant that the story itself is only as good as the teller, and that an old story can be reawakened by a new twist and a new writer. I think Mike Carey's new book from BOOM! Studios, Suicide Risk, is a good example of this. The world overrun by superhumans with no conscience isn't exactly the newest concept out there, but Carey gives it a good spin. He  makes his point of view character a cop sick of seeing his friends killed by rogue superhumans, and after his partner is maimed in a supervillain attack, he decides to do something about it. He goes and tries to get himself powers. This seems to go horribly wrong, but since this is more than a one shot, I have to imagine he's going to get better. Leo Winters, series protagonist, is a good guy in a world gone mad, and I'm curious to see exactly how much this series becomes about how power corrupts, as the first issue has hinted that even the superhumans who started out as heroes have gone bad after time. There's a nice mystery as well about how people receive powers and what the whole origin of the powers, adding a layer of depth to the series. Artist Elena Casagrande has a nice style, and does a good job of designing a whole world of superhumans in one issue, along with building Leo, his family, and his friends. A solid first issue, I'm always a fan of Mike Carey, and it looks like this is another success.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 9/5

Detective Comics #0
Story: Greeg Hurwitz/James Tynion IV
Art: Tony Daniel & Pere Perez/ Henrik Jonsson

The first of the DC Zero Month Batman titles was a pleasant surprise. Bruce Wayne's time away, training to be Batman, is a period that has actually had very little exposure in comics. Batman Begins spends a good amount of time with it, and one of the best episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, "Night of the Ninja," also features Bruce learning martial arts skills. But in the comics, more time has been spent with Henri Ducard and Harvey Harris, the men who taught Bruce the manhunting and detective skills, than with his martial arts history. The issue is about Bruce taking his final step, with his final master, the cold and unrelenting Shihan Matsuda. Much of the story works like any martial arts training montage you've ever seen, with Matsuda training Bruce and insulting him when he fails, with Matsuda's wife soothing Bruce's aches and offering comfort where Matsuda offers scorn. But part of Matsuda's training is the denial of emotion and connection, and we see part of where Bruce's inability to connect with others comes from. The ending of the story shows Bruce that betrayal is always around the corner, and that trust can get you killed, lessons that I think he struggles with to this day. While I enjoyed the main story, the back-up, featuring Alfred during Bruce's years away, was the real gem. Having established Bruce's mother, Martha, as part of the Kane family, who are still alive since Batwoman is probably related to them as well, this story explains why young Bruce never went to live with his relatives. But more important than a continuity fix, the story showcases Alfred's love and dedication to the Wayne family, and to Bruce. Alfred is a constant presence in Bruce's life, and I enjoy a story that really puts the focus on him, reminding us that he is more than just Bruce's gentleman's gentleman, but his friend and family. The two stories work well off each other, with the Matsuda's as Bruce's surrogate family filled with pain, and Alfred, who shows nothing but unconditional love. I hope that the remaining issues exploring the revised origin of Batman in the New 52 are of a similar quality; it will lay a nice groundwork for new readers to understand Batman.

Fairest #7
Story: Matthews Sturges
Art: Shawn McManus

The first arc of the Fables spin-off Fairest was a fun little yarn that put some pieces that had been off the table back into play, and introduced a couple fun new characters. This issue, on the other hand, take a couple of the existing pieces and shines a completely new light on them. Set in the 40s, Beast is out of Fabletown, home in exile of fairy tale characters, on a quest to track down and capture the Lamia, an ancient Greek snakewoman who is killing men, while trying to stay one step ahead of St. George, the legendary dragon slayer, who wants to kill the monster. Told as a letter from Beast to his wife, Beauty, we see Beast working the case, following clues in a classic gumshoe tale, to a bloody confrontation between all the characters. Beast is a character who has been part of Fables since issue one, but has never really had much of a spotlight, and it's odd to see that spotlight in a book geared towards the female Fables cast. There's a scene at the end of the issue between Beast and Bigby Wolf, the lycanthropic Big Bad Wolf who serves as Fabletown's sheriff, that begins to explain some of the animosity that regular readers of the Fables universe have seen in the past. The ending is a major twist, one that readers could figure out if they read the issue carefully, and one that completely shakes up the status quo for some of the regular characters in the series. I'm hoping to see the revelation played out in the course of upcoming stories in this title or the main book, but the final page switches genres beautifully, not working as a noir, but as the perfect cap to a thriller, with Beast again faced with the choices he has made before, and wondering what he will have to do if things come to a head again. It's a great ending, full of possibilities for stories, and since stories rest at the center of Fables, there is no better ending.

The Muppets #3
Story & Art: Roger Langridge

This is the penultimate issue of The Muppets by Roger Langridge, and his deft handling of these classic characters is going to be sorely missed when it's done. There are few comics that are so full of charm and whimsy as a Langridge Muppets. This issue, the Fall issue of "The Four Seasons," focuses on Pops, the Muppet Theatre's doorman. It seems Pops has reached the age where the stage doorman's union makes one retire, and so Pops must train his replacement, his nephew. While there's a hilarious scene as Pops's nephew tries to gently but firmly tell a comedian who is seeking and audition that he isn't welcome, the majority of the issue's comedy is based around the rest of the gang trying to find a way to get Pops to stay on, without letting Kermit, the straight shooter, know. Gonzo comes up with an elaborate scam, that involves finding a birth certificate, but it seems to only member of the crew who has one is Miss :Piggy, who has lost it. Scooter is also taking a collection to get a special plaque made for Pops, and when it comes, it doesn't exactly say what Scooter has intended. As with all issues of a Langridge comic, there's a lot that's going on here, if you couldn't tell be my little synopsis, but it never feels rushed or cramped. As I've said before about any Langridge Muppets story, what Langridge really captures is the heart of these characters, created by the late, great Jim Henson with such love. This crazy band of misfits really care about each other, and Langridge builds his stories around that family relationship, and that's what has always made a great Muppets story.

Near Death #11
Story: Jay Faerber
Art: Simone Guglielmini

Another of my favorite Image series goes away. After the end of Reed Gunther broke my heart, the "season finale" of Near Death stomps the pieces to dust. Markham, the hitman who has found a conscience of sorts after his near death experience, must protect Novak, his former boss, from Robert Knox, the FBI agent who has hunted Novak and who suffered a brain injury removing his conscience. Now Know will kill anyone who gets in his way to get to Novak. Markham continues to struggle with his pledge to not take a life, but this time the life he wants to take is that of the person he's protecting, and Novak continues to goad him about coming back to work for him. The issue is a perfect ending for the story that Jay Faerber has been telling about Markham, and if this is the last we ever see of him, I'll be satisfied, if not happy. Markham cotinues to make choices, and in the end he does the right thing despite what it might mean for him. Markham, who at the beginning of the series had little to no sense of the value of others, now makes a purely selfless choice. The people who Markham has protected over the course of the series come in to help him in the end, and show that the "good guys" have at least a grudging respect for this bad guy trying to turn good. The final back-up, "Struck," from Ed Brisson's Murder Room series is a wonderful short noir, like the rest, fitting tonally well with the book's lead story. I do hope to see more of Markham before too long, but at least I'll have Faerber's new noir mini, Point of Impact, starting next month. Check it out with me, huh?

New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes #1
Story: Ian Flynn
Art: Ben Bates

I have a real soft spot for the Red Circle heroes, the super heroes created in the 30s and 40s by the company that would one day become Archie Comics. I first discovered them when DC had the rights to the characters in the 90s for their !mpact line (yes, it was the 90s and punctuation could be a letter), and enjoyed them in their appearances in Archie's Weird Mysteries. I wasn't as big a fan of DC's other attempt with the license a couple years back, but it produced a few good comics too, so I can't say too much against it. This first issue introduces us to the town of Red Circle, where it seems most of the original Crusaders have retired to. The retired heroes are having an annual picnic, with their families and proteges, when one of their old enemies attacks, and one hero, the Shield, grabs the kids while the heroes fight. By the end of the issue, it seems the parents have been defeated and killed, leaving only the Shield and the kids to stop the returned villain. The set-up has been done before, with the young inexperienced legacy heroes trained by the one grizzled veteran (it was the foundation for much of Geoff Johns's JSA work, and for Marvel's Secret Warriors), but this issue is very much an all ages story. There's action and pathos, but a distinct lack of the gore that we see in a lot of modern super hero comics. There's not a ton of exposition, so if you don't know the Red Circle characters well, you might not get a lot of what the parents are up to, but the New Crusaders, the kids, are the focus of the series, and this getting to know them as characters is what is really important. With a team of seven, and six of them new completely new, you know you will only get this in broad strokes, but there's still a good amount that happens; I don't feel a lot of decompression here. I'm looking forward to seeing more time spent with the kids as they learn about their parents' histories, and the powers that they'll all be receiving, judging by the cover anyway. If you feel like reading a superhero comic that hearkens back to a simpler time, but still keeps some of the sensibilities of more modern comics, this is a book worth reading.

Smallville Season 11 #5
Story: Bryan Q. Miller
Art: Chris Cross

Smallville was a guilty pleasure TV show of mine for the last few seasons, when they decided that their real audience was fanboys like me, who wanted to see DC heroes on screen, and who didn't care about the will/they won't they relationship between Clark Kent and Lana Lang. I didn't think I'd be particularly interested in getting a comic following up the series, but then they decided to bring in Batman, and, well, you know me... The issue is quite good. Bryan Q. Miller, the writer of the series, actually worked on Smallville on TV, but is best known in comics circles as working on the late, lamented Stephanie Brown Batgirl series, and his mix of action and comedy is evident here. His Nightwing, who is Barbara Gordon, was originally rumored (confirmed?) to be Stephanie before decisions from the powers that be changed it, and she has the same strong, sassy attitude that his Stephanie did. He has a good handle on Batman, and how he thinks; his scene with Lex Luthor could have been in any mainstream DC title and worked just as well. It's interesting to see two early Batman stories from very different universes in one week, and how they contrast: while the Batman in this issue is not a lightweight, he seems lighter than the version in Detective, probably due to the influence of Nightwing. This is a Superman comic, and I should probably talk about Superman a little. I like Miller's Superman, who is closer to the pre-New 52 Superman, very earnest, very boy scouty, missing the anger I see in his current incarnation. But the thing about the Superman parts of the story I liked most were the interactions between Clark and Lois Lane. In this universe, Lois and Clark are a couple, and seeing this, plus rereading some pre-Flashpoint stories, has really made me miss Lois and Clark as a couple. I really only knew them in the comics as a couple, and seeing them again here, they had such a wonderful rapport, one that humanizes Superman. I understand Silver Age fans who never got behind the relationship, but for me, it's a part of the character I miss even more than the red shorts.