Fables, Fairest, New comics

New comics!

Dark Knights of Steel 7

The Titans show up.  Ma and Pa Kent kill some zombies.  Not bad, but not as good as DCeased.

Batman: Killing Time 4

The Help and Batman team up.  Riddler and Catwoman fight their way out of a pickle of a situation.  Fun enough on its own, but the usual “it’ll all make sense when it’s done” Tom King warnings apply.

Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

An OGN that spends way too many pages recapping the not-that-interesting issues 28 and 29 WWII issues where Bigby fights Frankenstein’s Monster and Nazis.  The rest of it is devoted to a werewolf community that spun out of those events.  It’s as uninteresting as the original story.  It boils down to “Bigby kills all of the antagonists and cows the rest of the inhabitants into submission.”  Meh.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Fairest 1-20

I’m skipping over to Fairest because I don’t want to miss any potentially relevant backstory before the final arc or two of Fables.  (Not sure if I’m going to read the Peter and Max novel as well.)

1-6: The kiss of Ali Baba wakes up Briar Rose after her instrumental role in taking out Imperial City back during the Homelands War.  Hijinks with the Snow Queen ensue.  At the end of it all, Ali Baba and the Snow Queen are a thing and Briar Rose has a sweet new ride, courtesy of the witch who cursed her all those years ago.  Fun story by Bill Willingham, great art by Phil Jimenez.

The editor couldn't have picked a better artist than Adam Hughes to draw these covers.

Her disillusionment is totally valid.

Regret buying: No (Applies to everything today)

Would buy again: Yes (Applies to almost everything today)

Would read again: Yes (Applies to almost everything today)

Rating: Good

7: A shocking twist on the Beauty and Beast tale.  It turns out Beauty hasn't been Beauty ever since she met Beast.  Well, she has, but she’s actually a lamia that took the place of the original girl all those years ago, and eventually forgot her monsterly origins.  Only every so often, she reverts to type and goes on a killing spree.  A truly stunning reveal, and the emotional burden it places on Beast is heavy indeed.  (Beauty doesn’t know about any of this.)  I totally didn’t expect this in what appeared to be a simple, throwaway one-shot.  (The story itself, a 40’s detective murder mystery by Matthew Sturges, isn’t that interesting.)

Rating: Pretty good

8-13: We learn what happened after Rapunzel escaped her tower: She fell in with the Japanese Fables, where she participates in some truly Japanese horror type things.  (Complete with The Ring type visuals.)  Writer Lauren Beukes fails to make the Asian characters interesting at all.  Even Rapunzel’s relationship with Tomoko fails to generate any heat.  

Reminds me of...

So delightfully gross.

Rating: Nice

14: Reynard the fox goes on a date with Princess Alder, one of Geppetto’s bodyguards.  It literally revolves around him eating his own shit and then kissing Alder, who’s also been eating his shit.  Is this supposed to be funny?  I can’t believe this came from the pen of Willingham.

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Hated

15-20: The return of Prince Charming, now a maharaja in the Jungle Book world.  He falls in love with a local (Nalayani kicks so much ass) who’s intrigued but doesn’t return his feelings (yet).  Not a bad read, but six issues was way too many to spend on this story.

Hughes is SO good at good girl art.

Rating: Nice