by Bill Willingham (writer), Mark Buckingham (pencils), Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (inks), Lee Loughridge (colors), and Todd Klein (letters)
The Story: The flashback tale continues, detailing how the two sisters were separated and what exactly happened to Snow White thereafter.
What’d Good: It’s always relatively good fun whenever Willingham gets to tell a good old fashioned fairytale. His narrative voice is well-suited to the required old timey tone and so, the narration and dialogue is solid all around. You get your witches, kings, royal intrigue, magical creatures, and all the necessities of the genre. The curtain also gets peeled back a little on the magical nature of Rose and Snow’s mother, which was definitely both a slight surprise and a cause for interest.
As always, you also get that little wink of generic self-awareness. Seeing hordes of princes-turned-into-animals pondering whether Rose Red is their saviour or not is a prime example of this. Indeed, seeing various archetypal fairytales passing Rose by was a nice touch towards the end of the issue.
On art, I really do feel that Buckingham’s able to stretch his legs a little bit more whenever he traverses the older worlds of the Empire. The fantasy elements suit him well and his depictions of magic and fantastical creatures are always pleasing, so heading into a fantasy realm obviously makes for a good time.
What’s Not So Good: Taken in isolation, this issue is harmless enough. Where it does become harmful is when you consider its place in Fables as a whole. Willingham had managed to put a whole lot of momentum back into the series and he appears to be bent on sapping that away for reasons unknown. I was honestly stunned when I realized that this issue continued last month’s flashback tale and I was even more surprised when it looks to continue into next issue as well. I have no idea what Willingham’s motivation behind this is. An extended multi-issue flashback in the middle of this arc drains away any and all tension and excitement from what we’re supposed to be focused on. Worse still, it distances us far too much from current goings on. One flashback issue was understandable, but two, and soon to be three? It’s just too much and it slows narrative progression to a grind.
Then there are the troubling issues with the content. I chastised last issue for its passing innuendos of pedophilia that felt inappropriate, pointless, and, well, bizarre and not only does that element rear its ugly head once again, but Willingham has also chosen to bring rape into the equation. Once again, while we never see anything (and thank God for that), Willingham feels the need to make it explicitly clear that Snow White is being regularly raped by the seven dwarfs on a nightly basis. A little more subtlety would’ve been much appreciated and even so, it feels horribly out of place, as though Willingham felt he needed to justify the “suggested for mature readers” label, just in case we’d forgotten. It’s jarring and unnecessary.
In an issue that was already plagued by its lack of necessity, there’s also too much focus on Snow White’s back-story. It begins to seem like a major digression in an arc called “Rose Red.” I find it ironic that Rose, whose lifelong crisis has revolved around her being a weak second fiddle to Snow, loses half an issue to her sister’s sufferings. If this exploration of the past was meant to bolster her confidence, it’s a very strange choice on Willingham’s part, as it unconsciously reinforces Snow instead.
Conclusion: Not bad, but there are definite flaws and some weird decisions.
Grade: C –
-Alex Evans
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Conclusion