Snow White Dropping F-bombs Doesn't Get Old, Why I Love Fables

Its a new month and time for a recap of what comic books I flipped through.  May was very lackluster, I’ve been trying to ween myself off of mainstream Marvel and DC offerings.  This has led to a few indie gems like Umbrella Academy and books with promise like Turf.  Luckily, I did happen to pick up the first trade paperback for Fables.

Great Reads

Fables:Legends in Exile / #1 thru 5

Here’s the plot in a nutshell: The characters that inhabit fairy tales are real.  They were forced into exile by a creature known as the Adversary. The survivors live in New York City, because the Adversary seems to have no interest in conquering our reality.  They live in secret from us– who they refer to as the “mundanes”.  They have problems that any exiles would have lack of cash, blood feuds and disputes from the old country, and a strong desire to return to the homeland.

In light of the Shrek movies, the idea of a fairy tale community living and interacting isn’t wholly original.  If I recall there’s even a Warner Bros cartoon, Book Revue (1946) where that occurs.  What makes Fables so engaging is the idea of storybook characters in a diaspora.

The bulk of the action takes place in around Fabletown, which is large posh Manhattan apartment complex that functions as residences and seat of government in exile.  We meet a divorced Snow White working as a bureaucrat tasked with keeping Fabletown together.  The Big Bad Wolf (Bigby) has taken on a human form thanks to a reversed werewolf curse.  He spends his days as the chain smoking sheriff trying to keep order amongst the exiles.  Snow White’s ex-husband, Prince Charming is a louse who spends his days “charming” women into bed and then emptying their bank accounts.  Then you have the witches who aren’t cannibals anymore on account of the General Amnesty offered to all the exiles.

Why am I so enamored with Fables?  Because the predominant genre of comic books, the superhero genre is getting stale and on my nerves.  Month after month, I’ve been complaining about the lack of continuity, the endless retcots, and now I’ve found something with originality, compelling artwork, and witty dialogue– Snow White dropping f-bombs doesn’t get old.  Writer Bill Willingham immediately throws readers into a murder mystery.  We get a slow yet well paced reveal on life for the fairy tale legends. The last issue in the arc plays out like a Thin Man movie, with everybody in the parlor (actually a penthouse rooftop) for the big reveal of “Whodunit”.  With Ashes To Ashes ended and the Tudors ending, I’m glad I found something else to dive into and dissect endlessly.

Good Reads

The Spirit #2

Yes the movie was abysmal, except for the female pulchritude in the form of Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson. Putting that aside DC has relaunched the Will Eisner classic as part of its First Wave universe.  So far the book has featured two stories one full color with gorgeous art by Moritat and the second a black and white story done by a guest creative team.  What works here but not in the movie is the premise– Denny Colt was dead, but got better.  Now he fights the criminal underworld in corrupt Central City.  When he’s not fighting crime he’s at the mercy of numerous femmes fatales. My hope is that the creative team stays in place unlike Detective Comics last year.

The Avengers #1

Well the Heroic Age is here, at least that’s what many of last month’s Marvel titles were trumpeting.  I’m not sure I know what that means.  I get that the Dark Reign and Siege are over, but other than killing a bunch of titles and launching new ones– is this anything other than a marketing ploy?  What did we get in this new title now that the Dark Avengers, The Mighty Avengers, and The New Avengers titles are no more?  We got a staff meeting.

Steve Rogers is now the new Nick Fury or top global cop and he’s going to reorganize the Avengers after mess that the Civil War and Norman Osborn caused.  Steve is not resuming his identity as Captain America, he’s just going with the blue jumpsuit look and sidearm.  I would have been terribly bored by the whole thing if it weren’t for John Romita Jr’s pencils.  It made me nostalgic for his late 1980s runs on Uncanny X-Men and The Amazing Spider Man.  Oh and Kang showed up.  Its hard to not like an Avengers’ archenemy like Kang The Conqueror showing up to taunt them.  If its not Kang, then it would have been Ultron as top enemy.  But since Ultron was just in the finale of Mighty Avengers, it’ll be  a while before he shows up.  Who is on the team?  No idea since there were 26 characters featured in the meeting.  But next month’s new titles: Secret Avengers, The New Avengers (again?), and Avengers Academy (ughh) should sort out the rosters.

Disappointing Reads

The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 & 2

So surprise… Bruce Wayne is not dead.  He’s lost in time and space.  Issue one finds a fairly incoherent Wayne in a prehistoric setting with cavemen.  Not just any cavemen, they seem to speak rudimentary English.  I don’t know why.  Wayne fights his way out of that jam and then jumps forward in time to colonial America.  He’s at the settlement that eventually becomes Gotham City.  The settlement is dealing with Salem witch hunt type politics.  Meanwhile in the present day, Bruce’s friends are trying to rescue him.  All of this would be fine and dandy if it hadn’t happened last summer over at Marvel during the Captain America: Reborn limited series.

Iron Man Legacy #2

So bad its painful.  Nothing says, we’re trying to cash in on the success of a movie franchise like a poorly conceived monthly title.  Have the writer and editor bothered to look at anything that’s happened to the character in the last two years? Everyone knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man except for the writer.  Why have a sequence with government goon Henry Gyrich threatening Stark and Pepper Potts with subpoenas for Iron Man’s legal identity?  It would have made sense for that scene to be written maybe ten or fifteen years ago.  But Stark has been outed more than a few times.  When he was head of SHIELD and when Norman Osborn beat him to a pulp during the brilliant World’s Most Wanted storyline.  Again, where the hell is the editor?  Continuity is all I’m asking for.