Comic Review: Jack of Fables #23

[jakebe]

In this issue we find Jack seriously spooked by the initial confrontation with Bigby. He can’t perform his earthly duties with the womenfolk, he’s getting rather testy with his companions, and he’s developed an obsession with silver bullets. Meanwhile, Bixby is hot on his trail with his trusty steed, though he finds himself getting into trouble along the way.

Not much happens here, but we do get a few hints that there are some other parties coming into play. Jack’s initial order of silver bullets (fifty of them?!) was picked up by a masked stranger who goes about leaving them in a trail for Jack to find. For some reason, this masked ‘bandit’ is performing acts of heroic derring-do ahead of him. Why he has the silver bullets is a mystery, but my guess (based purely on the information that he has a Native American sidekick) is that it’s Wicked John masquerading as the Lone Ranger. That’s right, you heard it here first.

It’s all leading to a showdown that promises to be pretty interesting. Bigby was held in jail for twenty days after a barroom brawl that made the regional papers, so he’s wolfed out to cover ground more quickly on Jack’s trail. Now that the silver bullets have been introduced, they’ll definitely come into play; Jack’s managed to recover at least one, and you best believe he’ll be using it as soon as he even thinks he’s seen a wolf.

The story is told very well; Willingham peppers the narrative with various historical events happening around the same time (Congress voting that Native Americans weren’t real Americans; the eruption of Krakatoa) to lend it authenticity and a sense of perspective. He paints the story as something at least as awful as the flooding of several coastal towns, indirectly tweaking our understanding of it into tall-tale territory. It’s clever and subdued, and very effective.

Jack is enjoyable even when he’s spooked, and Bixby is an old West version of the T-1000; fixated, quiet, inexorable. You know he won’t rest until he’s apprehended his prey, and you already know he pulls off the feat and Jack is bested. You just don’t know how, but you have to figure that the events that will (or have) transpired are definitely part of the reason for the bad blood between Jack and Bixby later on in the pages of Fables.

The comic ends with another great trip through the imagination of Babe the Miniature Blue Ox, and a preview of Madame Xanadu, which aren’t bad extras all in all. Jack is as strong as ever, even approaching its 25th issue. Very impressive.

Rating: 8/10