History ComicBook / Fables

** The Adversary is depicted with somewhat of a Pan motif. Admittedly this was because of an AbortedArc (See the Trivia page)

--> '''Bigsy''': Sorry sir, but in our secret hearts every real cop longs for a moment like this, and damn few get one. Indulge me, please.
* SurpriseMultipleBirth: Snow gives birth to an entire litter, seeing as the father is TheBigBadWolf. She's quite distressed to have it happen six times in quick succession after a 42-hour labor.

--> '''Bigsy''': Sorry sir, but in our secret hearts every real cop longs for a moment like this, and damn few get one. Indulge me, please

* ''ComicBook/BatmanVsBigbyAWolfInGotham'' (2021) - A six-issue {{Crossover}} mini-series

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}} vs. Bigby! A Wolf in Gotham'' (2021) - A six-issue {{Crossover}} mini-series

** Defied in the cases of [[spoiler: Boy Blue, who tells Bigby in the afterlife that he wouldn't be coming back, and Darien, who states the same thing]].

%%** The Page sisters from ''Jack of Fables.''

** To ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': The short story "The Destiny Game" introduces the Lady of the Lake, and at the end she's seen wearing a shirt that reads [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN9c2TAWMlg&t=2m10s "basis for a system of government"]].

* HourglassPlot: Much of the New Camelot arc involves who of the cast will take over the various roles of the mythical King Arthur tales. Two of the characters are from those old myths, Morgana Le Fay and Lancelot, and they don't take over their old roles. Instead, they move into different roles, opposite what they played in the original tale: Lancelot now plays Guinevere's role as the consort of "King Arthur"/Rose Red, with Morgana taking over Merlin's role as advisor, instead of being the wicked sorceress out to destroy Camelot.

** Frau Totenkinder is the Wicked Witch of many different tales, taking on all their names and personas, including the Lady who blesses Lancelot with invulnerability in the original King Arthur myths, the Witch who tries to eat Hansel and Gretel, and as of her last incarnation, Belleflower.

** ''Jack Of Fables'' has the infamous Tortoise and Hare starting a race to freedom from the Golden Boughs Retirement Village during a breakout attempt in issue #4. ''28 issues later'', [[spoiler:after the entire community has been destroyed]], the Tortoise is just crossing the outer treeline, confident his tyrannical warden will not keep him imprisoned any longer. 18 issues after that, as part of the KillEmAll finale, [[spoiler:the Tortoise is run over by a truck]].

%%* KillEmAll: The rather unsatisfactory end of Jack of Fables. (Do not uncomment this example until more context is added)

%%* CoolHat: Flycatcher's frog-cap most certainly counts. It's a green ball-cap with huge bulbous white eyes on top.

** Prince Charming. He claims to have had over a thousand romantic conquests by the time he was ''15'', and when we're first introduced to him, he's not only scamming a waitress into sleeping with him, but we also learn he's had at least three wives. Also part of the reason none of his marriages lasted. However, he eventually falls in love with Nalayani in the ''The Return of the Maharaja'' arc from ''Fairest'', and it's implied it might last this time.

In the middle of New York City, characters [[FairyTaleFreeForAll from the old stories and fairy tales]] live among us in exile. Bill Willingham has taken characters we've grown up with, including Snow White, Bigby (a.k.a ''the'' Big Bad) Wolf, Jack Horner, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Boy Blue, the Frog Prince and [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters many more]], and spins them into a realistic, modern day setting.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Well, duh. Every single public domain fairy tale and legend is represented here. Each book opens with a characters page, and there's never less than 15-20 ''speaking'' characters portrayed. Add in those with non-speaking parts, one-lines, or side-stories, and you've got too many to list here. See the Character page for more details.

* TooDumbToLive: The Spezialeinheit in ''Werewolves of the Heartland'' thought it was a good idea to try and kill Bigby. He disabused them of this notion very quickly.

* IAteWhat: On a dinner date with tree lady Princess Alder, Reynard is shocked to discover that the "delicacy" he sampled from her plate is manure, taken from local "sources", including, quite possibly, his own. In Alder's defense, she tried to warn him.

** The egg in Snow White's office turns out to be [[spoiler:an unhatched universe that they use to trap Kevin Thorn.]]

** Despite the lampshade, "The Great Fables Crossover" plays this completely straight. Not only does Dex show up as the entire situation looks impossible to solve, he solves it for the Fables by revealing that the egg in Snow White's office is [[spoiler:an unhatched universe that they can trap Kevin Thorn in]] and promptly retrieves it for them.

* EggMacGuffin: One set up from the first issue! [[spoilers: Turns out the unknown egg on Snow's desk is key in ending ''The Great Fables Crossover'' peaceably as it is an unhatched baby universe which is a perfect place to exile the Literals in.]]

%% ** Jack Frost (Do not uncomment this example until more context is added)

** At the end of Animal Farm, after the Three Little Pigs, Snow White turns the three friendly giants she had awakened during the story line into the new pigs, with the odd implication that the Fables need to be alive in order for their stories to exist.

** The first story arc of the spin-off series ''Jack of Fables'' has Jack Horner set up as this "bastion of strength and invulnerability" that cannot be killed. Yet he was almost died during his escape against the Bag Man. It can be assumed, however, that the Bag Man could kill Jack since it was the creation of Mr. Revise, a Literal who can remove a fable's magical nature.

* EggMacGuffin: One set up from the first issue! [[spoilers: Turns out the unknown egg on Snows desk is key in ending ''The Great Fables Crossover'' peaceably as it is an unhatched baby universe whcich is a paerfect place to exile the Literals in.]]

* EvilTwin: Rose Red starts out as this to Snow White; Rose joins with Jack to attempt to scam Bluebeard and is shown to have a very troubled relationship with her twin. While Rose and her relationship to Snow do improve over the course of the series, everything comes crashing down in the "Happily Ever After" arc, when Rose declares all-out war on an unwitting Snow in order to control the power of their mother's bloodline.

* ExpositionOfImmortality: Tommy Sharp pulls this on the Fables living in Fabletown. He's been gathering evidence of their inhuman nature: following Bigby and photographing him shapeshifting, but also checking back on the title deeds of the land and buildings in Fabletown - all owned by members of the Fable community since [[Music/TheyMightBeGiants old New York was New Amsterdam]] and early photos of them dating back into the 19th Century which show that none of them have aged. This clues the readers in just how long Fabletown has been operating and how old its citizens are.

* EyeScream: Cursed to view all the sins and dark secrets of every person he ever looks at, due to a piece of enchanted mirror lodged in his eye sockets, Kay has cut his own eyes out numerous times with a kitchen knife, forcing Frau Totenkinder to regrow them for Kay whenever the Fables need someone's loyalties and background checked. This means Kay is doomed to ''cut out his own eyes over and over forever''. When Kay looked upon a certain "kindly" old man, Kay falls to his knees in horror, then promptly runs to his bathroom with a very sharp knife, staring into the mirror as he's about to plunge the blade in.

** Totenkinder threw Rapunzel out when she refused to abort her twins. It's also heavily implied that before then the two of them discreetly sold abortifacent potions to village women who couldn't afford to have children.

* {{Homage}}: The entire mini-story, "The Birthday Secret", is a glorious tribute to ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes''. It's drawn in Bill Watterson's distinctive, fluid style and lettering and focuses hilariously on the Wolf cubs acting as bratty as five year olds can be. The real clue-in comes when the cubs are shouting out what they want for breakfast: one yells "ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs!"

* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: A short written story after the main series' end senters around Blossom who has become a NatureHero living with both enchanted and regular animals. Her story tells of two ordinary men who plan on going hunting in the magic lands since they figure it's still just animals. Blossom shows herself to the men and warns them that she's "giving them a chance" to get out before she'll let the animals do what they want. The hunters insist they're in their full right to hunt, to which Blossom answers, "My, my, what makes you think ''you'' are the hunters?" She leaves them with that and the ending narrates how the enchanted animals of the forest are waking up that morning to the smell of fresh human meat just ready for their taking...

** Human Snow White and Bigby, who's the Big Bad Wolf and son of a wolf mother and the North Wind. Their romance story takes a long while to play out and ends with Bigby reuniting with Snow and their children. Per Bigby's words, it took him a few centuries to "get into human girls". Their romance and marriage is one of the few solid relationships in the series.

* KillTheGod: A lot of gods die in this comic series, but probably not as genocidal as what the Literals did. Mr. Revise once remarked to Jack Horner that when the Literals first arrived in the Mundy World, they culled down all the gods, deities, and other supernatural and celestial creatures, in an effort to remove magic there, thus creating what was essentially a world that is mundane. Their animosity towards fables stem from the fact that all of their effort was broken when fables, who are magical in nature, began immigrating to the Mundy World in droves.

** Boy Blue is just a supporting character, an office boy to Snow White and a friend to Flycatcher and Pinocchio. But after his long-lost love Red Riding Hood shows up in Fabletown and proves to be an imposter, Blue gets dangerous and goes to rescue the real Ride. He singlehandedly invades the Empire, throws the entire territory into disarray when he kills several high ranking officials including ''the Emperor himself'', rescues Red Riding Hood, ''meets the Adversary in person'', and still manages to return home alive.

* {{Masquerade}}: Fabletown insists on hiding its existence from mundane Earth people and goes to considerable lengths to do so. Each Fable lives under rules aimed at hiding their particular nature. For example, Rapunzel has to have her ever-growing hair cut every couple hours; non-human Fables have to buy magic to hide their natural forms, and if they cannot afford it, they're sent to the Farm. Pity any mundane who cracks the ruse and foolishly lets on that he knows about the Fables' existence -- death is the best they can hope for.

** Frau Totenkinder is German for ''"Mrs. Dead Children"''.[[note]] Although "Tote Kinder" would be grammatically correct, as you can't join the two words in German, even with a gratuitous "n", since the 1996 spelling reform that broke up compound words.[[/note]] Totenkinder derives power from sacrificing children, and while she no longer sacrifices Fable children, she owns mundane abortion clinics and takes her power from those deaths. This is made dreadfully explicit in the AlternateRealityEpisode Crossover with ''ComicBook/TheUnwritten'', where out of sheer desperaton, she sacrifices every living child on Earth to gain the power to hold Mr. Dark and prevent him from escaping to conquer other realities.

** The janitor "Flycatcher's" background story reveals him to be the Frog Prince, who turns into a frog whenever he gets scared. As a human, he also has loves to catch and eat flies, too.

%%** The departure of the Literals has also created some degree of this.(Do not uncomment this example until more context is added)

** The main reason why the Adversary doesn't launch a full scale attack on the Mundy world. When the Snow Queen suggests using magically induced plagues, famine and fire to take out Fabletown, Pinocchio and Rodney spell out how the Mundy governments would respond quickly and effectively, and with the help of Fabletown, would decimate the Empire long before their plan could be completed. Not only has the Adversary suppressed development of technology, but also all independent magic use.

%%* MurderInc: [[spoiler:Peter Piper's wife, Bo Peep]] was a member of one of these back in the Homelands, before she got married. (Do not uncomment this example until more context is added)

* TrappedInAnotherWorld: Subverted. They trapped themselves willingly and can go back whenever they want, it is just that the BigBad conquered and destroyed their home world, making it a DoomedHometown.

* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: The Adversary was able to conquer hundreds of worlds via dividing and conquering, and then Zerg Rushing the others. However, these tactics only worked against scattered villages and individual forts. Owing to a staunch ScienceIsBad belief, they never updated their tactics or technology. Magic was still the preferred system; the only time they are ever shown using technology, it is strictly to accomplish a singular goal (giving the wooden soldiers guns in order to blend into the human world). Secondly, his army worked akin to a Roman Legion, where the officer had strict and total authority over his subordinates, enforced by total discipline. This left a glaring weakness, that if the officer was removed, the soldiers he commanded would be directionless. Finally, the Adversary was deeply drunk on his Empire's own superiority, and even though he knew of the flaws in the system, he did nothing to correct them. As a result, when the Fables forced his military leaders into comas, his army completely fell apart. In addition, the Fables were able to hold their own against the numerically superior Empire...by machine gunning their troops en masse.

** After the ghosts of Bluebeard and Shere Khan sell out Haven, they are shown to be coming back to life, Bluebeard demonstrating this by holding a glass for several seconds and may become antagonists again down the line. However, after this scene, neither are seen again.

* WinterRoyalLady: Lumi, the Snow Queen.

Not to be confused with Creator/XboxGamesStudios' ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' video game series.

The series has encompassed mysteries, adventure, romance, conspiracies, magic, culture clashes, and fly eating, and has to date won 14 Eisner Awards. As of 2008, it's the most popular Creator/VertigoComics title. As of 2010 Fables was the second longest running Vertigo title after ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}''. The series came to an end with its 150th issue in 2015, however on June 10, 2021, it was announced to resume in 2022 under the Creator/DCBlackLabel imprint with its 151st issue.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}} vs Bigby: A Wolf in Gotham'' (2021) - A six-issue {{Crossover}} mini-series

Not to be confused with ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}''.

** Jack Horner pulls this when he sells his soul to the demons. His pact with them stipulates that they can have his soul ''when he dies,'' but then Jack makes a popular blockbuster trio of movies about his adventures. In the world of Fables, where Mundy popularity determines how tough a Fable can be to kill, this insures Jack will not only never die by old age, but is extremely tough to kill.

* GodNeedsPrayerBadly: "God" in this case referring to the Fables, as each Fable's NighInvulnerability and LongLived nature is dependant on how well-known they are to Mundies. For example, a character from a mostly forgotten and niche story can be killed by being shot in the head, whereas a character as famous as Bigby could be shot point-blank a hundred times (so long as the bullets [[AchillesHeel aren't]] [[SilverBullet silver]]) and keep walking.

** Jack Horner himself falls under this category from time to time, though very rarely. Most of the time he is a selfish, narcissictic sociopath, and can be downright murderous at times. But he has shown some examples of his more human side, like admitting to liking and caring for his friend Gary, mourning his wife's death and [[spoiler: Gary when he kicked the bucket]], once risking his life to save one of the Page sisters when they fell over a cliff, and generally helping out Fabletown and the Literals when needed. As seen in ''Jack of Fables #9'', he's just not that good showing it to others that he does care about them.
** Even though he likes to scam other residents of Fabletown, Jack does help out the community when needed. He was the one who concocted the plan to trick a reporter who found out about the town’s magical nature, and was the one to warn Bigby Wold and Snow White during the first arrival of the wooden soldiers and the threat of the Literals and Kevin Thorne.

** Jack Horner. His introduction starts him out with Rose Red, a backstory short shows him healing a terminally sick woman just to sleep with her, and in the "Jack of Fables" and "Great Fables Crossover" arcs, he's revealed to be the father of a number of Literals, demi-gods, and AnthropomorphicPersonifications.

** Jack Horner's feats include tricking a whole legion of Devils (including Lucifer, Chernabog, Old Nick, Sprat and others) into giving him hundred more years of life before they take possession of his soul. But even he realized it was a mistake in the long term, since sooner or later he is going to run out of devils to con and things to offer. However, he managed to find yet another loophole by creating an unforgettable film trilogy of himself that made him nigh-immortal and invincible. Since the Devils can only claim his soul in the last day of his life, the now-immortal Jack Horner has escaped this as well.
** When Jack Horner was suddenly turned into a dragon in the last arc, he lost his immortality and became destined to be slain by a hero, [[spoiler: his son]]. This effectively killed Jack Horner in their final battle, but when the Devils came to collect his soul, all of them argued over who could claim it. They finally decided to just lock Jack up in the ends of time as punishment, but Jack still turned this to his advantage, [[spoiler: by using his and Gary's literary powers to create a new universe in Jack's own liking.]]
** Early in the series, Jack beat the Devil in a poker game. After getting himself attracted to a dying Southern Belle, he then used the Devil's BagOfHolding to trap the GrimReaper and prevent his new girlfriend from dying, so he could have sex with her. Then, when Jack let Death out of the bag, Death loved the vacation and spared the girlfriend after all.