Cinderella: Fables Are Forever [Paperback]

Cinderella is one of my favorite characters in the Fables comics. The first spin off was a great read, but I liked this one even more. In this comic we meet Cinderella's nemesis, "silver slipper" and as usual, Cinderella works on a few projects (well one project, but there are flashbacks to other projects she worked on) with her confidence, sense of humor and excellence. She is as cool as James Bond.

This story mentions some Fables characters that hadn't been mentioned before, including some soviet Fables. It was a nice touch. I enjoy seeing that the Fables universe is more complicated than the main comic reveals. It makes reading these spin-offs more worth it.

The trade include a nice Cinderella story from the main comic, issue #51. It is one where Cinderella works diplomatically instead of as a spy. It was a good issue and a nice little bonus to the trade paperback.

If you're a Fables fan, then this comic is another must-buy.

If you have been into the Fables line of comics from Vertigo, you have seen the effect the comic has had in the entertainment industry. Since its inception there have been a lot of movies borrowing the ideas found in the tale of Story Book legends moving to our fairly magic-free world to escape the brutal dictatorship of an evil emperor. Anyone who has seen the TV show Once Upon a Time and is familiar with the comic line at all has to see the influence. But Fables as a whole is getting long in the tooth, and you have to wonder how long the team can keep the quality up. There was a faltering moment when the line attempted a crossover with a few inferior comics (Jack of Fables being the weakest version of the Fable spin-offs), but the product line returned to high concept character driven tales and has remained excellent.

Their latest Trade Paperback graphic novel, Cinderella, maintains the fun, stylish and quality art I have come to expect from the fable line. While the tale may be a bit predictable once all the elements are put together, the trip to get there is a pure blast - one worth taking. The cover shows the unbelievably cute Cinderella (she is an unaging fable, after all) weapon in hand, outside in a decidedly Russian winter setting wearing nothing but a bikini. Okay, covers are designed to appeal to fan-boys, but how did the greatest spy for the heroic Fables of NYC get in this situation?

If you are not up on the fables storyline, this is a fairly good place to enter. Though it brushes over years of history in wide strokes, the tale is about Cinderella, an undercover spy keeping a lid on rogue Fables who use their powers too openly in our mundane world the NYC fables hope to keep mundane. Our earth is their haven, a place they can hide from powerful magical enemies, and fable refugees showing a hand to openly here can cause the big-baddies to come looking (a theme explored with great result in the normal Fable line). When Fables cross from their worlds to ours, they tend to enter our consciousness, and we - the mundies who were born here - remember them as farie tales, myths and fables. We even write about them. The more we honor them, the more powerful they are. Thus Cinderella is a hard to kill, never getting older, fable, Her story is VERY well known. Is she the Cinderella of the famed story, well, she was - once. Now she is a well-trained agent, a James Bond of the Fable forces.

This standalone graphic novel uses flash back and juxtaposition to explain her multi-decade long run in with her greatest nemesis, an assassin for hire, a very angry Fable with a huge chip on her shoulder, Dorothy Gale. That's right, the same of all those Wizard of Oz books. But, the Dorothy of Today is not the sweet little girl of the books. She dumped her three non-human friends, seeks her own fortune, and loves to kill. Why? Hey, I don't want to spoil the book for you. Needless to say, she is a pretty powerful Fable herself. The two tangle in a battle to see which girl reigns supreme, and the authors take advantage with typical girl-on-girl battle action, the lead in fight that starts the rivalry (it is a pretty funny set up) taking place in the Soviet Union, in the middle of winter, with both dressed in swimwear.

For the most part, the story is pretty clever. The Dorothy Gale references are to the books, not the movie, so only the truest of Oz fans will connect the silver slipper reference before it is explained (very early on). Though we may not tap into all the reasons Dorothy is so full of venom and hate, other than a need to prove she is the very best between her and Cinderella, the authors keep her focus so needle point angry that it works within its own limited logic. The flashbacks keep popping up in the main tale in a manner that lets the book be an actioner over a talker, but the twists are enough to keep you smiling. Both women are played as motivated and smart, Cinderella clearly more experienced, and the willingness of Bill Willingham to let his main characters occasionally die brutal deaths has the effect of keeping you wondering if this is actually the story of Cinderella's demise (I won't tell you).

All in all a great romp with some Fable characters that are fun to be around. My only beef with the book has nothing to do with the story given, but with a tack on reprint of a single issue (#51) featuring Cinderella that is baffling when taken out of context of the story as a whole. I would prefer almost any other use of the remainder pages than this - give us the script of the Cinderella story, and article on the Fables subject, concept art - anything but a reprint of an issue that is already reprinted.

Still, can't take a full star off for that! Pick this up and read it.

I have been reading and enjoying the Fables TBP and ancillary material since they starting publishing them. The art is always clean, the story is always great. Even when there are multiple flashbacks, as in this effort, the plot can be followed thanks to clean and good comic book frame design. Yes the lovely ladies spend an inordinate amount of time in scant bikinis, and that can be a source of much that is puerile in comic books, but these are well fleshed out (pun intended) characters that you care about. The writing is clever, and the use of common and not-so-common characters in intriguing.
I would say that in my opinion, the Fables universe is one of the best things in comics right now, and this book certainly lives up to the task of being entertaining.

I have docked one star for to much overt bikini-ism, and also a shot of one of the characters where her spine would have to be elastic to present us with a cliched butt'n'bust stance. Other than that, its a fun ride.

"Is there any chance that we could get a cinderella/buffy cross-over" he mused?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews  4.7 out of 5 stars