Impressively enough, Willingham has managed to top his opening arc of Fables with "Animal Farm," which has included politics, characterization and plenty of fable-related in-jokes in a just about perfect blend. Mark Buckingham & Steve Leialoha provide a solid art team for the sophomore story arc, and they really get to show off in the finale of this issue, which comes to a surprisingly loud (and just plain surprising) conclusion, leaving me to wonder what secrets the wrap-up of the next issue will hold.
What's fun about Fables in some regard is that I'm still getting a feel for who the characters are and how they're going to act, meaning that the stories are more than a little unpredictable. Who could have guessed the composition of the rescue party in this issue, for example, especially based on the way some of these characters interacted in the first arc? Or that Rose Red is more than just a mouthy, spoiled malcontent, but can actually be legitimately treasonous? In addition, the new characters like Weyland Smith, Reynard and especially Goldilocks continue to entertain.
For all the interest that I have in these new characters and the way the larger cast interacts, however, this story and this issue are all about Snow White. Though Fables is very much an ensemble series, Snow White is the first among equals in the cast in this arc, and I love that Willingham makes her absolutely competent and intelligent but still not quite prepared for the situation she's found herself in. The fantastic final sequence where she has a showdown with the rebels speaks to planning and control, but it seems perfectly in character with her comically overcomplicated attempts to rescue Weyland Smith earlier in the book as well.
The art team brings a lot of the humor to this series, as Buckingham and Leialoha get plenty of mileage out of the frantic looking winged monkey or the painfully frustrated Weyland Smith in a couple of key sequences. They also do some rather impressive pyrotechnics sequences, including the finale, and once again I must commend them for being able to give such purely animal characters so much personality and individuality. Then there's the final page, which beyond being a shocker is surprisingly violent given the generally genial tone of the book.
Although the general style and talent behind the book would keep me coming back, it's that last page that will have me counting the days until the next installment. Willingham pulls out a big surprise to finish off the issue when it looked like the story was over, and because we're still in the early days of the series, I find it entirely plausible that the final page could be real, with all the implications that carries, or that it's some kind of fake out, and I'm dying to find out which.
