Bigby (née Big Bad) Wolf is the focus of FABLES: WOLVES, the eighth collection of Bill Willingham’s Vertigo comic series, an Eisner Award-winner seven times over – each of them richly deserved.
When we last saw the gruff former sheriff Bigby, he had fathered a slew of children with the ultra-hot Snow White and then abandoned them all to whereabouts unknown. WOLVES is anchored by a three-part story arc that has Mowgli (of THE JUNGLE BOOK fame) tracking Bigby down from his self-imposed exile in order to recruit him for an important mission alongside Cinderella for Fabletown, the metropolitan home of these nursery rhyme/fairy tale characters.
Now, FABLES is often difficult to review, because with stories mined with big surprises, you don’t want to give anything away. Thus, Bigby’s mission is being kept on the QT, but to say it involves a beanstalk doesn’t ruin the reveals.
Closing out the book is a standalone tale, this time featuring Cinderella in a quasi-FANTASTIC VOYAGE assignment which entails her draining the inner ear of a giant. Before you say that sounds dumb, know that she loses her clothes in the process.
Each trade paperback of FABLES contains a wonderfully graphic, “holy crap” moment that makes me glad I took a chance on this series from the start. In WOLVES, it comes early on when Mowgli flips an attacking wolf over his head, grabbing him by the front legs, which snap in two during the near-deadly descent to the rocks below. This ain’t Walt Disney, kids.
My only beef is that with just four issues, this volume is at least a good two issues shorter than the others. Vertigo tries to disguise this by throwing in two maps and Willingham’s complete script for the 50th issue, but I see right through that. I don’t pay to read maps and script pages; bring on the FABLES! –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
Discuss it in our forums.
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• FABLES: ARABIAN DAYS (AND NIGHTS)
• FABLES: HOMELAND
• FABLES: 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL
• VERTIGO: FIRST OFFENSES
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }