Customer Reviews

Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I adore the Fables series and love spending time with these characters, with this writer, and with the talented crew of artists.

But...I just barely tolerated this story arc.

This is a long-winded and tiresome series of books. The tone isn't wry. It is leaden. Lots of flat jokes.

The basic idea is that Jack wanders back into the world of the New York fables as things are turned upside down by the Literals. The Literals are characters -- Writer's Block, Pathetic Fallacy, etc. -- that personify the writing process. (There's a character named Humor who looks like Groucho Marx and who runs around holding a rubber chicken. Because that's how you personify the prose genre of Humor. No kidding.)

I'd be fine with the temporary insertion of allegorical characters if that yielded something vital about the nature of the Fables universe. Or if they pushed the stories forward of the Farm Fables or of the ex-Manhattan Fables. Instead, the whole thing struck me as being a hot mess. A very long hot mess. A hot mess with limited character development. A hot mess with a lot of half-baked meta-comics ideas.

The art is still great!

Now if you love the character of Jack of Fables, you'll probably enjoy this. This principally a Jack story (with some nice moments for Rose Red and Stinky.)

I figure you can skip this thing and move on with the Fables series without losing a whole lot. Do you really need another crossover?

This attractively priced trade paperback collects all nine issues of "The Great Fables Crossover" that was originally published in single comic book form between May and July 2009. The story involved three titles: the acclaimed "Fables" title, its spinoff "Jack of Fables", plus a three-issue miniseries "The Literals". I enjoyed the first four trade paperbacks in this series but started to lose interest by the sixth volume. DC/Vertigo's promotion of this crossover inspired me to revisit this series by buying these individual issues as they were released. Those unfamiliar with the Fables universe should read reviews of these first few TPBs for an introduction.
The crossover centers on Kevin Thorn, an omnipotent writer who can destroy and recreate the universe simply by writing in his special book with his special pen. Besides familiar Fables like Snow White, Bigby Wolf, Jack and Rose Red (plus dozens of anthropomorphic animals and household items), a new race of beings appear - the Literals. These include the Genres, physical manifestations like "Science Fiction", "Western" and "Comedy" that aid Thorn with his re-creation. Jack has learned of Thorn's threat, and returns to the Farm with the news, where he is met by his long lost son. A band of Fables led by Snow White and Bigby then pursue Thorn and his Genres to prevent the imminent apocalypse.
Willingham smashes the fourth wall so much that it becomes tiresome. Much is made of Jack leaving his eponymous spin-off for the original title, and the disappointing narrative is overwhelmed by its self-referential metafiction. At least the artwork is strong as in the rest of the series, and Amazon's price of $12.25 for 224 pages seems like a great deal, less than half of the original $2.99/issue cover price. Hardcore fans of the series will probably enjoy this volume, but as a casual fan I was disappointed.

The Great Fables Crossover spans three titles- Fables, Jack of Fables, and The Literals (a mini series released to complete the crossover)- so it is indeed a Crossover. It does star Fables (perennial favorites Bigby and Snow are more at the forefront here than they have been recently). But I'd hesitate to call it Great.

To summarize where we are at the start of this (minor spoilers to follow)- the characters of both ongoing books have been ousted from their homes- Jack and co. from Golden Boughs, destroyed in the battle with Bookburner, and the Fables are up at the Farm following the collapse of the Woodland building by Mr. Dark's evil magics. Kevin Thorne, a longtime background character in the Fables book, was revealed to be one of the Literals- embodiments of literary devises- and an important one at that, the embodiment of storytelling itself. He's decided his creations- the Fables/the universe?- has gotten out of control and he's going to end it all and start over. The crossover begins with Jack calling the Fables for help, and they dispatch Snow and Bigby to head out west and investigate Jack's claims. When they arrive Jack leaves in a huff and heads to the Farm (and the main Fables book), leaving Snow and Bigby (and the Jack of Fables supporting cast) to deal with the Literals.

This swapping is probably my favorite element of the crossover. Snow and Bigby are out of their element in Jack's book, and Jack's been apart from the main Fables for so long that there are a lot of interesting character beats to be found.

I'm not a big fan of the Literals themselves- I've never really loved the idea, and this storyline has been building in Jack of Fables for a really long time (and, in my mind, knocking a lot of the fun out of that book , somewhere around the Americana story, as the Literals came more and more to the forefront of the action). The biggest problem with this crossover is that it's really a Jack of Fables story and not a Fables story at all. It's fun to watch Jack wreck a bit of mayhem at the farm, but there's very little advancement to any of the Fables plot lines or characters- the exceptions being some more development of Stinky the Badger and his obsession with Blue's return and a bit more seeding of Grimble being a more important member of Fabletown- that's it. Everything else remains pretty status quo from the end of the last volume. Conversely, the Jack of Fables book is in a completely different place (one I'm more excited to read about than I have in some time).

A word on the art- all very strong. Mark Buckingham draws four of the nine chapters, and Jack of Fables artists Tony Akins and Russ Braun split the rest. Mark Buckingham remains a genius and the other artists' styles aren't too divergent to be distracting.

