As entertaining as the previous Fables volumes have been, with their magic-mirrored reflections on politics and relationships and rivalries and so forth, there was something missing that I hadn’t really even placed as gone until Bill Willingham set it down in front of me. See, all the many and varied familiar characters in Fabletown only came there for one reason: a powerful Adversary conquered and enslaved their homes, one by one, and they fled to the one place he never showed any interest in, our mundane world.

Except, as you’ve already guessed, all that is about to change. March of the Wooden Soldiers chronicles the first escapee from the Aversary’s grasp in over two hundred years, and the brutal aftermath of that event, including (but not limited to) open warfare in the streets of New York City! Not only has this opened up rich new avenues of future storytelling, but it provided the surprising (to me, anyway) info that nobody really knows who the Adversary is; I had been imagining a Voldemort kind of situation, rather. And in the meantime, several outstanding storylines have proceeded forward in highly satisfying ways. I am pleased to have a new favorite ongoing series, what with the end of Y: The Last Man a few months ago. Hooray for good stuff!