The latest collection of Bill Willingham’s popular series, Fables, is The Dark Ages. The comic book series posits a secret neighborhood in New York City of storybook characters, or “Fables”–King Cole is the mayor, Beauty runs the office, her husband Beast is the sheriff, and more. They are living in exile, driven out of their homelands by the evil Emperor.

For those keeping up, the war between Fabletown and the Empire is over. While the Fables claim victory and their enemy is now living among them, the war had great costs. Heroes were injured or fell, and there’s chaos in the worlds formerly ruled by the Empire. In one of them, an evil is unleashed that has immediate and serious consequences for all the Fables. The first chapter is illustrated by Mike Allred, whose strong distinctive style is well-suited to characters like Snow White and Bigby Wolf. Pinocchio, Boy Blue, Rose Red, and Frau Totenkinder all feature prominently in the following chapters, while Mowgli gets his own back-up story.

Two new characters are introduced, Freddy and Mouse. Given their appearance and names, I think they’ve got to be an homage to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books, which my husband likes.

The Fables series seemed to have reached its climax with the war, but I’m pleased to see that the strength of the stories and the panoply of fascinating storybook characters only seems to be gaining momentum. This is a dark, complex fantasy tale that’s easy to fall into. ( )

Ties up some story lines and starts some new ones. Not sure I'm going to like the direction this goes in. I'm enjoying the Jack series more at the moment. The new villain in this book just seems to be too generic. ( )

"The Dark Ages" is an appropriate title for this collection of Fables comics (issues 76-82). It finds our Fabletown heroes, post-truce with the Emperor, dealing with the foul-hearted Gepetto in their midst and the threat of much darker forces on the wind. Mark Buckingham does the majority of the art in this collection and, as always, manages it brilliantly. I especially enjoy his illustration of "Freddy" and the "Mouse," who not only seem to be versions of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but are very reminiscent of Mike Mignola's version of those two characters. This comic continues to remain strong in both writing and artwork, and I am sure Mister Dark will be a villain that will continue to shake up the Fables universe for many issues to come. ( )

Summary: The Dark Ages is very much a transitional volume, both for the characters and for the series itself. The war is over, the Adversary is defeated, and everyone must deal with the fallout. In the first story, "Around the Town", the Adversary is having some problems readjusting to life in Fabletown, and many of the other Fables aren't ready to forgive and forget, general amnesty or no. In the main story arc, "The Dark Ages", we start to find out that defeating the Adversary may have caused just as many problems as it solved. Specifically, powerful forces that were kept in check during the Empire's reign are now loosed upon the worlds, and one of them is unravelling the magics that keep Fabletown together. Meanwhile, Boy Blue, erstwhile war hero, is still hospitalized when a war injury refuses to heal. Finally, in "Return to the Jungle Book", we find out about Mowgli's trip (with Bigby's brothers in tow) to see if his homeland can be recolonized.

Review: I've got mixed feelings about this volume. On the on hand, it was fantastic to get back into the Fables universe. Eight months is too long to go with no Fables, and Jack of Fables doesn't quite fill the gap. Seriously, every time another familiar character showed up, I gave a little internal cheer... which was about the only cheering I was doing, because holy yikes, the main story arc in this one is sad... and dark. It didn't quite make me sniffly the way Mean Seasons or The Good Prince did, but Willingham's certainly not pulling any punches with terrible things happening to favorite characters, either.

On the other hand, though, it was a transitional volume, setting up the next big story arc, and as such it was a little unsatisfying, with plenty of little snippets of what's coming but nothing it felt like I could really sink my teeth into. Plus, I feel like if you're going to do another Big Bad, he needs to be worse than the previous Big Bad... and while Mister Dark is thoroughly creepy, I'm not yet convinced he's that powerful. Hopefully that's still coming, though - you don't want your bad guy to show all his cards at the beginning. So, while not the series at its best, even a so-so Fables is still a compelling read, and I'm still looking forward to seeing what comes next. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: For folks like me who've been jonesing for another Fables hit, this one isn't completely satisfying but is enough to tide you over. For those who have taken a bit of a break after the main storyline wrapped up in War and Pieces, though, that's a good place to stop and wait for this new story to build up some steam. ( )

I was a bit worried about how Willingham et al would keep the Fables story going after ending the big bad war in War and Pieces. My fears turned out to be completely unjustified, as this was an amazing (albeit sad) book and perfectly set up the next great arc in the Fables saga.

The book opens with Geppetto being escorted around Fabletown by Pinocchio, who's trying to get him adjusted to life after ruling the Empire. Not everyone is happy with the newest Fabletown resident, but I thought it was interesting to hear Geppetto's side of the story. He believed he was acting for the greater good, so sacrificing a few thousand lives was worth it, because in the long run he saved billions, or so he claims... Now that the Fables have taken him out of power, he believes the other worlds will suffer even more.

Geppetto's warnings seem to have merit, though, as back in a recently-freed-from-the-Emperor-land a pair of marauders unknowingly release a very powerful new enemy. This new adversary wants revenge on the Fables for taking away his magic and using it themselves, and he means business. The Fables are forced to evacuate The Woodland and move upstate to the Farm after the magic spells holding their community together begin to crumble. Baba Yaga comes back, and although she didn't get to do much in this book I'm curious to see what havoc she'll wreck in the next one. Even Frau Totenkinder is scared!

The main purpose of this book seemed to be setting up the new big bad and the next event in the Fables series: The Great Fables Crossover (with Jack of Fables, an offshoot of this series that I also really enjoy). The other big part of the story was the death of a character (one of my personal favorites) that brought up questions of what happens to the Fables when they die. We've seen some come back (there are always three little pigs, for example, and Snow White managed to survive a gunshot to the head), so I'm hoping this character will reappear at some point, too. But it was still an emotional arc and really made me question just how great a surgeon Dr. Swineheart is. He seemed like a bit of a pompous jerk, actually, but that could've just been me projecting because of the way he was treating said beloved character.

There was also a smaller mini-story that dealt with Mowgli returning to a jungle world with Bigby's brothers that was a bit more light-hearted and I nice diversion from the darkness in the rest of the book. Oh, and Flycatcher's back! That was one of my grumbles with volume 11, so it was nice to have him back...even if he is still clueless about his relationship with Red Riding Hood. ( )