All in all, this is a pretty good volume of Jack of Fables and a sub-par volume of Fables. If you've been following Jack of Fables, you'll want to pick this up. If you're a Fables fan who dislikes the Jack book, you may want to consider skipping this.
The 3.5 out of 5 stars it has now is an accurate assessment.

This book is the continuation and end of the Jack of Fables story thus far. It has nothing at all to do with the Fables universe and is intended to get Fables readers interested in buying another title - one that I think is far below the standards of Fables. There is no mention of Mr. Dark or any of the plot lines you were following in Fables #12. Instead, Bigby and Snow ride along with Jack on the final leg of his story. How disappointing. I had given up on Jack of Fables because I thought the storyline with the literals was weak and actually made the Fables universe less appealing.

The literals are personified literary terms. What terms get personified is totally arbitrary. It would have made sense for The Pathetic Fallacy to have created them all at some point, but the author missed this chance at an explanation. Instead, we have random selected literary personifications walking around, and this random guy, Kevin, basically acting as their god, able to write anything into existence. This power throws the whole Fables universe out of balance, and basically nothing matters anymore because Kevin can just rewrite anything. The authors would have done better to leave the literals out of the story completely and expand on the idea from mystical tradition and used to perfection in the Sandman that it is human's belief in Fables that give them power.

My recommendation - if you're not a big Jack of Fables fan, skip this. Fables fans could go from #12 to #14 without missing a thing.

I've been a fan of "Fables" since issue #1, but this is a complete waste of time. Go from Volume 12 directly into Volume 14 "Witches". NOTHING in this crossover tale has any impact on the overall Fables storyline, so you won't be missing anything. The "big bad" is a Literal who can erase the universe with a sentence. (Literals are human characterizations of literary terms like "revision", "writer's block", and "deus ex machina" - and yes, its as stupid as it sounds. The Endless they ain't.) With an Adversary so omnipotent, of course you have to make up reasons why he just doesn't destroy everything on the first page - and its all nonsense and explosions from there.

Short and sweet: you can skip this one. It's total filler and does little to propel existing story arcs forward; really frustrating from that perspective. It is well written and there are some funny bits, but this book is nothing substantial compared to everything else in the series.

Up until now, every issue in the Fables universe has been mostly enjoyable. The main arc for issues 1-75 were tremendously fun to read, and I had impossibly high hopes with the next arc. Volume 12, The Dark Ages, introduced a new villain, Mr. Dark, and, while he was not as cool as the Adversary, he was still pretty interesting.

Sadly, The Great Fables Crossover pretty much omitted everything with Dark and went off on a wild tangent that, unless you read the spin-off series Jack of Fables, really doesn't make much sense.

As implied by the title, this sub-arc is a crossover between the original series Fables and the spin-off series with Jack. The main conflict is all straight from Jack's series and had very little meaning to me. (I've only read the first few issues of Jack's series.) Still, interested in pressing on with the main arc of Fables, I decided to trudge through this book.

One thing I didn't care much for was the art throughout most of the crossover. I thought Rose Red, in particular, looked terrible, and the same for Jack and Beauty. All of these characters seemed cheesily drawn. There was, of course, many beautiful illustrations, too, but the main art style for many of the characters fell flat for me.

Also, as hinted at above, the plot was simply uninteresting and out-of-place. I can't understand why the Fables would take time to let Dark build up his power and instead go off with Jack and his quest about Thorn. It doesn't make sense.

I don't really have much praise for The Great Fables Crossover other than it's something else to read in the Fables universe. There's one or two events that may have an impact on the subsequent issues, but mostly this volume just seemed like fluff to fill a gap. I'm just glad I checked this one out from the library.

Having left a long time between reading Fables v12 and buying this I went back to read it all over to remind myself where things were at (a great testament to Fables that I wanted to/did read all 12 preceeding volumes straight through). To me, this volume does nothing to continue the story as left by The Dark Ages. The style of the story telling seems in line with the Jack of Fable books and didn't sit well with the Fables approach; other than the slightly amusing effects on Bigby and more on the state of Rose Red, I don't really see why the Fables have to be included at all. It's an OK read but not what I was hoping for.

Fables is one of the few comics that survived the Great Pull List Purge a couple of years ago, and it's been consistently great since halfway through Volume 3. Volume 13: The Great Fables Crossover is the closest Willingham has come to a misstep, pre-empting an intriguing new storyline while reversing one of the best editorial decisions he ever made in jettisoning the obnoxious Jack from the main series into his own title.

It's the first volume that could be considered for hardcore fans only (aka, those who actually like the Jack of Fables spinoff), and would be an awful entry point for newcomers as most of the main characters spotlighted aren't regulars of the main series and none come close to being as interesting as any of its supporting characters.

It's a testament to the strength of Willingham's underlying vision, and the flexibility of the world he's created that the crossover works at all despite its many flaws, but I'll be glad to return to the main storyline in the next volume. If you're not a completist, you can skip this one.

A self indulgent spinning arc from the story that destroyed Jack of Fables.
I love Fables. This is beautifully written, well drawn, but simply has no sbstance to the story. I'd advise anyone to stay away, and we could all pretend the literals part never happened