This isn’t a storyline that does much to advance the Wolverine mythos. It’s not about his past or his returning memories or his eternal fight with Sabretooth or anything like that. It’s a stand-alone storyline in which Wolvie is forced to face the fact that he’s stuck somewhere between being a man and an animal. The story itself is about Logan dealing with the leader of a Mexican gang and being tailed by the DEA agent who made her first appearance in the previous Wolverine story arc, “The Brotherhood”. I won’t go into the story, because a lot of it is meant to surprise you, but I will say that this story does a LOT to establish Logan’s humanity. Even after killing dozens of men in a rage, he is forced to deal with the fact that he’s not all animal… nor is he all man. This is a nicely complex character development story that I enjoyed immensely.

The art is also better, IMO, than Robertson and Palmer’s work on “The Brotherhood.” I know Wolvie’s short and stocky, but I don’t like art that makes him look like he just stumbled out of his cave. The art in “Coyote Crossing” captures his stature, but also conveys the elegance and ease of movement that he’s known for. I’m a bit ambivalent on the fact that his face looks a lot like Hugh Jackman’s; I prefer a bit more separation between the movie and comic ‘verses, but I really like that he’s drawn with long hair. That needs to be done more often, heh.

I’ve wanted to start reading Fables for quite a while. A friend of mine did some of her Master’s work on the series, and I’m all about fairy tales and modern adaptations. So I was overjoyed when my boyfriend gave me Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile as a graduation gift. I finally sat down and read it the other day, and… wow. This is everything I’d hoped it would be.

This volume both sets up the Fables world and draws the reader into a murder mystery. All of the fairy tale creatures were forced from their world centuries ago by the conquering Adversary, and they’ve set up shop in New York City, calling their new settlement Fabletown. The story begins with Jack (of beanstalk fame) dashing across town to find Bigby (of “Huff, puff” fame), Fabletown’s detective. There has apparently been a brutal murder, and Bigby must solve the mystery.

Along with finding out what happened to Rose Red, Bigby must work with her sister, Snow White, who happens to be second-in-command to the mayor of Fabletown. Legends in Exile gives the reader not only a great murder-mystery but also begins building wonderful tension between Bigby and Snow White.

There are too many retellings of fairy tales to count, from Marvel’s Fairy Tale miniseries to Robin McKinley’s novels. Some of those adaptations are good, many are crappy, and some make you wish you could bleach your eyeballs (Anne Rice’s The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty comes to mind). Fables rises to the top of this pile; it blends the familiar fairy tales with modern sensibilities, often with sharply funny results. Snow White runs to Bigby’s rescue in a business suit, heels, and toting a gigantic sword, Beauty and the Beast find that centuries of togetherness do not a happy marriage make, and so on. The artwork is simple but gorgeous, and the covers are particularly lovely.

I’ve promptly added all of the other Fables collections to my Amazon wishlist. This stuff is addictive.

“Comics court girls inspired by Japanese manga.”

While I think it’s great that comic companies are finally starting to acknowledge that girls, in fact, to read comics, I’m not sure they’re going about directing their marketing at females in the right way. First of all, they’re focusing on teenage girls and practically ignoring adult women readers. DC’s Minx line’s (don’t get me started on the title) titles sound like they were pulled off of Nickelodeon’s Saturday morning lineup. Now, if I’m remembering my days as a teenager right, I never read or watched anything marketed at teenagers. I liked that stuff when I was a preteen, and my friends had similar tastes. I didn’t read comics as a teenager (I picked up my first comic when I was 20), but if I had, I more than likely would have read the stuff I read now: superhero comics, the stuff directed at adults. Nevermind that DC’s efforts completely disregards the female readers that they already have, teenage or adult. What about the girls who already read the superhero comics?

The article points out a couple of efforts Marvel has made to appeal to women, namely bringing in Eric Jerome Dickey and Joss Whedon to write X-Men titles, along with the new Anita Blake series. While I think the Anita Blake comics are laughably bad (same with the books, but that’s a different rant), I do see how they can appeal to adult women readers, much like the book series. Paranormal romance is very popular right now, and it might be a smart way to draw in female readers. Hell, I wouldn’t mind more comics along this line, as long as they’re not based on Laurell K. Hamilton novels.

Now, I definitely appreciate Joss’s run on Astonishing X-Men. Joss knows how to write strong women, and John Cassaday’s art doesn’t turn the women into sexpots (well, except for Emma, but that’s her schtick). Kitty and the female students like Hisako look like real young women, and it’s refreshing. I haven’t read the Storm mini, so I can’t comment on that. But the thing is that these writers are men. If Marvel really wants to make steps toward both bringing in new and satisfying current female readers, I think they should start bringing in female writers on their major titles, not just smaller projects. Bring in women to write X-Men and the Fantastic Four, the superhero titles.

And work on that whole “drawing women as huge-breasted semen receptacles thing.” Let’s just start somewhere, eh, comic companies?