Wraparound cover art by Adam Hughes for the Fables spinoff Fairest in 2012, showcasing the female characters from the series (fair use)

(5) BILL WILLINGHAM –

FABLES (2002-2015 & 2022-2024)

The series is summed up by the title of its opening issue – Legends in Exile.

All myths are true. Characters from fairy tales and folklore, the titular Fables, are real – and are living in New York! New York City, that is, for the human Fables – non-human Fables (or those who can’t magically transform themselves into humans) are still in New York but upstate not the city, in “the Farm”. Refugees from their own story worlds or Homelands, driven into our non-magical or Mundane world to escape the inexorably expanding empire of the multiverse-conquering Adversary.

A little like the TV series Once Upon a Time for those who saw that series, only with more depth. There are some intriguing aspects that only get deeper the further you go. The Fables often use or weaponize their storied attributes as superpowers – including immortality and to some extent invulnerability based on the popularity of their stories, although whether the latter is the case is debated by the Fables themselves. My favorite aspect is how some Fable characters are the same recurring archetypal character across stories – such as Jack, representing all fairy tale or nursery rhyme Jacks, who as we see in his spinoff series Jack of Fables does deals with all the different devils of fairy tales and folklore.

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)