Fables Volume 1: Legends in Exile

[tripodeca113]

So I decided to do Fables volume, by volume, rather than issue by issue.



Chapter Two: The (Un)Usual Suspects (7 out of 22)




Afterwards Snow has to go meet with Prince Charming at the "I Am The Eggman Dinner". Charming plans to sell off his royal title and lands, and he needs Snow to spread the word in Fabletown.


Colin will escape his bonds, and start running around Fabletown, but not be plot relevant, so this is the last time you'll see him here.
Next Snow and Bigby start questioning Jack.


Their investigation takes them to Blubeard's apartment (which is enchanted to contain his castle).

At the previous Remembrance Day Gala Rose Red and Bluebeard had become engaged, but Rose insisted that it be kept secret for a year.

Chapter Three: Blood Tells (6 out of 22)
Bigby sets Flycatcher and Boy Boy with recreating the crime-scene, (in the apartment beneath Rose Red's) to determine if she's still alive.


Meanwhile Snow White is meeting with King Cole, mayor of Fabletown to discuss the crime.



Later as Bigby takes food down to Jack, he learns that Bluebeard had taken some down to him already, claiming that Bigby authorized it.




Bigby receives a phone call.


Chapter Four: Remembrance Day (7 1/3 out of 22)
Two weeks later during Remembrance Day.










Bigby tells Snow that's she's just solved the last part of the mystery and asks her to tell anyone interested in what happened to Rose Red to go to King Cole's terrance after the lottery drawing.
Jack tells Bigby that he won Pince Charming's lottery and that he's completed his errand.

Bigby reveals Rose Red's killer to the assembled crowd.

Chapter Five: The Famous Parlor Room Scene (Sans Parlor) (7 1/3 out of 22)


The first sign that the crime-scene had been staged was that it had been perfectly preserved, despite Jack claiming to have searched the scene after finding Rose missing. Would he really have thought to perverse it when his girlfriend could be dying?


But the fact the scene was staged didn't mean Rose was alive she could have staged her suicide to look like a murder, or she could have been killed after faking her death. The blood at the crime scene was the only part of the crime which Bigby didn't see through at first.
Earlier that evening Snow's comment about cater's keeping the good stuff locked away, allowed Bigby to solve this part of the mystery.

The average person can give a pint of blood every six weeks.

To prevent any of the partygoers from discovering the blood packs, they'd put a lock on the freezer.

From the fist day of the investigation, Bigby hadn't been looking for a killer, but rather for the person Rose Red was so afraid of that she was willing to fake he death.

The culprit?
Bluebeard.

But with the startup a failure, and no way to break off the engagement Rose and Jack came up with the scheme to stop the wedding. They planned to...well actually they didn't really think of a way to get more money, or really how long this would manage to last.

The next day

Next Bluebeard is summoned to the Business Office, where they offer him a repayment of Rose Red's dowry. But the wedding's off because he broke the one year secrecy agreement.

Comments

[laughing_tree]

It took me a while to get into this series. Looking back, I wonder how much that has to do with the initial art by Lan Medina. Guy's not untalented by any means, but the series is all about the liminal space between the mundane and the magical, and his straight-laced style pushes it too much into the mundane. The brown palette the colorist is using doesn't help there either.

[wizardru]

This is still really smashingly good. One of the series that really validated the Vertigo premise, IMHO. Medina's artwork is fine, but is so deeply overshadowed by Buckingham's that I forgot he wasn't always the artist.

And reading the stuff about the Adversary here (and knowing the eventual reveal) is really fantastic. The world building here is just first rate.

[every_spiegel]

I love the uniqueness of this series, though art style is rather bland imo.

I know I should read it to judge but from the scans here I've got the feeling that Bluebeard was the con victim and all other characters are just cruel bitches :D

[mastiff]

Traditionally, Bluebeard's shtick was to marry women against their will, murder them, and hang the corpses from hooks in his dungeon.

The others may be cruel bitches, but I think they have a ways to go before catching up with him.

[every_spiegel]

I know Bluebeard's shtick but, well, we don't have these past sins referred to in the story, do we? Only his assault on Jack is mentioned. I was half-joking, actually, but what I mean is while we understand that Bluebeard is a BAD guy, all other GOOD guys are so unpleasant, dickish and manipulative that I can't feel for them even a bit!
(I kinda remember they were not this awful in The Wolf Among Us game, so it was interesting to see the source material.)

[tripodeca113]

They do bring up, him killing his previous brides, I just didn't include those pages.

[every_spiegel]

Just to clarify: are those killing being investigated in this particular story? I understood that he was a "decent member of society" with his crimes "repented" for the moment, no?
I'm not justifying him, just trying to explain why the whole interaction seemed curious and ironic to me.

[tripodeca113]

No they happened before the General Amnesty. You see when the refugees agreed to join Fabletown, they all agreed to forgive and forget all their past crimes and grievances with one another. So Bluebeard can't be charged with actions he did before the General Amnesty.

[every_spiegel]

Thanks, that's what I vaguely remembered!

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

So they knew exactly where the blood was going to splatter that it wouldn't ruin something accidentally?

[tripodeca113]

I guess..
Also thinking about it, I have no idea were they got that blood.

[ozaline]

Bigby adresses that. It is Rose's blood. They just removed it over the course of weeks to add up to an ammount that would prove she was dead, had it all been drawn at once... I mean ignorung how durable many Fables are.

[tripodeca113]

No I mean the blood in their using to recreate the crime-scene.

[ozaline]

Oh... well any reason they can't use pig's blood... other than it might bother Colin a tad?