"Run"

[arbre_rieur]

Last issue, at the guidance of a bottle imp, Ali Baba found Briar Rose and gave her true love's kiss.

Fortunately, this means she's now awake again.



Unfortunately, Briar Rose being awake means all those who were asleep with her are now also awake, including one Lumi the Snow Queen...



Not far or fast enough, as it turns out.





Briar rhetorically asks, "How did I get into this mess?" which the bottle imp -- whose power is, after all, To Know Things -- takes as his cue to recap the events surrounding her birth, including how she was visited by seven powerful faeries.

Comments

[arbre_rieur]

Willingham talked about how the main series has evolved over time so that, these days, it's all about the epic storylines with lasting ramifications for Fabletown, which leaves little room for the smaller stories about two or three characters that the series used to do. FAIREST is meant to be a venue to see those types of stories again.

"As it is, though, I think the Fables franchise has been running on fumes since they dealt with Gepetto. That, to me, pulled out the central hook of the series."

I've heard people say that, but I don't see it myself. The series, since the beginning, has always had its fair share of stories that had little or nothing to do with the Fabletown-Empire conflict.

[thatnickguy]

I have to agree that it's been running on fumes since Gepetto/Adversary. I stopped reading after the big war, tried again briefly but was turned off by the Jack of Fables crossover.

From what I understand, the series was originally meant to conclude with the end of the war. But because it was doing so well, they continued. Now it's basically a franchise. And I've lost all interest in it.

[arbre_rieur]

"From what I understand, the series was originally meant to conclude with the end of the war."

Yes and no. The conflict with the Empire was originally supposed to last the entire length of the series, but the series never had a set length. If you read Willingham's earliest interviews about the series, he makes it clear even then that FABLES isn't like most Vertigo series in that it's an ongoing series in the truest sense of the word: He had no grand finale he was building towards, and he planned to keep on writing the book indefinitely. In that sense, the conflict with the Empire was supposed to be like mutants being a persecuted minority in X-Men, a problem that would just always be there.

If Willingham hadn't decided to continue the book beyond the war, the book wouldn't have ended at 75 (or whichever issue it was). It would still be at 115 today, only Fabletown would still be fighting the Empire.

[thatnickguy]

Ah, I stand corrected. Thank you. I've been wondering how close I was to the truth about it.

That said, it doesn't really stray TOO far from my reasoning for dropping the book. I like Vertigo titles that have relatively planned ending in mind. The exception being Hellblazer, I suppose. But I haven't enjoyed Fables becoming a franchise with crossovers and spin-offs.