Fables #80

Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Mark Buckingham, Andrew Pepoy, and Peter Gross

It's Fables. It's good.

At the same time, now that the war is over, this series is making me think of one thing every time I read it: season 5 of Babylon 5. It's a strange analogy, and it's based on a foggy memory, but I think it makes sense to me.

The big story - the story that the series was created to tell - is done, but the series is continuing. So we need some new threats, that have to be bigger in some ways than the previous threats, but without the luxury of setting them up for a year or two. That's how I feel about this Mister Dark guy, like his existence makes perfect sense within the structure of the series, but he's not been around the book long enough for me to have any real sense of what a big, bad guy he is. So, he has to destroy the Woodlands completely, upsetting the status quo irrevocably. But now, the next issue is the end of the Dark Ages arc - so will that be the end of him? I'm not sure where this series is going.

However, I'm still very interested in it. And I still really like it. I just hear these whispers in the back of my mind when I read this book. I should just ignore them - I trust Willingham. I just don't want the book to peter out the way Babylon 5 did, into self-referential boredom. The sudden appearance of Colin the pig again kind of shook me I think.

I am enjoying the Mowgli back-up story a great deal - especially his way of dealing with the goblins in this issue. I'm looking forward to the end of this story, after next issue.