Written by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham
Art by Mark Buckingham, Bill Willingham, Chrissie Zullo, Joao Ruas and Steve LeialohaIn this fantastic 104-page issue, it’s time to put an end to Mister Dark once and for all, and time for the Fables to return home to Fabletown. For that to happen, one of the Fables agrees to take on the Dark Man in single combat! It’s big, it’s epic, and if you live in New York City, you may want to take a quick vacation when this issue comes out, because things are going to get wrecked!
In addition to the larger-than-life main story, we have a FABLES prose story written by Mark Buckingham and illustrated by Bill Willingham! We have an All-Star Burning Questions section that will knock your socks off (seriously, innocent people are going to lose some socks here). We have a puppet theatre created by the unstoppably creative Mark Buckingham, a FABLES board game, sequential stories painted by Chrissie Zullo and Joao Ruas, and even more surprises in this square-bound behemoth celebrating this award-winning Vertigo series!
This is the moment Fables fans have been waiting for. The 100 page 100th issue featuring the final showdown between Frau Totenkinder and Mister Dark, all in a format that makes this book seem more like a trade paperback than a standard comic.
Holy crap that was a huge read.
While some would complain about the $9.99 price point, I find it hard to believe that even the most fickle of readers would find this to not be worthy of that vaunted price point. With 104 pages of varied and inventive comic storytelling from some of the best in the business, this is without a doubt the biggest and longest read in comics in 2010.
But is it good?
For the most part, it’s fantastic.
The main story itself is 62 pages of incredible storytelling that kind of acts as a restart for the Fables themselves, as Frau Totenkinder (or Bellflower as she is going by these days) and Mister Dark square off for control of Fabletown and beyond. The bulk of the story is this fight and the ramifications of that fight, but that doesn’t mean writer Bill Willingham can’t work in a ton of superb character bits into these pages. Just tied to the fight, we’re given some really superb moments featuring Ozma (whose admiration of Totenkinder finally comes out), Bigby and the always wonderful Clara.
Regardless of the central structure of the story, Willingham has never relented on the idea that characters should come first. He’s been developing Bellflower’s strategy against Mister Dark for the past while, and to see her unleash it is incredibly exciting to read and beautiful to see artist Mark Buckingham render.
Bucky has long been one one of my favorite artists out there, and his work for all 62 pages is him at the top of his game. Every moment from the biggest to the tiniest is handled with all of the skill and eye for detail we’ve come to expect from him, and no matter what I’ve felt about the stories attached to them, I’ve always felt that Buckingham has been an absolute giant of the industry. This is maybe his finest issue yet.
For the central story itself though, I love what Willingham did. He took Bellflower’s plan to fruition, and it was exciting to see roll out amidst the chaos back at the farm (as Beauty and Beast had their child, Nurse Spratt gets laid out verbally by Snow White, and Rose Red’s inner council convenes). This is a huge issue that takes the title in an entirely new direction in a lot of ways, and I really honestly cannot say I know where it is going from here…but in a good way. That’s the second time I’ve felt that way in 25 issues, which is a hell of a thing. Plus, it gives us a ton of delicious and small things to chew on (Nurse Spratt’s comment about Boy Blue! Agh!).
In my mind, this issue just proves again that Fables is one of the best books out there. With back-ups that feature huge talents like Fables cover artist Joao Ruas, Cinderella artist Chrissie Zullo, and giants of the industry like Dave Johnson, Adam Hughes, and JH Williams III, this is a momentous issue that celebrates the grandeur of being a 100th issue in style.
Continued belowThe only part of the book that even remotely drags for me is the prose story Mark Buckingham writes and Bill Willingham draws, but for the most part, that is mostly because it follows the very exciting, page turning main story with a slower, character driven piece about the relationship between Gepetto and Pinocchio.
Still, this is 104 pages of the highest level of comic booking from all kinds of great creators. You won’t find this kind of comic book power anywhere, and even at $9.99, this is a screaming deal. Here’s to another 100 issues Team Fables. You keep making them, I’ll keep buying them.
Final Verdict: 9.2 – Buy
