Review by Frank Plowright

It would be foolish to start with The End, and anyone doing so would wonder what the hell is going on. The opening chapter features three attractive librarians identified by different glasses and hairstyles shooting up a library with machine pistols, a batch of single page cartoon strips about a dragon and his servant, and a genuinely good-hearted adventurer revelling in their trade. That’s also Jack, as last seen in The Fulminate Blade.

Regular readers will know the librarians as the Page sisters, who’re hunting for the original versions of storybooks that have been altered over the years. The Jack of Fables who’s starred in most of the series has been transformed into a dragon, which hasn’t improved his already objectionable personality, and his son Jack Frost, the adventurer, is hired to deal with a dragon. Oh-oh. Just when you’ve come to terms with them, Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges begin taking a tour around plenty of other characters who’ve been important over the previous eight volumes. These are in brief, episodic interludes, with only the story of the Page sisters having any greater purpose.

Returning all the older cast members gives the feeling that something big is happening, and the ominous title feeds that thought, but Willingham and Sturges blow it big time, and artist Tony Akins is variable, with noticeably sketchier art as the actual end approaches. Akins the cartoonist, though, is a joy to see.

Jack of Fables has always been a whimsical series. Anyone expecting the depth of plot Willingham supplies in Fables will have been disappointed from the start, and even if you’ve bought into the idea of a vainglorious Jack in comedy adventures, the quality has been patchy. Willingham and Sturges have been over-indulgent throughout, and if there’s any doubt they don’t really care anymore it’s here.

So… there’s a large cast who have differences with each other, some trivial, some more serious, and they all have a problem with Jack. Once Willingham and Sturges have gathered them all in one place, what’s the most obvious and banal way of ending the series? That’s what they do. No ifs, no buts, no smarts. Akins draws the final instalment in a series of very ordinary full page illustrations and even simpler spreads, and the only vaguely funny element is the sports commentary narration captions. To give the writers a moment of credit, they remember arranging assorted devils had claim to Jack’s soul, and that’s dealt with.

All in all The End is a sorry end to a series that long ago lost its way. It’s also available in the third Jack of Fables Deluxe Edition.