The Unwritten FABLES (2014)
Authors: Mike Carey / Bill Willingham | Illustrator: Peter Gross | Page Count: 144
"Thank you, dear. We're all done with the exposition now. It's time to make a leap of faith."
The Unwritten celebrated its 50th issue by having a crossover with Fables, another Vertigo title. The story is credited to both Carey and Bill Willingham, the latter being the chief writer on Fables. It's a series that I've not read; I wanted to for a long time, but some of its many TPBs are expensive to buy, so rather than have half I prefer to have none. And if the full series is anything like what features herein, I feel I can live happily without it.
The basic premise of Fables is a standard 'what if...' scenario: what if the characters and creatures from folklore and fairy-tales, such as Rose Red, Pinocchio, Ozma, etc, were real and living together in a community. But the deeper concerns of the individuals and of the group is something that I've no prior knowledge of.
It's logical that a full appreciation of the work would require a level of familiarity with both series, but having lacked that I was only able to get fully invested in the Tom/Tommy Taylor™ side of things. (It's a situation that would probably be true from the opposite side, for anyone who had read Fables only.) There's some backstory within the book itself, including a page of catch-up at the very beginning for anyone unfamiliar with Tom's journey, but overall I felt like I was lacking something crucial, or perhaps the story was.
Regarding Tom's role in the tale, he's summoned to the Fables realm to aid the group in destroying their particular archetype of evil, known as The Dark Man (who in Tommy's world would be Count Ambrosio). It's not Tom they wanted, it's Tommy, but that's how the dice roll.
Mostly the Fables characters are pretty dull; they talk some, bicker some, and then fight some, repeatedly. The Dark Man and his consort are worthy additions to the series, but the only member of the exiled 'good' characters that I thought interesting was the group leader, Frau Totenkinder, an aged witch, who I think is an original character created by Willingham (?).
For the most part the pairing is so-so, but it comes good by the end; although that particular step in Tom's pilgrimage could've been arrived at quicker and with less sidetracking.
The blurb on the back cover claims that the crossover will 'change the course of The Unwritten forever,' which is a dramatically bold claim. I don't feel that it does that at all, at least not in any manner that's fully explained in the collection. It may be that the quote is referencing what happens afterwards, but I won't know if that's the case until I get to reading Volume 10: War Stories. And while Tom does arrive at a new realisation about the world(s) in which he inhabits, it's arguably not one that he couldn't have stumbled upon without the crossover happening.
The book collects together The Unwritten, issues 50-54.
Individual covers. Click for FULL size:
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