 Hey everyone, welcome to Fable Fridays! Gio here and today we're talking Fable's oversized hardcover volume 4. Let's do this! Welcome back to the channel everybody and yeah, it's been a while since I've done a Fable Fridays. Unfortunately I couldn't do it live due to some real world issues and technical difficulties just escalated to epic proportions. Heck, I was even planning to do this live, this video that you're watching, but I had to split it up and do it pre-recorded. It's a whole mess, so that's none of your concern. You're here to geek out with me about Fable's The Vertigo Series. This oversized hardcover collects issues 28 to 33 and also includes the graphic novel Fable's 1001 Nights of Snowfall. So we begin our adventures of Fable's oversized hardcover with war stories. Like I mentioned earlier, here we have the first issue right here with this awesome looking cover. I love this so much. Basically recounting Big Beowulf's story in the Second World War in this sort of mythical adventure. At first I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but as I was reading the story along I found it really, really fascinating. Basically when the story begins we are in the present time and here you have the character of Duff, if I remember correctly, and he is the last of the dog squad or dog squadron and before he passes away he wants to give Big Be sort of his memoir of his adventures in World War II. Obviously Big Be doesn't want that thing exposed, so yeah who better than Big Beowulf to have the recollections of the veterans who went through some crazy ordeals in World War II and it involves the sort of supernatural slash mythical. As always with these videos by the way there there are going to be spoilers because we're already on book four, so if you haven't read book four go ahead and read one, two, and three and then come back and join me for the book four discussion. But at the end of the story basically they travel to this Nazi infested fortress and they have this mythical super weapon that turns out to be Frankenstein's monster himself. Really, really awesome and I did not know I wanted a werewolf type story versus Nazis and Frankenstein, Frankenstein's monster I should say. This was all kinds of bad ass, I mean look at that, that is so cool to me. Look at Frankenstein's monster right there fighting off Big Beowulf in his wolf form or in his true form and yeah I mean just the dynamic of it being in World War II being a war drama and a set piece in older times for us really does give it an extra oomph of juiciness when it comes to the plot and you are invested in how this character interacted with the previous generation. As we move on to the present time with issue 30 character Snow White is in labor and is going to have her and Big Bees children. Yes I said children because it wasn't one or two it wasn't, she didn't have any twins, six babies and they are adorable. At the same time during this issue we have two things going on, one is the birth of Big Bees and Snow White's children and the second is the election between the King of Fable Town of course and Prince Charming who wants to win this and become the new ruler of Fable Town. He gets all the votes and actually becomes the ruler and swiftly implements new changes and I love that he had this idea, this plan of things he wanted to do and as soon as he's elected everything starts crumbling down bit by bit it's not as easy as he thought it was going to be especially his whole campaign hinged on getting the the transformation spells for the fables that aren't humanoid looking and the witches quickly turned him down because you know they're old and they're not going to do they're not overexerting themselves so he's already in crisis mode. Next you have now that he's in power Big Bees and Snow White are being retired from their position and he's putting Beauty and the Beast on charge of running the administration office and for Beast of course being the new sheriff. They're kind of raw and don't really know how to handle things and Beauty easily stresses out meanwhile our boy Beast is trying to be intimidating calculating and conniving as was Big Be when he was in the office but he can't seem to find his footing or get how the wheel works or how everything runs I should say because it's not just being a sheriff and it's not just being the face of security and solving crimes it's actually knowing about every single detail and the stuff that the public is not meant to know the underground pinnings if you will of running fabledown so that is really exciting here we have the some wonderful art I'd love the art on this book it really did grow on me I know I bashed it a little on the previous volumes but hey I got over it quickly I'm on board I really enjoyed it and just yeah I'd love this expression for Big Bee and you see the shadow and the ears behind them just really nice touches like that bring the story to life in a really cool way here we see all the kids and they just look freaking adorable I love this scene so much and as the story progresses obviously we find out that the babies of course have powers because of Big Bee's heritage being the son of the north wind which we do get introduced fairly quickly as we're reading the story here's a better shot panel I should say of mr north now part of what is being set up in this story arc by introducing Big Bee's father is that there are a series of murders that are occurring in fabledown characters are being killed and nobody knows who it is they leave no trace it's an invisible type of enemy and the only one that could actually do something about it would be boy blue but if you remember on book three he was agonizing over or remembering when they escaped the homelands and how guilty he was for what happened to red riding hood she turned out to be a spy in book three and we find out that it was actually a disguise that maybe the real red hood is out there still captured by the adversary so he escapes fabledown now that the election's over and you know basically they're wiping the house clean administration wise our boy blue takes the opportunity to get some mystical items and head on over to see if he can find red riding hood so he's not able to conduct the search of this mysterious killer again I know I stressed this enough there are spoilers here so I'm going to ruin several things like the identity of the killer because at some point in the story when Snow White has her kids she has to go to the farm to raise them she's not going to be staying in fabledown anymore for the time being and as she leaves she does get a notice from one of the witches about congratulating her on her seven kids and you're wondering wait a minute it's supposed to be six kids what the heck is going on mix that with the fact that the kids have wind abilities and and of course they can turn into feral beasts like big b wolf they have that transformation thing going on we find out at the end of that story arc which was my favorite part and it actually sent chills that the seventh