Fairest #22 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Shawn McManus (art), Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: When Cinderella’s away, the mice come out to play—and flirt with noblewomen.

The Review: I’d like to directly address Gregory Lockard, editor of Fairest.  Mr. Lockard, I know that despite being a paying consumer, I have no right—or, rather, no power—to critique how you do your job.  This being America, however, I’m gonna do it anyway.  The point I want to stress to you is there’s a limit to how hands-off you can be with a writer’s product.  Andreyko’s arc has been quite inadequate, a problem you could have easily prevented.

For one thing, last issue should have been a blatant red flag to you that Andreyko was having pacing problems with his story, requiring extra scrutiny to avoid the same here.  Instead, you were apparently content to let Andreyko keep on his merry way, resulting in an issue nearly as unproductive as the first.  Quite frankly, the actual contents of both of these issues could and should have been fitted into one, an obvious point I’m distressed to see that you missed.

Much like #21, by the time we reach the halfway point of this issue, Andreyko has only barely managed to establish two things: one of Cindy’s original mice decided to play hooky in his human guise, the Fairy Godmother is no longer in Ultima Thule, and Cindy has no high morals against hooking up with random dudes to get what she wants (i.e., a free helicopter ride—because who wouldn’t have sex for that?).  There is almost nothing else, and I truly mean nothing else, in the way of substance and context beyond that.  Andreyko doesn’t bother to explain such miniscule details as what Ultima Thule is, or Cindy’s exact relationship to the kingdom, or who its new ruler is.  We never even learn the name of this ruler, despite two or three pages of sustained interaction with Cindy, for crying out loud.

To be fair, Andreyko does make some significant advances in the plot, connecting Cindy to the F.G. and revealing the identity of one of the secondary antagonists.  Unfortunately, he also avoids a great deal of logistical groundwork to get to that point.  The F.G.’s escape from Ultima Thule is depicted as a matter of course, with no explanation as to how she managed such a feat in her addled state, and although Cindy sighs at the prospect of searching northern Europe for her once-upon-a-time benefactor, she manages the feat by the very next panel.  Andreyko’s not interested in exposing Cindy’s investigative skills, it seems; he’d rather be writing Cindy lopping off the heads of ninja-mice and dodging sniper fire.

But perhaps the least forgivable aspect of this story thus far is how horribly predictable it seems.  Though Andreyko never introduces the mastermind behind the ninja-mice attacks beyond having him referred to as “Sire,” it’s pretty easy for anyone to guess that the man is Marcel Champagne, the mouse-turned-man who crashed Cindy’s party in her original fairy tale.  It’s not even that difficult to understand his motivation for targeting the F.G., as disposing of her allows him to avoid being transformed back to his rodent form.  It would also explain why he has enough loyalty to Cindy as to order his assassin to spare his former mistress.  In some ways, I’ll be more disappointed if this is the way the story actually turns out, because that just seems like child’s play, coming from Andreyko.*

McManus’s funhouse style is amusing and easily enjoyed, especially for a strongly tongue-in-cheek story like this one.  In a weird way, this is the only reason why you can forgive some of the issue’s lack of seriousness, because McManus indicates that the story was never meant to be that serious anyway.  Although Andreyko’s rather prosaic script suppresses McManus’ creativity for most of the issue, McManus still manages to get sell some good moments, like the Fairy Godmother indulging in a deep toke.

Conclusion: Andreyko leaps from plot point to plot point with such speed that he barely give the story enough time to land, much less develop properly.

Grade: C-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: * In the alternative, maybe this mastermind is a descendant of Marcel and the sexually aggressive Lady Isabelle du Lac.  Considering how hard she was coming on to him, I’d be surprised if they didn’t do the nasty at some point of the festivities.

– By the way, I accidentally deleted the first draft of this review again.  Yes, I am in fact amazing.