By: brace yourself–Mike Carey and Bill Willingham (writers), Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha and Inaki Miranda (art), Chris Chuckry (colors) and Todd Klein (letters)
The Story: The Unwritten and Fables universes cross over.
Review (with SPOILERS): Ugh….despite being very attractive and nicely written, this is a disaster of a comic from a creative standpoint.
Last month in The Unwritten #49 we saw that Tom Taylor attempted to reach the “beginning” of all stories in his attempt to cure what ails the power of stories. When he reached the “beginning”, he found himself amidst the characters of Fables. At the time, it seemed very misplaced and forced. After all, the Fables aren’t even the most important story characters that DC owns the right to. It would have made more sense for Tom to find himself in the Fortress of Solitude or the Batcave. Further, the whole thing smacked of the type of crossover the people read Vertigo comics to avoid.
Unfortunately, this lovely-looking issue doesn’t do anything to make me feel better about things. Essentially, this turns into an issue of Fables wherein several of the characters have attempted to summon a powerful wizard to aid them in their battle against Mister Dark and his minions. Naturally, they are somewhat perturbed to have a sloppy looking modern adult (Tom) rather than a “real” wizard. You’d think that a group of characters who shared a publisher with Hellblazer for years would know better than to underestimate a rumbled looking man.
Still, there is no good reason for this issue to exist. This issue seems to be exactly what crossovers always are: attempts to get readers of the more popular series to buy the less popular series. So, this issue really isn’t even about The Unwritten and its universe. It’s more a primer of the situation in Fables. I’ve read Fables several times and I can never get past issue #50 or so. It just doesn’t hold my interest. I’m not even clear if the Fables we see in this issue represents current continuity or not.
The other thing that was lacking was that typical Unwritten snap. Unwritten often asks some very interesting questions of readers in terms of perception versus reality, the power of stories and propaganda, the creative bankruptcy of some elements of the comic industry, etc. Unwritten is deep. This issue has NONE OF THAT. Everything rich about The Unwritten is exchanged for the simplistic themes of “The bad guy is coming”, “She betrayed her lover” and “Let’s fight!”. Apparently that is what Fables has to add to Unwritten. Thanks a lot!
Let’s see how this storyline turns out, but I suspect that the people who made this crossover happen should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Vertigo is not about unwanted crossovers. I’ve been reviewing and discussing Unwritten for years and have never heard anyone say, “You know what would be hot? A crossover with Fables would be HOT!” I’m just surprised that Vertigo has fallen to the depths of pimping out stories this way.
The one bright spot in this issue is that it looks very pretty. My favorite thing about Fables was the art by Buckingham and Leialoha. It’s exquisite stuff and it’s interesting to see the effect of Leialoha inking over Peter Gross (Hint: It looks like Fables). It was also interesting to see how regular Unwritten artist looks when he inks over Willingham (Hint: It also looks like Fables). I’m not sure there is much rhyme or reason to who penciled and inked what pages. It’s almost fun to open to a page and guess who was involved.
Conclusion: Why? Nobody asked for this crossover and this first issue does nothing to validate this storytelling direction. If I wanted to read an issue of Fables, I would have bought Fables.
Grade: B (based on technical merit), D (when you factor in stupid story direction)
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion