Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Every graphic novel has the desire it seems at least once in its publication to hark back to the golden era of comic books and assemble a team of disparate heroes, a squad of misfits and rebel loners who together are capable of beating the odds and taking down a force that threatens to engulf and enflame all that they hold dear. It is the staple of such ideological heroism that draws many to graphic novels in the first place and which is never truly captured in between the pages of any novel.

For Bill Willingham and his team of artists, the temptation to go full out and into the world assembling a group of contrasting abilities from the world of the Fable must have not only been enticing but one in which must have had them hugging themselves with a certain amount of glee as they fulfilled the obligation of whittling down from their populous ranks a suitable squad to form Super Team.

Mister Dark has become a very deadly foe, one that could quite possibly out match even The Adversary and yet through the powers of combined force, the wall that separates the Fables and total annihilation holds firms and with one of the surprising and joyful additions to the position of the Fable characters in recent issues, Ozma, really coming into her own and ranking in the same type of affection as Snow White, Rose Red, Beast and Bigby Wolf. It is no wonder that the princess who encapsulates the point of Oz in way that is more sincere than Dorothy Gale, leads the team with an iron grip that harks to the way that Sue Richards was allowed to flourish eventually in the Fantastic Four or to how The Scarlet Witch became one of the most intriguing characters in The Avengers.

The whole point of a super hero team at its very basic level is to show and teach what working together can achieve and yet this being Fables, Bill Willingham is never going to allow a smooth course of action to unfold for his readers and this is where the difference can truly be seen. Instead of a course of action being taken, one that perhaps might come as being taken for granted, what the reader witnesses over the course of the graphic novel is the realisation that for all the best laid plans on how to deal with an enemy who threatens to destroy you is one quick swift decisive action, one in which the hero has no idea how it will be seen to effect the outcome.

Fables continues to be an absolute joy, a very special set of graphic novels that has maintained a huge following without ever dipping into the bland or unworthy.

Fables: Super Team is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall