FABLES: THE LAST CASTLE
© 2003 DC Comics

Mania Grade: B
Issue: n/a
Authors: Bill Willingham, Craig Hamilton, P. Craig Russell
Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Price: $5.95

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FABLES: THE LAST CASTLE

Last week in COMICSCAPE, I somehow accidentally characterized FABLES: THE LAST CASTLE as yet another collected edition of previously published issues. More fool me. Turns out that THE LAST CASTLE is a one-off issue telling a completely new story from the Fables' past: the final flight of the last survivors from the hordes of the still-unrevealed Adversary, as told by the last one to escape, Boy Blue.

Can I just say what a marvel of a writer Bill Willingham truly is? Only in the modern-day framing story, in which Boy Blue recounts to Snow White the events of that final battle, does this tale feel at all forced - in fact, one could argue that it's hardly necessary to have it. Without it, though, we wouldn't discover that the Ides of May carry for certain Fables the same significance as Memorial Day does for us, but not for all of them. It's a very small plot point, but then again there are no such things as "small plot points" in Willingham's universe. We're sure to hear more about this slight but significant division in the ranks later, I'll bet.

As for the main story, it serves two distinct functions: it explains to us why we haven't as yet seen such people as Robin of Loxley (who, of course, looks exactly like Green Arrow), Tam Lin, and several more obscure characters from the realms of myth and legend; and it gives us our first real look at the horrors the Fables faced during their fight with the Adversary. This last element is one which has been long overdue - we've heard so much about this enemy that he's bound to be a disappointment when we finally see him, unless Willingham has even more surprises up his sleeve. Come to think of it, that's pretty likely.

We also get a bit more character development for Boy Blue, who's easily one of the least fleshed out yet most endearing and fascinating characters Willingham has created (or should we say "recreated"). With just one story, Willingham gives him nearly the same depth of character as the principals such as Snow and Bigby. It doesn't hurt that we finally get to see him fall in love - and with Red Riding Hood, no less! - only to have Fate intervene in just the way we'd expect it to. If the outcome of this story is at all predictable, it's only predictable in the way that we know the endings of the best fairy tales, so that even the pain of a bad ending is a familiar one.

It's a shame the art doesn't quite live up to the story this time around. P. Craig Russell's artwork in the framing story is a bit too idiosyncratic for us to ignore it, and it's a bit too roughly hewn to make it worth noticing that much. Problem is, things get worse when Craig Hamilton takes over the pencilling for the main story, at which point the artwork becomes so inconsistent that it's tough to look at. There's another difficulty: usually when a book includes a framing story and a main story, the frame artwork and the main artwork are so different that we actually feel like we're in a different time and place. (See the "Purple" story arc in recent issues of ALIAS for an example - nothing could be more different than Mike Gaydos' "rad" approach to Jessica Jones' present-day reality and Mark Bagley's "trad" approach to her superheroic past.) Here, though, the art looks almost exactly the same, and none of it seems all that stellar. Obviously a story special enough to deserve a one-shot all its own deserves artwork that justifies the event, but unfortunately that isn't the case with THE LAST CASTLE. It's still worth reading, of course, as is anything that Willingham commits to paper. I'd advise Vertigo to hold off on any more FABLES one-shots, though, until the Adversary is finally revealed. That alone, regardless of the artwork, would be worth the price of admission.