Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities FABLES (Spoilers Possible For the TPB Folks)

So the latest story with Snow and Rose Red's origin has been very good. I knew where Willigham was going with the Dwarves part, but even though it was all implied...ugh...that was awful to read. I'm thankful it was only implied.

I love me some Snow and feel the urge to protect her.

The idea of anthropomorphic princes wandering through the forest constantly and Rose Red missing out on them was brillaint.

That issue went a long way to deprogram me from Disney's Snow White tale.

Yeah, Uncle Walt and co. certainly glossed over Snow's story...

That was in the OGN that they did as well...or at least implied.

The dwarves as Snow White's protectors/guardians weren't a Walt Disney invention - that's been their role since the story of Snow White began!

I found Willingham's corruption of them in that very pretty to look at but otherwise very badly written 1001 Nights of Snowfall book disgusting... and the final nail in the coffin of my enjoyment of this Fables franchise.

It was such a cheap and unnecessary development IMO and almost seemed like Willingham's desperate way of injecting more bathos and adult :rolleyes: themes into Fables. Like, "we've got everything else going on in this book - time for some rape and sexual torture?" Ugh.

Ever since Identity Crisis I am so over rape used as any sort of story-telling device in my comics, even so-called adult Vertigo ones.

It's great to see Rose Red back on her feet and ready to restore order.

She really was a bit of a stinker in her younger days... but she's redeemed herself - and about to reprove herself now, I wager.

I've slowly been working my way through the TPB's, our local library has them. Only problem is, they don't have all of them, and I'm not really getting them in the correct order. But I'm enjoying them so much. The storylines and artwork are great!

I really enjoyed Rose Red stepping up and taking charge of the farm. She's become such a well-developed, strong character. It just feels good to see her being so strong.

I'm eagerly awaiting the duel to come with Frau and Mister Dark!

Read the big issue #100. Although I didn't like the Mister Dark storyline at the beginning, I warmed up to it and this final battle between Totenkinder/Bellflower and Dark was good. The battle of wits and skill, with the Fables just waiting for the outcome ... pretty hard to depend on just one Fable for defense, even if they did have back-up plans. One story ends and several others begin, with <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">the Fables retreating to Haven, Mister Dark still out there, a treacherous nurse and Beauty and Beast's baby.</span></span>

The text story signaled more trouble to come as well. And I always thought that Pinnocchio was a little perv!

There were some supplemental short stories, answers to "celebrity" questions, which were amusing.

Something else else different in the addition of the puppet theatre and the board game, but they didn't do anything for me. I would have preferred more story or guest artwork.

Agreed on all points, Ms. Cramer... the extras, while unique, really weren't worth the bump up to TPB territory pricewise; I don't know whether to store #100 with the rest of my Fables run or just throw it on my trades shelf with the rest of them! Novel ideas, yes, but ultimately wasted on me.

The latest 'superhero' storyline isn't really interesting me all that much, but I'm totally enjoying all the other moments each issue presents (Snow & Bigby falling asleep post coitus in the enchanted forest was hilarious and cute). I'm disliking Ozma a bit, as I'm sure I'm intended to, but at least I enjoyed her meanness to Pinnochio, who deserves it.

Super-Goat was awesome, of course.

I'm also enjoying the heck out of the latest Cinderella miniseries, in which we meet her arch-nemesis, Silver-Slipper (I won't reveal who it is, which kind of puts the whole mini into focus). Cindi's stories are always really good and this one continues to show why she's such a cool character to have stand-alone stories like this.

There were some nice twists and turns in the Cinderella mini. What a great choice for a villain! Now any Cinderella tales will be part of the Fairest spin-off, so we probably won't see her for a while.

Has anyone seen the Fables One-Page that was handed out at San Diego? I looked around on-line but didn't come up with anything.

However, this one from 2009 has me guessing which one of the cubs will eventually become the North Wind.

The Mr. Dark story didn't go anywhere I was expecting... almost anticlimactic. The covers and solicits were misleading, probably deliberately so... I remember someone, maybe the embodiment of Hope? telling Bellflower/Totenkinder that the great powers like Dark and the North Wind would always, MUST always have a representative... getting rid of Mr. Dark would just cause another to pop up in his place. We know one of the next story arcs is to be about one of the kids inheriting the role of North Wind from their grandfather... my suspicion is <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Nurse Spratt will assume Mr. Dark's role...</span></span>

I loved the Cinderella miniseries which had a nice strong finish. She may just be the best written spy in comics these days (step up your game Black Widow).

As FC mentions, the upcoming 'Fairest' series appears to be including her; I hope she keeps having her own minis anyway. Of all the Fables she stands apart as a solo lead the best (better than Jack even).

I definitely want some more Cold War era Cindy stories.

Absolutely! Who else could run through the Russian snows in a bikini?

...Besides Lardie.

So with the long running conflict with Mr. Dark finally at an end, there feels like a restored freshness to the comic with the latest issue(s). Never once did it lose it's amazing quality--the long running contender for #1 best comic book being published--but it feels good to move on to the next phase.

Masters Willingham & Buckingham nail it like always: perfect writing, artwork, composition, pacing, etc. The sense of transition gives it momentum, and yet many little moments are packed in.

Rose being the one to first head back to the farm is a great touch; as is Fly not even thinking twice about holding back Bigby's personal business from the others. The newly christened Leigh Douglas is set to be a continued antagonist, and likely as Pov suggests, the new <strike>Mr.</strike> Ms. Dark.

