Comic Review: Fables #73

[jakebe]

At last, we get to see Fabletown at war. Their wartime strategy is laid out bit by bit, so we see the three-pronged attack they’ve adopted. It’s neat to see how all of the allies they’ve made in the past several issues are now coming back to play – the Arabian fables are making good on the alliance forged in Arabian Days and Nights; the folk of the Cloud Kingdoms provide an immeasurably valuable transportation network; and the operatives who’ve been positioned in delicate places are finally coming out of the woodwork.

Little Boy Blue is our protagonist for his tour of duty; he’s the main messenger on the Fabletown side, with the help of the Witching Cloak. This puts him – and us – in the center of all the action, able to get to all of the flash points in the blink of an eye. First we see him on the Glory of Baghdad, a flying warship outfitted with guns and enormous, home-made bombs built for destroying the gateways to various worlds controlled by the Adversary. Then we see him at Camp Bravo, home of the last remaining beanstalk that’ll extract the crew of the Glory if things go wrong. The ragtag bunch here is lead by none other than Bigby, the best possible guy to pull this off. Fable animals, humans and giants are all gathered under him, ready to hold the position if they need to. And of course, they’ll probably need to.

Finally, Sleeping Beauty is hidden right inside the Imperial City, ready to enact her enchantment and send the entire capital to sleep. Apparently, all of the governors and warlocks of the Homelands are there for special training, along with the Snow Queen and the puppet Adversary. All that’s left is Gepetto’s arrival, and the heads of state will be taken out in one fell swoop.

It’s an audacious plan, and everything seems to be going off without a hitch. However, like all complicated, risky plans, things unravel soon enough.

This issue is mostly just putting the pieces in place; Willingham has this way of boiling epic, sweeping changes down into the span of a single comic, something that is both really admirable and ultimately frustrating. Things have been pointing this way ever since issue 50, and now that it’s finally here it feels a bit like things are being glossed over. Willingham, though, definitely has a plan in mind, so we’ll see what he does with it.

The art by Buckingham (pencils) and Leiahola (inks) is as sharp as ever; really, they’re the best team working today. They can do the most complex scenes without making it look busy and cluttered, and their style works wonderfully with mid- to close-range ‘shots’. The story is incredibly demanding for the artist; the world is populated with people of different shapes, sizes, species, all manner of different period clothing, and much of the time all in the same panel. It’s incredible to see them juggling so many different balls in the air.

Part two promises lots of explosions, where we’ll see how wrong things go for our intrepid heroes. Honestly, things haven’t looked very grim for them since March of the Wooden Soldiers, so it’s about time things went wrong in a very big way.

Rating: 7/10