Nate's Reviews > Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Sixteen

A twelve issue coda to Fables published seven years after the presumed ending. Since Willingham has had a falling out with DC, it’s likely this will be the last we see of the series. And for all my problems with Fables, it’s not a terrible way to go out. It’s a smaller story that largely focuses on Snow, Bigby, and their kids in a new setting. There’s no world-ending threat, just smaller adventures and conflicts, plus some new characters. There are problems, like Willingham’s easy plotting decisions, an out of nowhere five year time jump, an underdeveloped villain, and addressing the should-be-huge plot point of the mundy world discovering fables in an easy, minor way. Also, something happens to the villain at the end that seems to go against the previous characterization of another character. It didn’t quite make sense to me. Still, these twelve issues capture the tone of the original series and deliver some nice moments. The decision to go small here was a smart one.

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So. Fables as a whole. Even though I read the entire series and had problems with it throughout, I swear I wasn’t hate reading. There were parts I liked. The art, for one, and the overall concept of the series. Also Boy Blue and Flycatcher. But I do have problems.

First, the characterization of these fairy tale and folklore characters feels arbitrary most of the time; they feel like entirely new characters, distinct from their archetypes except in name. And aside from Boy Blue and Flycatcher, and maybe one or two others, I never really felt attached to the characters. Willingham tried his hardest, but I just could not get invested in Snow, Bigby, Rose Red, and the others. This comes down to the writing. The way Willingham writes is clunky, obvious, and easy a lot of the time. His writing is almost too “nice” and “whimsical” (too many exclamation points), and his plotting rarely feels inventive or surprising. That’s the best way I can describe how I feel about it. The story also went on too long; you could tell Willingham didn’t really know where the story was going after the war ended halfway through.

So it mainly comes down to writing for me; with a better writer at the helm, Fables could have been a compelling, enthralling series with memorable characters and epic storylines, instead of the clunky jumble of obviousness we got. This series has many fans, so it’s probably a case of “not for me.” But from where I’m standing, it’s clear how inferior Fables is to other comics of its type.