Trade Issues: Fables-Legends In Exile

Vertigo Comics has been good to me over the years. Y: The Last Man, Preacher, and Transmetropolitan are all comics that have been good to me, giving me stories and characters that I'll always remember. Afterwards, I started 100 Bullets(Which I enjoyed and really need to get back into) and DMZ. Despite the critical acclaim of DMZ, I really didn't enjoy it that much and it sort of put me off of Vertigo for a bit. But a 5 dollar trade of the first story arc of Fables in the FOR SALE box at my local comic store, I had to grab it.

 Fables tells the story of all the stories that we know for our childhood. Every character from all the fantasies, fables, and folktales are now living in modern day New York due to their departure of Fableland(Located between Oz and Narnia. Duh) after it was overtaken by The Adversary(A dark and all power force that I can't WAIT to learn more about). This leaves all of the characters from the stories having to blend in with the mundies(the normal people) while working normal jobs. Those that can't blend in(The Three pigs), live upstate on a farm.

Believe it or not though, this first arc wasn't some magical fairy tale. It was a stone cold murder mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end! The story opened with Jack (The one with the bean stalk), running to inform the sheriff of Fabletown about a murder. The murder in question is Rose Red, the estranged sister of Snow White. Despite the distance Snow kept from Rose(Due to Rose SLEEPING with Prince Charming[Who is hilarious{overusing brackets is fun}]), she is broken hearted and demands that the sheriff allow her to take part in the investigation.

Now, to the best part. The sheriff of Fabletown is, no shit, The Big Bad Wolf. But now, he goes by Bigby Wolf. He is pretty much one of the coolest comic book characters I have ever seen this side of Spider Jerusalem. Bigby is like a combination of Sherlock Holmes and John Constantine without any of the ego, the void filled by self-deprecation  instead. He is constantly huffing and puffing on cigarrettes and has an unbelievable intuition for putting pieces of the puzzle together.

Though I won't go deep into the mystery, I will say that almost this entire trade is worth reading JUST for the interactions between Bigby and Snow White. He's just a constant aura of laid back coolness that seems to already know where all the pieces of the puzzle will land before the case has even started. This is in stark contrast to Snow White, constantly on edge and screaming about various things as she tries to get Bigby to let her in on what's going on.

I won't go much deeper into this review since it is a review and I really don't want to spoil anything. This first trade has made me really want to get into this series. And that's something, considering that this is such a lengthy series (currently 120 issues plus). But if the quality of writing stays consistent and Bigby continues to be one of the main characters, I'd be more than happy to put more time into this than any super hero comics.