Cinderella: Fables are Forever (2012)

 

Quote:
What did you expect me to call myself, Dorothy Gale, killer-for-hire? Or maybe the wicked bitch of the East?

 

This book collects the second six issue Fables mini-series featuring super-spy Cinderella. It was again written by Chris Roberson with art by Shawn McManus. There is also a tale set in the preparation for the war with the Adversary, from Fables 51, that was drawn by McManus but written by Fables creator Bill Willingham.

Cinderellla returns in a story set during the evacuation of the Farm because of the onslaught by Mister Dark. One of the leading witches from floor 13 has been murdered and the only clue is a silver slipper charm. Cinderella finds herself tracking down an old foe who she thought was dead and being involved with Fables from the shadow Fabletown that she has spied on in the past. But who can she trust and who is laying traps for who?

Another good standalone tale from the world of Fables. The only problem with it is that it attempts to place itself within the continuity of the main book and uses the murder of a character to achieve this. The story itself, from the time that Cinderella gets down to investigating the case till the resolution, has little impact or relevance to the main book and so the set up seems contrived and unnecessary. But other than that small niggle the story is great with lots of twists and turns and unexpected revelations both from Cinderella’s past and present.

Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love (2010)

 

Quote:
Your taste in men hasn’t improved, that’s certain. And you never did know when it was time to leave a party.

 

This book collects the six issue mini-series, from Vertigo, that is a spin-off from Fables. It was written by Chris Roberson who is currently also writing iZombie for the same company. The art was by the great Shawn McManus whose work I don’t seem to see nearly enough these days.

Cinderella, the apparent fashion show hopping socialite, is actually an experienced spy for Fabletown. In this story she is sent off to try and discover and eliminate the source of the flow of magical artefacts into the Mundy world from the Homelands. On the way she hooks up with Aladdin who is on the same mission. Together they uncover a plot to sell artefacts for Mundy weapons so that various individuals can make concerted assaults on Homeland territories now that the Emperor has been defeated. Cindy finds the mission turns personal when confronted with a figure from her past.

This is a fun tale from the world of Fables. The dialogue between Cindy and Aladdin is good and there is enough twists on the expectations of the character of Cinderella to keep the book entertaining throughout. It reminded me a lot of the early days of the Fables series itself when it was much more dependant on its fairy tale origins than it is currently. I love the art by McManus but then I have loved his work from the time of the Dr Fate series from the mid to late 80s.