Snow & Bigby's kids are the focus of the new story arc though if anyone other than the child who is actually wind gets it that would be a surprise. The best touch was when the boy Ambrose, who is a bit cowardly, has a moment with Bigby and Bigby proves what a great Dad he is by telling the boy that it's okay to cry for his dead grandfather (when his son says he's not as tough as Bigby). Being a father myself now, these moments hit me harder than before.

It's difficult to find new ways to praise the best comic out there (and contender for best ever). If you're not reading then wow, you really owe it to yourself to start!

I really love this series. Certainly, Willingham could have called it a day after #75 and moved on to a new project like Gaiman did with the Sandman. The series would stand as the probably greatest comic book of the 2000s.

He decided to go on, which is always a problem to to the inevitable feelings of anticlimatic storytelling coming up. He did great by introducing the Dark Man as a new archvillain, logically explaining his popping up being the fault of the Fables beating Gephetto thus disenabling him to keep watch of all those boxed bad guys.

This was pure genius.

Unfortunately, the Dark Man was to powerful to keep for another 75 issues - so he had to be removed, and that's where for my taste the sstory realy got anticlimatic.

Here you have this bad guy, for 25 issues it's all about "how to beat the Dark Man", then he is beaten in #100 - and gets free again. Aaaaah that was not so good.

Even more anticlimatic was the final battle with Mr. Northwind just seven issues later. Pop, he was gone - hm, this seemed easy...

So in some ways, I am not that enthusiatic about the book now than I was one year ago. I thought the handling of the Dark Man seemed somewhat clumsy in the end.

But now, there finally is time for all the characters to finally take some fresh breath and take care of all the danglers left out there. This should be fun once the engines are restarted and get rolling. Right now, I feel that the book has to search for a new focus, a new direction, and even if stories like the Northwinds successor or Munkin in Oz might be fun, the book needs a bigger story in the background to keep the characters going. For 75 issues, the Adversary was the power that kept the book going, then for about 30 issues it was the Dark Man. Now there is nobody...

... which does not mean that the book neccessarily needs a new major bad guy. That's not what I want. But it needs a new major arc which keeps us on the edges of our seats for some further years. I'm excited to see what Bill Willingham will come up with...

Very good point Chem. I'm also curious to see what the next bigger story arc will be; you have a good point too that it doesn't necessarily need to be a big bad either.

But yea, the best part here is letting the characters breath and addressing some danglers out there. There definitely feels like the book is open to all kinds of possibilities now.

I think Geppetto's got another big arc in him, personally. I can see how that could be seen as a retread, but I can see an intriguing storyline being 'carved' out of him working out of his current situation. We've seen plenty of seeds for this being planted.

Fables #108 was a good start to the new "Inherit the Wind" arc. Like Cobie, I'd be surprised if the one to succeed Mr. North isn't actually Ghost. But Ghost isn't even mentioned in this issue. Add the conflict that would cause because of his nature and what his grandfather couldn't bring himself to do, you could see that maybe Ghost isn't as obvious a choice as he'd seem.

Favorite parts were the scenes showing Bufkin's continued oddysey in the land of his origin. Who doesn't love Bufkin, anyway? Gotta love how he's become pretty bad-ass over the years and can't WAIT to see where his story goes next!

Life after Mr. Dark is lookin' purty good, dude! That saga was pretty decent but well below the Adversary phase, IMO.

Fairest #1: the art seemed to have more detail than in the regular Fables book, that was my impression (without doing a side by side comparison). Good story, but, as some have noted, hardly what we expected given the title and the promos; Ali Baba's story, really. So far. Regardless, it's an extra Fables story and that's fine with me.

In the regular book, I'm enjoying the cubs' stories. I don't usually go for stories focusing on children in comics (too precious! or annoying!), but this arc is pretty interesting.

So Fairest #7 has a MAJOR game-changing twist to a major Fable that I did not see coming. Wow, I had considered dropping the title but am glad I caught this...I feel like it'll have long term effects.

Meanwhile, the current Fables arc is my least favorite so far. It's dragged on too long and the direction the cubs are heading towards is unnerving without any real 'power' to it. I hope there is a redeeming aspect to it (narrative wise).

GAAAAAAAAH!

FABLES #121, the final chapter to the Cubs in Toyland arc, was so unsatisfying on so many levels! Artwise, Bucky and Leialoha haven't been doing it for me for awhile now... but I've had the story to keep coming back to. I really don't see any "redeeming aspect", as Cobie put it.

Just... ugh.

Well I read it yesterday and I thought the ending was in some way pretty romantic, with all those "killer toys" getting a chance to redeem themselves by saving children. As a father hat part really kind of got to me.

What I did not like so much was the issues before which seemed to drag a little and doing an 8-parter about (mainly) the cubs after doing another storyline about the cubs right before was a little top much focus on those children for my taste. Glad that this is over.

The Bufkin backup feature was even more obsolete in my eyes. That story totally failed to pick my interest, which is kind of a first in 120 issues of Fables.

So I kind of liked the ending of "Cubs in Toyland" (while I failed to totally understand the ending of "Inherit the wind"), but I totally believe that what the book needs now is wome fresh air by either adding new characters or finally focussing back on characters which we have hardly seen for over a year (Beauty and Beast come to mind, Rose Red...). This book needs a new mission - just reconstructing Fabletown can't be enough...