Jack of Fables Vol. 5: Turning Pages

My least favorite volume in the series so far, mainly due to the dreadfully boring first half, which is a 3-issue story about why Jack and Bigby Wolf don't get along. Could have been interesting, but between the dryness of the plot and the distracting historical facts that are inserted every few frames, it just dragged.

The second half of the volume gets back to the war brewing between the Literals, and although this whole series has only gotten a halfhearted response from me compared to the main Fables series, the way Jack's current danger is solved is wonderfully amusing. ( )

Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

This has got to be my least favourite of the Jack volumes. This one contains two completely unrelated story arcs. The first one called 1883 goes back into Jack's past and the 2nd one is back to the present day continuing the overarching theme with the new villain and focuses on each of the Page sisters in turn.

1883, takes us back into Jacks past. This is obviously a western and Jack is using the Candle name here while he is the leader of a gang. Back in Fabletown Ichabod Crane sends Bigsby Wolf out to bring Jack in for violating all sorts of Fables rules, the biggest being killing Mundies. The story follows the gang's dastardly deeds and Bigsby's hunting him down. It ends in a showdown and anyone can guess who the winner is. This story seemed out of place in the whole scheme of things as there was no segue into it or obvious purpose to it except perhaps to show why Jack and Bigby hate each other so much now.

Turning Pages is back to the Jack of Fables story at hand. We learn more of the Page's as we see them from their childhood years and growing up. Three chapters, each focusing on a different Page sister show us the instability going on at Golden Boughs, and the advancing evil of The Bookburner as he gets closer to his goal with his army. This man is a threat to all Fables everywhere. The family dynamics of the Page sisters if further explored and a new reveal is exposed. Enjoyable but I'm left with the feeling "that's all?". Let's get on with Volume 6. ( )

Summary: Turning Pages consists of two three-issue story arcs. First is "1883", in which Jack is posing as Smilin' Jack Candle, leader of a notorious gang of outlaws in the Wild West, and in which we finally learn why Bigby Wolf really dislikes Jack so much. The second arc is "Turning Pages", in which the Page sisters' cousin (who is herself a Literal) tells us a little about each sister in turn, about their history, and their role in the aftermath of the events we've seen in previous Jack of Fables volumes.

Review: Not one of the better Jack of Fables volumes. I'm okay with installments where not a lot happens, plot-wise, as long as we learn something new about the characters or the history... and in this one, we just... didn't. I mean, I like Westerns well enough, andas happy as I was to see Bigby show up, I didn't realize that the animosity between him and Jack really needed explaining. I'd always assumed that Bigby hated Jack because Jack is an insufferable, obnoxious nuisance... and it turns out I'm right. And while the background on the Page girls was interesting in its own way, it wasn't enough to carry the volume, especially when there are so many pieces to keep in motion at one time - something Willingham is usually pretty good at. So, while I'll certainly keep reading, this volume didn't exactly leave me crying for more. At least the writers are playing to the crowd a little bit, and included plenty of Babe the Blue Ox. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: One of the weaker volumes so far, but there's enough little snippets of interest that it's worth reading... plus true Fables fans can't *not* pick up this latest installment. ( )

Unfortunately, though, this spin off from the popular Fables comics series isn't my cup of tea. I couldn't even tell you why I read all five volumes, except that I have a weird completist gene in me somewhere that doesn't let me not finish books. The "Jack" of these books is the Jack you read about in "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" -- the "Jack" of any fairy tale or fable is apparently all one and the same. In the first volume, Jack is thrown out of Fabletown and promptly falls into the hands of Mr. Revise, a very bad man who is trying to rid the world of all notions of fairy tales and fables. In the second volume, he has an unfortunate encounter with Lady Luck -- a literal Lady Luck -- in Las Vegas. The third book finds him in the Grand Canyon with a sword through his chest that somehow doesn't kill him; I guess you can't kill a fable. Americana, a sort of fairy tale America, is the setting of the fourth book, where we meet Mr. Book Burner, who is apparently somehow a rival to revise, who, we learn, is somehow related to the Pathetic Fallacy, who we know as Gary. Yes, things are getting pretty complicated. The fifth book has us in Western Americana, and tells us more about the Page sisters, who are Revise's henchwomen. All of it gives me a great big feeling of "Eh!" Maybe I just don't like Jack, a classic anti-hero who treats women like dirt and cares about nothing but money. Or maybe the weavings of the plot, which appear to be trying to say something about literature -- something that would normally fascinate me -- just fall flat here. In any event, this is one series I won't be following any further.