Based on upcoming covers showcased today by DC Comics on Vertigo imprint blog Graphic Content, it looks like there’s some interesting things coming up in Bill Willingham’s long-running Fables and its tie-in series, including, er, superheroes? Here’s the cover of #102, the start of a five-part story called “Super Group”:
Well, at this point superheroes fit the whole fairy tale paradigm as well as anyone, right?
Covers for Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #1 (isn’t she cold?) and a “preliminary cover” for Jack of Fables #50, the last issue of that series (read more about all that here), follow after the jump. A recent interview with Bill Willingham on all things Fables, by our very own Vaneta Rogers, is right here.
November 12th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
I’m going to call it right now…that logo isn’t a Z. Its an ‘O’ with a Z in it…OZ
This is going to tie into the long awaited “Return to Oz” arc that has been hinted at.
November 12th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Kevin, you’re very probably right. Good catch.
November 13th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Earlier yesterday I saw these covers on another site and mentioned the 3 heroes all look the same and with the ‘OZ’ on the costumes it’s obviously Ozma of Oz and she’s up to something.
November 13th, 2010 at 10:16 am
your right that how the OZ simble has looked for over a centery.
Somthing else to look at is the fact that the girl is standing on a building that looks more like a playhouse then a city so it could be story line about the cubs playing super hero rather then the real thing. Bill did say in an enterview once he had story line were the Bigby And Snow kids explore different dimentions.
It may have been hinted at 2 years ago in A prophesy about the fates of the kids. Ozma gave to the cub Alphonse I don’t know were you would find a link to it but it was free convention give away at a Sanfransico Con. good day
November 13th, 2010 at 11:16 am
As for the other two…love that we are getting another Cinderella story. Sad to see Jack go, but hey, better to go when you are ahead.
I am hoping this means we get another spin off somewhere…personally, I’d like them to do one about “The Travelers”, Bigby’s spies in the mundy world that keep track on the Fables that live abroad.
November 13th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
The article should have posted the blurb that Vertigo released along with the cover, where it’s made pretty clear that Pinocchio wants the Fables to start acting like the Super Heroes he reads in comics (as we’ve often seen Pinocchio, Flycatcher and Boy Blue buying comics in the series). This cover seems like it’s supposed to be from Pinocchio’s point of view, and that these are various mock ups he has intended for Ozma if she were a super hero. Whether the Fables will actually act like a Super Team is another thing.
November 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I trust Willingham but I have to say, this is something I’ve been wondering about for a while. (To be fair, I’m late to the Fables party and while I recently just got all the trades I was missing, I’ve only read about half the run so for all I know, this was already addressed.) If Santa Claus is a fable, why isn’t Superman? Why not Sherlock Holmes? Will Harry Potter be one someday?
Obviously the meta-answer to that is that the characters have to be in the public domain to be in the “Fables” series and trust me, I don’t want to see a Batman/Bigby Wolf team-up. (I’m a long time reader and I’m pretty flexible about a lot of these longtime characters. I got the joke when Archie met the Punisher and I enjoyed the mini where Superman teamed up with Bugs Bunny. Given their history, I don’t think it would diminish the Justice League and related characters to appear with the Fables characters but I think it *would* diminish the Fables series.) But I wonder if Willingham has addressed, either in the series or in interviews, whether there are some kind of rules that make some fictional characters “fables” and others not.
Maybe the answer is just that in the series, it’s been established that there are a multitude of worlds and the superhero “fables,” etc. are just in worlds we haven’t seen…?
November 14th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
@Patrick McArdle
The simple answer to your question is age/time. So far as I know (and I haven’t been reading Jack of Fables, so maybe there’s been something in there to contradict) all of the Fables we’ve seen so far come from stories that are much older than any modern comic book superhero.
November 14th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
@ Patrick McArdle
The Fables that we read about are all influenced by the real characters of Snow and Bigby and Jack and everyone. They arrived here early in our history, and their inherent magical natures influenced us and our stories. So, theoretically, somewhere out there there could be the Superman archetype that inspired the comic book hero, and he may have a very different or slightly altered history the way the Snow we read about in fables is less complicated and indeed tragic than the Fable Snow.
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