Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf in Gotham

With “Fables” having been away for a while now, it’s not surprising that publisher DC and series creator Bill Willingham decided to reintroduce the series with a crossover.  The setup here is that Batman has been investigating a series of murders throughout Gotham that look like they were done by a giant animal.  Meanwhile, Bigby Wolf and a certain friend of his have arrived in the city on the trail of a book that disappeared from their world during the destruction of Fabletown.  Both of these parties are headed for a collision course, which suits one of the Caped Crusader’s longtime villains just fine.  That’s right everyone:  Bookworm is back and he’s looking to use this missing book to take his operations to the next level!  Assuming that someone else isn’t pulling his strings…

“Batman vs. Bigby” isn’t the worst “Batman” story I’ve read and it’s not the worst “Fables” tale I’ve read either.  Well, it might be if only because the quality for that series, and its spin-offs, bottomed out at “Perfectly Decent” while this rates a “Meh, Alright I guess.”  Willingham delivers a serviceable story that has its protagonists butting heads in just the way you’d expect them to, with the only real suspense coming from the identity of the Fable behind everything.  There are some cute moments to be had in seeing Batman and Bigby try to work together and in seeing how the writer treats longstanding aspects of the Bat-mythos, like his relationship with Alfred, in a way that’s enjoyably flippant.  Series artist Brian Level also strikes a good balance between the superheroic and the fantastic that makes the story look like a solid hybrid of DC and Vertigo (R.I.P.) sensibilities.

There’s still not really a compelling reason for longtime “Fables” fans to check this out as I can easily see the events of this story being summed up in an offhand way in the upcoming series.  If it does get at least one “Batman” fan to give “Fables” a try, however, then that’s a good thing.  It’s just hard to imagine them doing so after reading a miniseries that’s largely devoid of the charm and clever storytelling which defined that series for so many years.