Fables | Through the Shattered Lens

The Wolf Among Us was the first game released by Telltale after the extraordinary success of The Walking Dead. They had finally found their element, and decided (prudently) to stick with it. But how do you follow up a title based on a comic book series recognized by some as the best game of its year?

It’s simple. Make another title based on a comic.

Fables, the series Telltale’s following project was based upon, is about fairy tale characters we grew up reading about secretly living in our real world, in a real city, hiding their existence by creating their own society. None of that Once Upon A Time cutsey niceness. They are opressed and opressors, have severe flaws in their characters, vices and, in some cases, signs of antisocial personality disorder. That is to say, they’re often psychopaths.

I’ll reconcile the shit out of you!

The game gives you control of Bigby Wolf, sheriff of the fables. As you might have guessed, previously known as the Big Bad Wolf of Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs fame. Reformed and willing to put his past behind him, Bigby tries to reconcile the poor and rebelious with the powerful and bureaucratic, in a very socially imbalanced society of mythical people.

Bigby is the most human of all characters, ironically. Given the task of upholding the law in this broken, small society where everyone knows everyone else, he lives a lonely life, being recognized and feared for doing his job, which frustrates him. His tendency to bend the rules makes the fables’ mayor office see him as a loose cannon. Bigby is a noir hero, chain smoking and full clad in trenchcoat. Bitter with having to raise his hand against unsatisfied citizens and with the impunity of guileful villains; forced against rebellion, but resentful towards the bureaucrats, he often passes his own kind of law. His humanity is revealed through conversations with the only people close to him. Colin, one of the three pigs he used to terrorize, and Snow White, secretary of the mayor office and object of his affections.

The amount of deviance from the path of justice in the game vary depending on your playing style. As you solve a series of murders during the span of the game, you decide how violent Bigby will be towards everyone, from the mostly innocent to the very guilty. However, this is not a story about choices like The Walking Dead, but about people leading double lifes. By taking fables, one of our most powerful cultural symbols of purity and innocence, and twisting and corrupting them, The Wolf Among Us is a modern and allegorical story with heavy noir influences, with fantasy and magic playing a part in the narrative.

It is not without flaws, however. It should be noted that, as the game needs a central story, the mystery of the series of murders obfuscate this amazing world, and one purely interested in the big picture; the unjust society of the fantastical, would be better served by reading the Fables comics. The Wolf Among Us has lots of ups far too early in the game and a few too many downs too late into it. It serves as a decent mystery thriller, and more importantly as an origin story for the comic book series, and it does have absolutely thrilling moments. However, it doesn’t bring much new to the table of longtime Fables fans other than focusing on one of the most interesting characters of its mythos.

As a standalone story, The Wolf Among Us has amazing action sequences and is a very exciting story up until the last quarter where it disappoints. As part of the Fables series, and possibly first chapter of others to come, it’s a perfect entry point and highly recommended. The complexity of its premise and excellence of some of its moments more than compensates for the lackluster closure of this first chapter. If that’s not enough to convince you, play it for Bigby Wolf, who might just be the coolest detective in videogame history.

The first decade of the new millenium found me in a weird place when it came to one of my big hobbies after high school. From 1989 all the way through the 90’s I was a major comic book reader and collector. I would say that I wouldn’t deny the charge that I might have helped the so-called “comic book speculator era” rise to the forefront of the hobby. Artists like Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Todd McFarlane were like rock stars in that era and their titles would fly off the shelves the moment they came out. I and others would buy multiple copies, carefully board and bagged them (but also read them) and wait for their price to go up.

Some titles did go up in price and were sold for a profit thus feeding the notion that I could make a lot of money off of these comic books. I was one of the early adopters of the independent titles which really fed the speculator market. First there was buying up all the early Evil Ernie issues before most of the public got wind of just how awesome (and limited their printing were) then doing the same for William Tucci’s Shi title which I must say really defined a speculator’s dream title. It had buzz to it due to the bad girl art, the story was not bad and had an exotic taste to it and, best of all, the printing on the title character’s first appearance was practically non-existent.

By the time the speculator’s market finally burst it’s bubble and dragged the comic book industry down with it I was pretty much burnt-out on comic books. I still read them and bought the titles whcih caught my eye, but the days of buying every issue of most every title from Marvel/DC/Image were done with. I even stopped buying and reading them in the beginning of the 2000’s. The industry was in a creative rut in the early years of the new decade. While superhero titles were floundering and publishers (small and medium ones) were declaring bankruptcy and selling off properties to the highest bidder a curious thing happened. I got back into comic books and it wasn’t the hero titles which drew me back in but the mature, independent titles from Vertigo, Dark Horse, Image and small-indie publishers.

This was a very good thing since I missed having the books in my hands. I wasn’t buying them now to collect but to read. I still handled them with kid gloves but I wasn’t worried about whether they would turn me a profit anymore. So, for most of the decade I was an indie-fool who pretty much avoided most the titles from Marvel/DC. While I still read some titles from the two main comic book houses it wasn’t on the same level pre-2000’s.

Below is the list of the 10 titles that were my favorite of the decade. Some were considered the best of the decade and some just my favorite because they spoke to me as a reader. This time they will be in order of importance unlike my previous Best/Fave lists.

10. Hellboy by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse Comics)