The Unwritten #5

Written by Mike Carey
Art by Peter Gross
Any doubt I'd had about The Unwritten from its first four issues has been washed away by this current issue, which is the best book on the stands this week.

Carey ditches Tom completely, giving us the life story of Rudyard Kipling in this issue. As it turns out, the people that are moving behind the scenes in Tommy's modern-day story were also responsible for Kipling's rise to fame (as well as Oscar Wilde's downfall). It becomes clear with this issue that there is some sort of shadowy cabal that is influencing what type of stories get told (although to what end is still shrouded in mystery), and that they are not to be trifled with, as is made all to clear when Kipling decides to switch up his own writing style to spite them (and thereby producing the books he is now best remembered for).

I'm sure a fan or scholar of Kipling and his time period would find much more in these pages than I did, but I enjoyed this issue immensely, and am hoping that we see more issues like this as this series progresses.