Comic Info
Comic Name: Jack of Fables
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Writer: Bill Willingham/Matthew Sturges
Artist: Tony Akins/Jim Fern
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2011
Jack of Fables #44
Reprints Jack of Fables #41-45 (February 2010-June 2010). Jack Frost is setting off for another adventure. When he and his wooden owl friend MacDuff discover a kingdom menaced by a giant called the Empyrean, Jack sets off to free the kingdom and slay the Empyrean. Teamed with a forest witch, Jack discovers that trusting people might be difficult…if not impossible when he wins the Fulminate Blade to become the kingdom’s hero!
Written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges, Jack of Fables Volume 8: The Fulminate Blade is a DC Comics comic book collection under the Vertigo print. Following Jack of Fables Volume 7: The New Adventures of Jack and Jack, the Fables spin-off series features art by Tony Akins and Jim Fern. Issues in this collection were also included in Jack of Fables: The Deluxe Edition—Book 3.
I enjoyed Jack of Fables, but not as much as Fables. I actually think I kind of liked Jack Frost Jack of Fables better than the regular Jack of Fables. It didn’t have a lot of the pop culture references mixed with classic fables, but it also was just a fun solo adventure series written with a lightness that isn’t always found today.
Jack of Fables #45
While Jack Horner is a scoundrel, his son Jack Frost is completely honest. This honesty adds a nice flipside to the series since he’s not playing a game. Jack Frost wants to help people. With his sheer goodness, Jack finds himself repeatedly tricked by people who don’t have good inside of him. While Jack Horner would never help the people of the kingdom without a promise of a payout or a princess, Jack Frost does it without getting the whole story first.
The story plays out a bit like Pinocchio in that sense. Jack is continuously used and tricked through the course of the story, and MacDuff serves as his conscience. Like Pinocchio, Jack doesn’t always believe his conscience and as a result falls into trap after trap. He isn’t as ignorant as Pinocchio, but he has a lot to learn and that makes his adventures fun.
The only problem with this collection is that it doesn’t take place in the “real world”. The entire Homelands of Fables is so vast, that anything is possible. A kingdom menaced seems like a pretty typical story to thrust the character into, and it would have been nice to see genres a bit subverted in the case of the location and people that Jack interacts with.
Jack of Fables is paler than its namesake “parent”. The series just isn’t as rich or deep (and I’m not a fan of the Babe the Blue Ox joke pages). The series returns to be Jack focused next volume which wraps up the series. Jack of Fables 8: The Fulminate Blade is followed by Jack of Fables 9: The End.
Related Links:
Jack of Fables 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape
Jack of Fables 2: Jack of Hearts
Jack of Fables 3: The Bad Prince
Jack of Fables 5: Turning Pages
Jack of Fables 6: The Big Book of War
