Fables #28 is actually three stories for me. On the face of it, it is a fantastic story of World War II paratroopers, taking an approach much like Peter Tomasi's Light Brigade in doing a realistic look at a paratrooper mission despite the supernatural elements involved in the whole thing. It is also a story of "guess the Fable" as we try to figure out who Sergeant Harp is, how he and Bigby know each other and what the Germans are up to that required the intervention of some of the "boys from Area F." It is also the story that is deliberately spacing out the months before we find out what happens with Snow White's pregnancy, which should be driving me up a wall with suspense but doesn't because this tale of Bigby Wolf in World War II is just such damn entertaining reading.
One of the things I realized early on with Fables is that the premise gave Willingham a stunning amount of flexibility. Murder mystery, political insurrection, romance, espionage, he's gotten a lot of different genre miles out of the book, and that's not even counting the one shot stories that are more like standard fable storytelling that he's thrown into the mix. "War Stories" is another example of that flexibility, being essentially a story of a secret mission in World War II with a distinctive Fables twist. Willingham adapts his style nicely to the genre, with the "letter home" style of narration really evoking the period well.
I also quite enjoyed the cast of characters in this first chapter, a group of soldiers who are defined quickly but distinctively enough that I had a feel for all of them and found myself caring what happens to them despite only having "known" them for an issue. Willingham brings the morbid humor of field soldiers to life in these pages, and I really love seeing the soldiers react to Harp and Bigby, when the readers know one thing and the characters know something entirely different. It's fun, for example, to see the scene with the fallen German soldiers when we know what Bigby did to them, or to know how Bigby knows where to find the secret entrance into the castle.
The art on this one is not by regular artist Mark Buckingham, but by Tony Akins, and while I'm a huge fan of Buckingham's work, I wasn't disappointed this time out either. Buckingham's stylized take on Bigby is one of my few pet peeves about his work, so I was glad to see the character with more of a functional, human-looking face in this one. Also, while Akins's characters could use a touch more differentiating between one another, in general I was pretty happy with the designs for the various characters, who are distinctive by size and shape if not always by facial features. In addition, Akins and Palmiotti do a nice cross between the brightly-lit style of Buckingham and a darker, more shadowy look (notably in the parachuting scene) that calls to mind the work of Jock on The Losers.
This story is more about mood and setting the stage than the actual story, because while the characters are definitely moving toward their objective, it's not really until the end that we see how it all ties into Bigby's world. That last page reveal is just perfect, a clever introduction of another fable into this world, and given the character's name, his role in German warfare makes a certain amount of sense, even moreso because he's been used in a similar manner in a recent Image graphic novel. At any rate, I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here, and pleased that Willingham and company have zoomed in on another era of human history and introduced the Fables element into it in such an entertaining manner.
