Books Read in 2013 # 10 - This used to be a better series

Fables: Inherit the Wind by Bill Willingham - There was a point where Fables should have stopped, where it should have just said "that's it" and ended. That point was shortly after the end of the Gepetto storyline where Pinocchio ended the major war by forcing his father to agree to surrender terms that made him into a forgiven enemy of the Fables. Since then, there's been a lot of playing for time and attempts at creating compelling narrative that have failed. The Great Fables Crossover did have some fun material going on, but that story line pretty much ended all that was good and interesting about the Jack of Fables series (which has had to have the saddest denouement possible with Jack turning into a dragon, his boring son running around and finally everyone just dying).

For the most part, Fables has been a lot of crap about what happens now and without a great villain to tie everything together, the characters seem less interesting and fun. Rose Red goes into a deep depression for a couple of years and then "snaps out of it" by talking to herself (and does the trademark "ok now I'm a badass" speech so beloved by lazy writers). The evil dark thing who looks like a pissed off Nightmare Before Christmas character chases the Fables out of their homes but then gets killed by the North Wind.

And there we are with the children of Bigby and Snow White being groomed to become the new North Wind. That's pretty much the story and even though there's a seventh kid that is just wind and never mentioned, the daughter accidentally ends up in the home of the North Wind and therefore, she's the heir. With the other three winds plotting. Meanwhile, the monkey is trying to overthrow Oz. Or whomever is in charge of Oz. And ends up getting hanged - only the last panel doesn't show him hanging, just shows the door opening - so you know there's a rescue coming in the next volume.

Fables was once my favorite. It can still be enjoyable but the only part that I liked about this story was the supplemental story about how Abra Kadabra saved Fabletown from Gepetto by making him ignore it. Sadly that story ended with someone killing him and I'm sure that if I had just read the rest of the series I would know why that was significant. She's an enemy of Cinderella?

So yeah, it's fine. But not great.