child was I would say completely wind transformed of a I guess she was a an elemental and it's stated throughout the story by mr north that the assailant is a type of wind elemental creature that feeds off air from others and they find it tantalizing to go after people's lungs so it's more pure and delicious I guess than just the regular wind something like that but so yeah all along it was snow white realizes that it's the kid her kid that's doing this and in a very emotional and and kind of jarring and and bizarre scene she welcomes the kid and apologizes for not knowing because the kid was invisible that is hauntingly well done and the scene is just really well executed on an artistic side of things I'd loved it so much and then you know big b obviously can't be in the form so he's away traveling the world I guess he's frustrated that he can't be with his children but he understands what needs to be done so he takes the hit he sacrifices his parenting to stay away and let the family be okay in the farm it's just a very wholesome tightly written arc I loved it so much you're tying up the mystery of the birth you're obviously incorporating big b's lineage and how that influences the story you're introducing mr north and how he impacts big b and his grandchildren basically and at the same time it leads its way to you understanding how this power shift of a new administration in fabletown is clumsily trudging along and trying to solve things and specifically the murders and all that stuff so I absolutely loved it I thought it was fantastic now moving on from that we could get into the bigger chunk of this book which surprised me I didn't know I was going to be reading one continuous graphic novel for so long all of this compared to what I told you is the 1001 nights of snowfall which is basically a retelling of the 1001 nights however we are adding the character snow white as she is going to the arab lands and trying to impress the sultan so that she can have him as an ally against the adversary and obviously they recreate the whole 1001 nights and obviously how the sultan does not want the bride to survive and in order for her to survive she tells them a different story every night that gets reimagined in here with snow white and the stories that she tells are for the most part really well written I really enjoyed almost every single one the artist on the graphic novel it changes we have a lot of cool people doing some really awesome things in this book and I'm going to show you some of the cool highlights right here I do like that basically you're you're reading this illustrated novel if you will instead of a regular comic as it transitions into her stories you get wonderful artwork like this very picturesque and very storybook style it's not yes it is a graphic novel but it doesn't really feel like that it feels like you're reading an old tome of a fantasy medieval book stuff like that one particular story that I do wholeheartedly recommend is a frog's eye view which I just blew my mind it is so beautiful and haunting and sad at the same time it relates to the character of fly catcher who has been let go of his position by beast because he doesn't really understand and he sort of sees as this bullying of having fly catchers offenses being used against him big b had him for many years working as the janitor where you know they were lesser crimes and could have easily been pardoned but there's a reason for that and it's explored in the book and and once you find out reading a frog's eye view how why he doesn't remember that his family is no longer there wife and kids and all that stuff it is so tragic but at the same time it's so well done and and the art and the filters and stuff just I love this so much this was one of my favorite highlights from the book and really elevated what I was reading in my honest opinion we also get the story of basically big bee's birth which was essential reading I would want to I would want to say here we have a young pup big b wolf and his tragic upbringing there's the story of the wicked witch and her origin which was so fascinating and I could have just read stories about her instead of what I was reading if the story would have continued down that path I would have been okay because it's so fascinating and you have there's so many opportunities gates and windows for you to explore which stuff like that that I just wanted to continue we also have a very by the way this art it's a little not necessarily my cup of tea but I really appreciate it it reminded me of Jesus art books that I would read at school back in the early and mid 90s if you know what I mean and Brian Boland is in this I was not expecting that he does a quick story here what you wish for which is about the mermaid and yeah we continue here's a story about King Cole and we end the graphic novel with you know her escaping and and by her I mean Snow White and the Sultan being really enamored by her and apologizing for what he did you know he really enjoyed the 1001 nights of storytelling so that in a nutshell I basically did an overview of oversized hardcover volume four by the way this cover is fantastic one of my favorites from the whole 15 volume set famous volume four is so good if you stuck with this video because you've read it I know these videos don't get a lot of views because people wanting to get into fables don't want to go into a volume four review but if you've read fables I'd be interested in your take on what you thought of the different storylines here war stories the mean seasons and of course the 1000 and nights 1001 nights of snowfall I should say I thought it was well written well crafted the interconnected nature of the stories and how they later come to a real understanding once you read the 1001 nights really bring everything together and just sort of elevates the story to another level I think the art is great it has a little issues here and there with the different artists taking turns doing the mini stories I didn't really like it that much but overall I was never bored by it and I was always intrigued so that's a plus so yeah uh what more can I say than I just had a really cool time reading more fables and I'm very much looking forward to talking about volume five which will be in a separate video hopefully you guys tune in for that as well thank you everybody for tuning in to another fable fridays so we're going to be doing two books per month to speed things up because there's there's a whole lot and I apologize for taking so long so on the final week of September we will be talking about volume six and seven so on and so forth so I'm going to be doing it at the last Friday of the month hopefully I'll be there live to talk both books with you guys live here and we can chat and all that stuff so again thank you so much thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a weekend geek them it really does mean a whole lot I truly truly appreciate it thank you everybody once again I have got to go I will catch all of you on our next episode