Fairest: Of Men and Mice is a spin-off from Bill Willingham’s Fables series, and actually takes place immediately after the events in Fables: Camelot. It is, when it comes right down to it, the Fables Equivalent to a mystery thriller.
Someone is out to nail Fabletown’s notables. It starts with an attempt on Snow White by a horde of rat-men – a painfully unsuccessful attempt — followed by a suicide bombing at the Glass Slipper, Cinderella’s shoe emporium. Cinderella’s not there.
And it seems the attackers themselves are somewhat of an anomaly – they are neither mundy nor fable. Cinderella has a thought: she needs to find the Fairy Godmother, because there’s a connection there. She finds her, but FG is not really very focused – and then she takes a bullet to the head during another attempt on Cindy, which leaves her even less focused.
Snow White suspects Prince Brandish, but he’s supposedly in enforced retirement at the Farm.
There is one possible link left – Marcel, the mouse footman from way back when, the one who refused to be turned back into a mouse.
There’s a certain cinematic quality to this story, even more so than in most comics, which initially leads to a loss of coherence in the story line: the first part of the main story is cuts to flashbacks of the ball – yes, that ball, with the pumpkin coach and the mouse footmen – and Marcel’s story. It does, however, firm up fairly quickly, and becomes a fairly tight, engaging action adventure.
By the way, we do learn who’s the mastermind behind the assassination attempts, but she’s dealt with – eventually – with the help of a couple of Indian Fables.
Shawn McManus’ art is clear, in spite of the density of the frames, and the layouts keep the action moving visually, although the story is somewhat densely scripted. Altogether, it’s a tight, fluent piece of work, and well worth the time.
(Vertigo, 2014) Collects Fairest 21-26.
