By: Mike Carey and Peter Gross (creators, writers/artists), Chris Chuckry (colors), Todd Klein (letters)
The Story: Tommy, Lizzie & Gang have to escape from the real Hell.
Review (with SPOILERS): There were a few surprises in this issue. Namely, although I guess that it was made clear in the cliffhanger final page of last issue, I totally didn’t catch that it was Pullman in charge of Hell. Without his magical hand and trademark pea-coat, I just didn’t make the connection. Perhaps the facial hair isn’t distinctive enough?
Nonetheless, I’m glad to have Pullman back as a character. He’s always been interesting and – as the oldest character in the story – he’s vital to understanding precisely what is going on. I guess that when he vanished after the War of the Words, I should have known that he wasn’t gone forever, but I honestly can’t say that I spent much time thinking, “When will Pullman return?”…….or else I would have noticed him on the final page of last month’s issue. What makes Pullman interesting is that he’s not really the bad guy. He might have some issues with Tommy, but he mostly seems to have his own agenda and you almost wonder if Tommy could end up like Pullman if the story persists for another 50K years.
About that claim by Pullman that he is 50K years old? That’s roughly the age of the human species, or at least however long ago we all had a common ancestor. It makes me wonder a few things that aren’t really related to the story, but show how The Unwritten is a powerful story that makes you think about stuff. One, if Pullman is a story character that is as old as humanity itself, why isn’t he a black guy? It’s like all those complaints about Jesus being depicted as a white guy. Maybe Pullman can be whatever he wants to be, but why would an 50K year old African story character choose to look like an English steampunk character? Maybe he’s like Q from the Star Trek universe and just looks like whatever he fancies? My second question is whether Leviathan had any interest in the creatures that came before Homo sapiens? If Pullman is literally the first H. sapiens story, are we to assume that NONE of the other human species had interesting stories? Or were their stories interesting, but Leviathan had to move onto Pullman when they died out? Surely Home erectus and Homo eragaster and had some stories, right? The stories may not have been as complex as what we have now, but those proto-humans made tools and migrated over most of the Earth, they probably had simple stories. Third, given that stories have evolved over time, is Leviathan more interested in us now? Given that things like “fictional novels” are relatively recent creations (circa 1400) when compared to Pullman, I wonder if Leviathan has changed its interests over time?
Getting back to the story at hand, I do enjoy the interplay between the ancient Pullman and the young, whipper-snapper Tommy, but I’m not sure there’s anything deep there. It’s mostly the story of the old-buck who isn’t ready to yield center-stage to the new kid, and we’ve seen that before. Otherwise, this issue didn’t serve to do much beyond deliver our heroes from Hell–which I guess is a big thing, but you get my point.
Now, I seriously am not looking forward to the Fables crossover. Hopefully Carey and Gross have some solid explanation for why Tommy falling back to the “beginning of all stories” would result in him finding the Fables characters. Part of my complaint is that I’ve never particularly enjoyed Fables; I just can’t get past about issue 30 before I get horribly bored. But the main problem is that I just don’t understand how a story that plumbs the depths of human history would seriously trot out Frau Totenkinder as a vitally important story character. It really smacks of self-centeredness and conceit and I don’t like that in The Unwritten. We have been faced with mysteries in The Unwritten before, but all of them have been things that made a lot of sense as they were explained. I can’t recall a truly incongruous item like the Fables characters showing up before. Hopefully the implication isn’t that they’re somehow vitally important “story characters” now because if that’s the criteria, Tommy should have encountered someone who sells more than ~40K comics/month. Examples of fictional characters with more cultural relevance than Fables: TJ Hooker, Jed Clampet, Howlin’ Mad Murdock, etc., etc. And if it were to be a comic character, it should probably be Wolverine, Batman or Spider-Man. None of those can appear for trademark reasons, but you get my point.
The art? Well, the art is fine. It tells the story and gets the job done. There are some awkward looking panels/faces throughout the issue, but I can’t say that it really bothers me too much. On one level, I do kinda wonder what The Unwritten would be like if someone like JH Williams drew it (in the style of Promethea), but the current artwork is fine, even if it isn’t beautiful.
Conclusion: A solid issue that brings back a favorite antagonist. Not looking forward to the Fables crossover.
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion